A new knowledge base article has been published on our support portal.
Overview
In this scenario, we require that both the Contact and Account entity share the AutoNumber count.
Whenever an Account or a Contact is created, we want their respective new_autonumber field to be filled automatically. We want this field to be iterated from the last Contact or Account.
Note 1 : The North52 autonumber solution guarantees 100% uniqueness for autonumbers when a single entity is involved. In this KB article , two entities are involved so there is a small chance that duplicate autonumbers could occur under heavy system load. So please be aware of this risk if using the KB article.
Note 2: We use a custom field on the Account entity called new_autonumber and another custom field on the Contact entity also called new_autonumber. You will need to create these first or replace wherever you see new_autonumber with your own field.
North52 BPA Solution
The North52 BPA solution works like this:
- Two Formulas are created – one that triggers on the creation of an Account, the other on the creation of a Contact
- Both Formulas will search for the highest Account AutoNumber and the highest Contact AutoNumber using 2 Fetch Xml queries
- They will compare the two AutoNumbers and take the highest value
- They will set the AutoNumber for Account/Contact to be the current highest AutoNumber + 1
Note that both Formulas and their Fetch Xml queries are very similar, only the names of the Fetch Xml and the prefixes change from the first Formula to the second.