This is a compulsory field and specifies the level of precision at which the measurements you enter should be stored. The Storage Unit would generally be a fairly small (i.e. precise) unit of measure of your primary measurement system. For example, if you are an art museum, with the metric system as your primary measurement system, you will probably wish to assign the Storage Unit as millimeters.
In general, you should enter a Storage Unit with adequate precision for the type of material you measure. It is the stored measurement that the system uses to convert measurements for display on screen and in reports, so if you are an art museum, miles would be a gross and inadequate storage unit for your measurement. Millimeters or inches would be more appropriate and useful. If you are an astrological center, light years may be a sufficiently precise storage unit for the type of measurements you record.
It is suggested that you chose a storage level even more precise than the unit of measure you use for display of measurements. For example if you have chosen centimeters as a display unit, enter millimeters as the storage unit. Should there ever be an occasion when you require dimensions expressed to that level of precision, the system will be able to produce much more accurate results if the original measurement was stored to that degree of precision.
Warning: Once you have assigned a Storage Unit and have entered measurement data in the system, the Storage Unit cannot be changed. If you were to change the Storage Unit, all measurement data would have to be re-entered. In general, millimeters are a reasonable storage unit for the Metric system and inches are a reasonable storage unit for the Imperial system of measurement, but if you are in any doubt about the Storage Unit to enter, contact Vernon Systems for more information.
Once you have entered a Storage Unit and saved the Measurement Type, you can bring the Measurement Type record back up on screen to view or edit it, but the system will prevent you from clicking in the Storage Unit field. If you have not yet entered any measurement data for that measurement type and wish to change the storage unit for it, you will have to delete the entire record and create a new version of it with the correct Storage Unit.
To enter a storage unit
Storage Unit is an authority controlled field and is pre-stocked with terms for basic units of measure such as Inch, Centimeter, Millimeter, etc..
Simply enter the term (or its System ID) in the field if you know it. If you enter the term incorrectly, or if there is more than one matching term, the Authority Search window will appear, allowing you to select or search for a term.
You can also click on the Options button to select a term if terms have already been created, or follow instructions for creating, editing or deleting hierarchical authority terms as required.
