John.E.McGuire (9/15/2011)
I like this solution (and Nick 2535's). it is simple. Doesn't use GUIDs. And has time stamp as high order portion of key.
Thanks 🙂
It's also VERY customisable to give you tighter timing, or less chance of a collision - or not timing if you want. The ability to just get the last 3 digits off a customer for reference - that generally allows you to see their order (as ordered on screen newest first).
The only place we haven't rolled it out is for invoice numbering as the UK VAT (tax) office don't allow non-sequential numbering.