No, what seems to be the problem is that the parent database uses a user ID number, which has related information stored in another db. What I am trying to do is allow a user in the parent to ADD their user ID and info to the related db, without actually going to that db. It seems to me the only way to do that is first create a record in the parent that contains the new User ID, and then add the related data in a portal. But that creates extra (mostly empty) records in the parent. Any better solutions?