Domains

The main purpose of a design number is to uniquely identify each design. A "domain" is a way of describing a group of design numbers where every number is unique. Every design number has a domain.

Your account could have 1 domain that spans all of your numbers; every number, even if multiple systems are being used, use the same domain. You could instead have a domain for each part number, so the designs for one project will have a separate set of unique identifiers from another project.

Within a domain, each number has an "index". This is obvious to see with a simple scheme; the unique segment of the number shows this index and each new design iterates this index to keep them unique. It becomes slightly more hidden if you have unique letters, but how an index is transformed to letters is simply to see.

Mashoom offers a few ways to setup domains for your design numbers, allowing a whole range of use cases. In our experience having a single domain is the best for new account in order to reduce complexity. However large projects, or for compatibility for an existing numbering system, learning how to use domains is requirement.

Global Domains

This is the simplest domain to use and as such is the default method. A global domain is a domain that can give an index to multiple design numbers. For instance say you setup a number of the format "MSHM-00-XXXX-00A", and another of the format "MSHM2-00-XXXXX-00A". Both these numbers could use the same global domain. If you imagine a sequence of item creations it would look like this:

• MSHM-00-0001-00A
• MSHM2-00-00002-00A
• MSHM2-00-00003-00A
• MSHM-00-0004-00A

When you are creating a design number, you can choose an existing domain or create a new one. When using this method your number must have a single "unique" segment in order to show this index.

Internal Domains

Internal domains allow the user input segments of the number to impact the domain. To use these, select "Use internal domain" when creating the number, which is shown in the picture above.

In order to use an internal domain you must use at least one "domain defining segment", these can be either a user input or user selection.

The number's index is unique across all numbers in this scheme with the same combination of domain defining segments.

Imagine a project where different sections of the product (BOM section) need to be independently unique, so you could create designs in the following way:

• MSHM-01-0001-00A
• MSHM-01-0002-00A
• MSHM-02-0001-00A
• MSHM-03-0001-00A
• MSHM-01-0003-00A

This can be achieved by using "domain defining" user selection segment, the "01", "02" and "03" segments shown in the example. In this example, 3 domains have been created by virtue of 3 different values being used in this segment. Each of these domains has it's own index, therefore the unique part of the segment is iterating independently.

Multiple unique indexes can be used, in which case each combination of values will define a domain.

Part variants

On a few occasions you may want to be able to break up a single domain index into "variants". This approach isn't recommended but can be useful in some cases. User input or user selection segments can "define part variant".

Part variants can be used with any type of domain and simply allow on design creation of a separate number that uses the same unique/domain defining segments as another.

Modifying Indexes

Very simply, this interface allows you to set an index for your global domains. The most common use case for this is when you are starting to use Mashoom but you already have a number of design parts in existence. By setting a domain to the next number that would be taken out in your old system, Mashoom can start issuing numbers from where you left off.