product: uniqueness of product name isn't guarantueed

[jdetaeye]

It is possible to create multiple products with the same name and/or code.
There seems to be no way to garantuee uniqueness of the products.

This may work well internally within Open ERP, but creates big trouble when creating sales orders or purchase orders for such duplicate items:
   customer: "I want to buy 10 pieces of part X"
   open erp: "oops, I have 3 parts all called X. Which one do you want?" :-)

I am using the GTK Client on version 5.0.0

[Peter Langenberg (peter-langenberg)]

I agree !

[jdetaeye (jdetaeye)]

Why is this categorized with importance "wishlist"?

It looks obvious to me that an ERP should safeguard the integrity of the data it manages.
A unique name/code/id for an entity is a very minimum and must-have requirement, not a nice-to-have wish.

For partners and users this is guaranteed indeed.
But for products (product module), sales orders (sale module), purchase orders (purchase module), employees (hr module), ... no uniqueness is enforced. Duplicate entities can be created.

I think my evaluation of Open ERP will quickly be over :-(

Johan

[Fabien (Open ERP) (fp-tinyerp)]

Wishlist means that it is not a bug. So, it means it has to be fixed in trunk branch and not in stable branch (v5). We have a policy where we avoid doing improvements in the stable branch to minimize the risks to introduce bugs for those working on the stable branch.

We consider this as an improvement, not a bug. Because, from the ERP point of view, the unicity of each record is guaranteed with the ID field. You have several cases where you can have different products with the same name.

The most frequent case is when you work with variants. The product is characterized by a name (t-shirt) and one or more variants (XL, Red). In that case, they share the same name (but the computed name (a concat of the name and variants) and code are different).

They are others cases when this can happen:
* You run a multi-company environment, where the different companies sells the same products, but manage their products independently,
* A product has been desactivated (not deleted). It's not visible in the system but you want to create another one visible with the same name,
* You import products from another software where you have several products with the same name.

> I think my evaluation of Open ERP will quickly be over :-(
Every one can do mistakes. Bugs evaluation are quite complex.
So it's better to not judge Open ERP only based on a status changed on a bug :)

[Fabien (Open ERP) (fp-tinyerp)]

I created a blueprint for this improvement, it will be planified for future versions:
  https://blueprints.launchpad.net/openobject-addons/+spec/uniqueness-of-products-names

[Christophe CHAUVET (christophe-chauvet)]

Fabien

The product name isn't unique and this feature is great, if the product name must be unique, a specific module can add this feature.

We encounter the same problem with the partner name which is unique. the problem is that the unique name are made by an unique contrainst, this is more diffiicult to remove it.

Christophe.

[Fabien (Open ERP) (fp-tinyerp)]

Uniq partner name has been removed a few months ago. Lots of
person/companies have the same name.

Christophe Chauvet - http://www.syleam.fr/ wrote:
> Fabien
>
> The product name isn't unique and this feature is great, if the product
> name must be unique, a specific module can add this feature.
>
> We encounter the same problem with the partner name which is unique. the
> problem is that the unique name are made by an unique contrainst, this
> is more diffiicult to remove it.
>
> Christophe.
>

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[jdetaeye (jdetaeye)]

>> >> I think my evaluation of Open ERP will quickly be over :-(
>>Every one can do mistakes. Bugs evaluation are quite complex.
>>So it's better to not judge Open ERP only based on a status changed on a bug :)

Fair enough. My statement was more harsh than really intended.

>>We consider this as an improvement, not a bug. Because, from the ERP point of view, the
>>unicity of each record is guaranteed with the ID field.
>>You have several cases where you can have different products with the same name.

This ID field is not shown in any screen, and just happens to be the only field that can garantuee uniqueness. OpenERP doesn't enforce uniqueness on any combination of other fields (name, variant, code,... ).

I have a long background in integration of external systems with ERP systems. In such a context a recognizable and clear key for each ERP entity is very important for proper synchronization&integration of the systems.
Since this uniqueness problem is not limited to products but also found in plenty of other OpenERP objects, I'll watch on the sideline until the proper "improvements" are rolled into the product.

[Steffi Frank (Bremskerl, DE) (steffi-frank)]

I do agree with jdetaeye:
it is absolutely necessary to ensure an uniqueness in the product form – not only in the database through an ID. Normally in ERP systems you find a ‘code’ which is unique and a column ‘name’ . Fabien: your example ‘lots of companies with the same name” is right. But even here you should ensure that through code the uniqueness is guaranteed!

Fabien, let me comment your blueprint:
“You have several cases where you can have different products with the same name.”
Yes, same name but different codes! If the same product (code and name) is listed e.g. in product.tree while ‘choosing product in sales order line’ – how to ensure the user chooses the “right one”? You have to have ALL fields in the product.tree to be able to identify the differences

“A product has been desactivated (not deleted). It's not visible in the system but you want to create another one visible with the same name”
Sorry, but this will never be standard in industrial companies! If a product is deactivated it means: this product with all its parameters and configs is no longer produced/sellable/to purchase. A similar product would be created with new code and/or name to ensure the correct history in reporting and statistic.

“You import products from another software where you have several products with the same name”
Sorry, I wonder if there is any serious ERP application where you will find products with same name AND code….