Animal Codes

ASM allows you to choose the format that animal codes will be automatically generated in. ASM internally stores two codes for each animal, the ``normal'' code, unique among all animals and the ``short'' code. The short code does not have to be unique and is used by staff wanting to quickly identify animals in conversation.

The defaults are TYYYYNNN (the first letter of the animal type, followed by the year it was brought to the shelter, followed by a number unique within that year for that type of animal) for the normal code and NNT for the shortcode (a unique number within the year for the animal's type, followed by the type).

You can build and use any format string you like, using the following tokens:

• YYYY - The year the animal was brought into the shelter (4 digits)
• YY - The year the animal was brought into the shelter (2 digits)
• MM - The month the animal was brought into the shelter
• DD - The day the animal was brought into the shelter
• T - The first letter of the animal's type
• UUUUUUUUUU - (10 digits) a unique number representing the animal (this number will never be used for another animal), padded to 10 digits. If the number overflows, more digits will be used.
• UUUU - (4 digits) a unique number representing the animal (this number will never be used for another animal), padded to 4 digits. If the number overflows, more digits will be used.
• NNN - (3 digits) a number representing the animal, which is unique within the year brought in for the animal's type and padded to 3 digits. If the number overflows, more digits will be used.
• NN - A number representing the animal, which is unique within the year brought in for the animal's type. No padding is done.

Here are some examples:

• YYYYMMDD-NNN-T (an ISO date, followed by a unique number/type within the year). Eg: 20080520-001-D
• TUUUUUUUUUU (the animal's type, followed by a unique number for the animal) - Eg: U0000003412

If you change the coding formats when you already have animals on file using a different format, those animals will be ignored when creating new codes and multiple codes can co-exist.

Any values you put in your codes other than these tokens (such as punctuation or other letters) will not be substituted and will be retained in generated codes. For example, the format NNN:21:T will produce 001:21:D for the first dog of the year.

If you do not want ASM to supply codes to your animals (you will have to manually enter them yourself), you need to set both coding formats (regular and short) to blank strings and untick all of the boxes under ``Coding System''. In addition, some further options can be set on this tab:

• Show short shelter codes on screens and reports: This option tells ASM to display the short code throughout the application instead of the main shelter code.
• Default shelter code for new animals: Setting this option will cause ASM to automatically generate a shelter code when you create a new animal.
• Hide short shelter codes on the animal details screen: Setting this option will make ASM hide the short shelter code field at the top left of the animal details screen. It does not stop ASM generating short codes behind the scenes, it just stops them being visible on the screen.
• Enforce animal codes entered by users conform to the selected animal coding scheme: Setting this option will cause ASM to try and reparse animal codes when saving an animal - if it fails, it will not allow saving of the animal's record until a valid code is generated or set by the user.
• Once assigned, codes cannot be changed: Setting this option will make ASM lock the shelter code fields, as well as the type and brought in date once an animal record has been saved for the first time. This is to guarantee that once an animal code has been handed out, it cannot be changed.