Hi Peter,

I did something like this once because of a very similar customer 
request that made perfect sense at the time. I handled it all with scripts.

If a document was deleted, I stored the number. When assigning a number 
to a new document, I check my deleted documents list to be sure there 
wasn't a number that I needed to reused before I assigned a new number. 
There is some management of the list required, but the script has run 
flawlessly for over 8 years.

Hope that helps.

Mike

On 11-12-22 5:54 AM, Steve Cassidy wrote:
> On 22 Dec 2011, at 05:29, Peter Buchanan wrote:
>
>> So any further ideas on the gaps?
> No. But further ideas based on the situation you describe.
>
> If you were to assign the numbers only at the moment of sailing (or whatever is your cutoff point for absolute final documentation), then there'd be no problem with cancellations...
>
> So what about using some kind of 'in-house' provisional numbering if needed during the cargo manifesting process leading up to departure. Then use a script to assign correctly serialised numbers at the point when you print/finalise the summary document.
>
> Maybe you could come up with some other means of ensuring that no cargo is 'dropped'. (In fact, I can't really see how studying the summary report helps to locate any dropped cargo; you might want to investigate this process in more detail to see what you can contribute.)
>
> Steve