Can't use a - (hyphen) in Asset ID in fixed assets

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Posted on by Rob Klaproth

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After upgrading to 2013R2, we can no longer enter a - in the Asset ID field. We have over 10,000 assets already in GP with a - i.e. asset ID is 10-44333. Why did Microsoft remove the hyphen ability from that field? And how can we modify all our existing assets to use a different field, I think that we will use A period (.) instead, i.e. 10.44333

Thank you for your help in advance!

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Mahmoud Saadi 32,738 on at

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I have just tested adding an asset directly from the General window or including the Default asset ID in the class, both of them prevent the "hyphen" as shown below,

Unfortunately, I can't find the logic beyond such prevention since it has been widely used before. With several clients, I have always used the hyphen to seperate the prefix from the serial number like (COMP-000000123). Futher analysi may be required in order to get a proper answer.

Until a proper justification is found, you may use any of the special characters such as ( _ ). In this essence, I do have a question. Since you upgraded, what hapened with the old asset IDs which include hyphen ? I suppose they are the same but you can't use the same criteria anymore, right ?

Your feedback is highly appreciated,

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Rob Klaproth 1,730 on at

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Mahmoud, the assets with a - in them remain in the system, but it will not let us enter new assets with a hyphen. I suspect this is something new in R2, but can not verify, as the client was actually upgrading from 10.0 to 2013R2.

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Mahmoud Saadi 32,738 on at

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Mr. Rob

I initially suspected an upgrade issue, then it turned out to be some sort of a validation. Unfortunately, I have no proper justification to share. Hope Mr. Jonathan from the community will share, as usual, a proper answer for this specific case.

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Frank Hamelly | MVP... 46,623 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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It will be interesting to find out why this was done, but here's a work-around for your issue.

Important!! Make sure you test this in a test database before applying it in production.

UPDATE <table>

SET ASSETID = REPLACE(LTRIM(RTRIM(ASSETID)), '- ', 'your new character')

You'll need to run this against all the following tables:

Or at least the ones that actually contain data. Some of them may not.

Then, test the heck out of all FA functionality including reports, inquiries, SmartLists, Routines, Utilities to make sure it didn't break anything.

If you decide to go this route, let us know how it works out.

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Mahmoud Saadi 32,738 on at

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Nice Shot !

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Frank Hamelly | MVP... 46,623 Super User 2025 Season 2 on at

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Thanks Mahmoud. I aspire to be like you :)

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mpolino on at

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Here is my theory. GP 2013 added the ability to auto number assets. R2 added the ability to auto number assets by class id. I suspect that using special characters might interfere with auto numbering so they've been blocked. Any existing assets wouldn't be affected by auto numbering so they could stay as is.

Mark

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Tom Marttinen 40 on at

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Well, I have now upgraded to GP2013 and came accross this issue. We have 15000 assets all with hyphen in them. Now I cannot type in an asset ID onto any GP FA screen. Nor can we use macros to update info.

From my point of view, our FA module at this point is non-functionable.

I went through MS support and there answers were:

1. delete all assets and set them up again. sure....and lose all history

2. use PSTL tool to change asset ID's. One by one. not practical

3. Procure their consulting services to help us....

I figure that an MS upgrade made our FA module non-usable...without any warning ahead of time. Nice.

Anyways, I am sure we will be using the table update suggestion above.

Thanks for the post....just ranting.

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Mahmoud Saadi 32,738 on at

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Mr. Tom

Thanks for the update

Just to add up; since I am still looking for proper justification for the Hyphen, I have tested several special characters in the asset ID with no error at all, which makes the case quite questionable, why specifically the "Hyphen"

Until further findings, I do believe Mr. Frank's input is essential. I have just completed the update of a sample group of assets with no associated errors at all.

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Tom Marttinen 40 on at

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Update to Frank's script: if I look at what PSTL fixed asset modifier does when changing an asset ID, there are a few more tables than what Frank had identified. the problem is that there are some tables where we must change data in columns NOT called ASSETID.

update FA00100 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001'where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00700 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00701 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00800 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00801 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA01002 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA01100 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA01300 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA10200 set ASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where ASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00800 set FROMASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where FROMASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00801 set FROMASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where FROMASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00800 set TOASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where TOASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00801 set TOASSETID = 'FENCE-0001' where TOASSETID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00800 set From-Master-Asset-ID = 'FENCE-0001' where From-Master-Asset-ID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00801 set From-Master-Asset-ID = 'FENCE-0001' where From-Master-Asset-ID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00800 set To-Master-Asset-ID = 'FENCE-0001' where To-Master-Asset-ID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA00801 set To-Master-Asset-ID = 'FENCE-0001' where To-Master-Asset-ID = 'FENCE.0001'

update FA41700 set EVENTDSC = replace(EVENTDSC, 'ID: FENCE.0001/', 'ID: FENCE-0001/')

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