generate_serials

Receiving a hundred tracked units means a hundred move lines, each with its own number. Typing them is not a realistic option, so Odoo offers two ways to fill them: generate a run of numbers, or paste a list you already have.

Both go through the same dialog, and both of these widgets are the buttons that open it. They differ only in the mode they pass, which decides the dialog's title and which controls it shows.

The generated or pasted lines are then pushed into the move's line relation directly, deliberately bypassing the usual field change handlers.

Serial and lot tracking is a compliance requirement in food, pharmaceuticals and regulated manufacturing, and an operational one anywhere returns and recalls matter. The reason it fails in practice is data entry volume at receipt.

These two paths cover the two realistic sources of numbers: your own sequence, or the supplier's list from a packing slip. Deciding which of the two your process uses is worth doing before go live, because the warehouse workflow differs.

Placing it

<widget name="generate_serials"/>

No attributes. It passes the move to the dialog.

What the dialog defaults to

count = the move's demand, or 2

Filled on opening.

The import path instead

<widget name="import_lots"/>

Same dialog, pasting a list rather than generating.

The dialog is where everything happens, and the part worth understanding is how it writes the lines.

It calls a server method to build the line values, passing the product, both locations, the tracking type and the quantity, plus the mode and whichever inputs that mode uses. What comes back is a list of value dictionaries.

Then, rather than adding records through the normal path, it creates data points directly from those values and pushes them into the relation's internal record list, command list and identifier list by hand. The source says why: to bypass the field change handlers. On a hundred lines those handlers would fire a hundred times.

A checkbox decides whether existing lines survive. When it is unchecked the dialog issues delete commands for every current identifier before adding the new ones, which is what makes a second generation replace rather than append.

One asymmetry worth knowing: for lot tracking the count and quantity are read as decimals and a total received field is offered, while for serial tracking the count is read as an integer and the quantity comes from the move. That follows from what the two tracking modes mean.

Odoo 20 is expected at Odoo Experience in Brussels, 24 to 26 September 2026. The development branch is unstable and this may still change; we re-verify this page after the release.

Substantially reworked. The development branch rewrites the file with a large diff. The two buttons and the shared dialog are what to expect to survive; the line writing mechanics are being reshaped.