Customisation Character Ranges

Customisation Character Ranges

Customisation Character Ranges define the set of characters that a customer is allowed to use when entering customisation text during item configuration. For example, if a product supports engraving, you can restrict the allowed characters to uppercase letters and numbers only, excluding special characters that the engraving machine cannot produce.

Character ranges are managed from the "Customisation Character Ranges" screen, accessible from the "Configure to Order Setup" screen. Each range can be assigned to one or more customisation text lines on workflow steps.

Character Range Card

General

Field Description
Code A unique code to identify this character range (up to 10 characters). This code is used to link the range to workflow step customisation text lines.
Description A description of the character range (e.g. "Uppercase Letters and Numbers", "Full Character Set").

Characters

The Characters subpage lists every individual character that is allowed in this range. Each character entry has the following fields:

Field Description
Character Type The category of the character:
  • Uppercase - uppercase letters (A-Z and accented characters).
  • Lowercase - lowercase letters (a-z and accented characters).
  • Numeric - digits (0-9).
  • Symbol - any other character (e.g. &, @, #, -, .).
Character The individual character that is allowed (a single character). This field is required.
Item No. Optionally links this character to a specific item number. When set, selecting this character during configuration can associate the corresponding item (e.g. an engraving die, a letter stamp, or a font item).
Variant Code Optionally specifies an item variant code for the linked item. Only applicable when an Item No. is set.

Adding Characters

You can add characters individually by entering them one at a time in the Characters subpage, or use the Add Standard Characters actions to add entire sets at once.

Add Standard Characters Actions

Action Description
Uppercase Letters Adds all uppercase letters (A-Z) plus any accented characters for the current user's language to the allowed character list.
Lowercase Letters Adds all lowercase letters (a-z) plus any accented characters for the current user's language to the allowed character list.
Numbers Adds all numeric digits (0-9) to the allowed character list.

Each of these actions opens the "Add Standard Characters" dialog before adding the characters.

Add Standard Characters Dialog (Mask)

When adding standard characters, a dialog appears that lets you optionally set up automatic item matching for each character. This is useful when each character corresponds to a physical component (e.g. individual letter stamps or dies).

Field Description
Mask A pattern where ? is used as a placeholder for each character. For example, the mask STAMP-? would match item STAMP-A for the character "A", STAMP-B for "B", and so on. Leave empty to skip item matching.
Match Type Specifies what the mask generates:
  • Item - the mask generates an Item No. Each character is linked to the item whose number matches the mask pattern.
  • Item Variant - the mask generates an Item Variant Code. Each character is linked to a variant of the specified item.
Only enabled when a mask is entered.
Item No. The parent item number, required when the Match Type is Item Variant. The mask-generated variant codes will be created under this item.
Create If Not Found When enabled, automatically creates a new item or item variant if no match is found for the generated mask pattern. Only enabled when a mask is entered.
Item Template Code The item template to use when creating new items. Only required when Create If Not Found is enabled and the Match Type is Item.

Mask Validation Rules

  • The mask must contain at least one ? placeholder character.
  • When the Match Type is Item Variant, the mask must not exceed 10 characters (the maximum variant code length).
  • When the Match Type is Item Variant, the Item No. field is required.
  • When Create If Not Found is enabled with Match Type Item, the Item Template Code is required.

Note: If you do not need to link characters to items, simply leave the Mask field empty and click OK. The characters will be added without any item associations.

How Character Ranges Are Used

Character ranges are linked to Customisation (Text) workflow steps via the customisation text line settings:

  1. On the workflow step card, open the Customisation Text Lines subpage.
  2. For each text line, enable Restrict Character Range and select a Character Range Code.
  3. When the user enters customisation text in the Sales Configurator, each character is validated against the linked character range.
  4. Spaces are always allowed and are not validated against the character range.
  5. If the user enters a character that is not in the range, an error message is displayed.

Validation Logic

When customisation text is validated, each character (excluding spaces) is checked against the character range in the following order:

  1. If the character is A-Z, it is looked up as an Uppercase character.
  2. If the character is a-z, it is looked up as a Lowercase character.
  3. If the character is 0-9, it is looked up as a Numeric character.
  4. If none of the above match, it is looked up as a Symbol.

Note: If a customisation text line also has Uppercase Only enabled, the text is converted to uppercase before validation. In this case, you only need uppercase characters in the character range.

Where Used

The Where Used action on the Character Range Card shows all workflow step customisation text lines that reference this character range. This is a read-only view showing:

  • Item Configuration Code - the workflow number.
  • Item Configuration Description - the workflow description.
  • Step Code - the workflow step code.
  • Description - the customisation text line description.

FactBox

The Example Picture FactBox on the Character Range Card displays the picture associated with the character range. This can be used to show an example of the customisation (e.g. a sample of the available font or engraving style).

Examples

Engraving - uppercase letters and numbers only

Create a character range with code ENGRAVE:

  1. Use Add Standard Characters > Uppercase Letters to add A-Z.
  2. Use Add Standard Characters > Numbers to add 0-9.
  3. Optionally add specific symbols (e.g. "-", ".", "&") individually as Symbol type characters.
  4. On the workflow step, set Restrict Character Range = Yes and Character Range Code = ENGRAVE.

Embroidery with item-linked characters

Create a character range with code EMBROIDER where each letter corresponds to an embroidery thread item:

  1. Use Add Standard Characters > Uppercase Letters.
  2. In the mask dialog, enter Mask = THREAD-?, Match Type = Item.
  3. Enable Create If Not Found and select an item template.
  4. Items THREAD-A, THREAD-B, etc. will be created automatically if they do not exist, and each character will be linked to its corresponding item.