I can manually set the auto-enter serial numbers to 001 and the placeholding zeros will remain. When I use the Set Next Serial Value script, it doesn't accept the placeholding zeros. Instead of 001 I end up with 1. Does anybody know of any way around this?

Try adding some characters before the zeros. Like SN001, SN002. You can increment a mixed character string like that.

Hi,

A serial number would always behave that way.

In fact, when you want an ID to behave as ID001, ID002,...you'd use a serial and an auto-entered text calculation.

Serial : auto-entered

t_ID = autoenter calc ---> "ID"&Right("000"&Serial;5)

This is only one example...

That did the trick....My serial # format is 003-001 (last 3 digits of year and numerical serial). I just added the dash to the numerical serial instead of adding it in a later calc and the 0's don't get dropping.

Thanks!

Hmm. I make all my autokey fields text, just Autoenter Serial Number "TXT001" and check Increment By 1. It's always worked for me. They're text fields, of course - is there something I'm missing?

No your not...

But Mprez was concerned about the script step "set next serial number".

I should have asked why he used this script though.

I was using the set next serial step b/c my serial number convention works like so: first three digits = last 3 digits of year project started, then a dash, last 3 digits = numerical serial number. I.e. 003-001 or 004-304. I have a script that check every time the database is opened to see if the current year (-left most digit) does not equal the first 3 digits of the last record's serial. If that is the case, it resets the second part of the serial to -001. The first three digits are set by the current year function.