How often, based on your experience, has a situation arisen where you needed to change the Item Code? To be honest, I only encounter such a situation when I make a typo while creating a product, and I need to delete Item I’ve just created and repeat the process from scratch. In my practice, I have never needed to change the Item Code that has already been actively used for some time.

However, I assume that some companies might face such situations, because in the release due to be launched at the end of December 2024, Microsoft will introduce a feature that allows you to change the Item Code of an already used Item. This feature will be called (Preview) Rename item number.

My initial reaction was mixed. The modification seems quite risky. Therefore, I decided to spend some time checking several cases to ensure that it works as expected. Here's what I tested and the results I got:

• What happens if the Item Code is used as a financial dimension, and there are transactions exist in the general ledger?

The case worked correctly, and when the Item Code was changed, it was updated in the financial dimensions of the journal entries. I tested this on a financial voucher created during the posting of a sales order.

• What about configuration tables like Table – Group – All?

Once again, the modification impressed me. The Item Code in the configuration table was correctly updated.

• Let’s check: How does changing the Item Code affect the serial number?

In this case, I tried to assign the next Item code in the serial number sequence. As expected, the system did not allow me to create a product with an already existing code and gave me the appropriate error. This is great! However, if a Continuous Number sequence is used, someone will need to manually adjust the serial number to accommodate the blocked code.

• The last case I decided to test was Temporary Tables.

As you may be aware, some place of the system use temporary tables. For example, when you want to create multiple lines in a sales order and click the "+Add Lines" button, the system opens a form with a list of products where you enter quantities for the lines you want to add to the order. That form based on temporary table. 

But what happens if someone decides to change the Item Code of an Item you are adding at the very same time? As expected, the feature does not update the Item Code in the temporary table. This isn’t critical, for my opinion, since you still won’t be able to create the line because the system won’t find the associated product information and will throw an error (though not a very clear one).

Additionally, the whole renaming process is thoroughly logged. The log is available at Product information management > Inquiries and reports > Item number renaming logs.

I will continue testing this modification, as I'm curious how it will work with customizations, like new tables where the Item Code is used. But at this point, I would say the modification works excellently, and Microsoft has done a solid job with it.

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