Prevent duplicated records

[Mattias R]

I

[LiveOak]

The key concept here is "time slots". Divide the day up into the minimum time slot a user can book. As an example, I'll assume 1 hour slots. This will give you 24 slots in a day. Create a key which reflects one or more time slots. In the case of more than one slot, this become a multikey. For example, noon until 2 PM on May 17, 2003 might have the multikey:

A012003051712

A012003051713

Make sure you pad out slots and dates to the same length:

A052003020105, for example.

Now, a booking with this multikey used in a relationship will match another booking which overlaps either hour. You can test for availability by creating a relationship based upon calculating the key using global fields. You might enter:

gDate = 5/17/2003

gTimeSlot 0800-0900

gComputer = A6

and use a calculation to create the key: A062003051708. The relationship based upon this key could show all the booking in a portal.

-bd

[Mattias R]

How do a field become multikey? I have made a keyfield that is calculated (computer & "-" & date & "-" time). I suppose I need two timefields, starttime and endtime.

[Mattias R]

OK. I have done a multikey field that look like you explained. I have also created 3 global fields: gcomputer, gdate and gtime.

What should I do next?