I would suggest 3 things :
1) Set the status to be something on the order of “DO NOT USE”. Make it very obvious that the manufacturers should not be used.  (I would also make the status appear in flashing red letters, but Agile isn’t too good at doing that).
2) Adjust your review process to have the Manufacturing/Purchasing folks take a quick look at any parts with AML data, and verify that no inactivated manufacturers are being used. And slap the hands of engineers that insist on using inactivated manufacturers.
3) If all else fails, set the manufacturer as deleted. That way it will not show up in searches, but would still be visible where it is used.

 Your users need to know that they should not use these folks anymore. I would think that Manufacturing (and/or Purchasing) would assist in checking for this, as it directly affects them. And it isn’t very hard for them to do.

Thank you for the input Kevin.
It does make sense that mfg/purch should be able to make sure the mfr that is obsolete is no longer used but unfortunately people make mistakes, and we’re just trying to avoid that, make it foolproof.

We would delete the manufacturer but once it has been used on a mfr part, even if the mfr part is deleted, you can’t delete the manufacturer name.

I wish Agile had a little bit more control on manufacturers and mfr parts.  

Thanks,
Laura

Yes, you can use a PX for this.  I created something similar where:

Event:  Update Table – Parts – Manufacturers Table
Event Subscriber: Pre, Synchronous, and Stop
Event Handler:
//
try {
//get statuses
if (manufacturer_status == “Not Approved” && items_pending_change_to_lifecycle == “Items.Production” {
   throw new Exception (“You can’t add a not approved supplier to this Active part!”)
}
} catch (Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
throw new AgileDSLException(ex);
} // end of try catch block

something like that.

Thank you Matt. Unfortunately I don’t have the skill set for creating PXs. I’d love to learn though. I wonder if there are any classes on this. I’ve dabbled in sql so I think I could pick it up.

Thanks again for your help.

Laura