How to set up a "never changing" field?

[BigZilla]

I have a [Cusomer] file with a portal to an [Employee] file. The field in the portal is "Salesperson" name. The portal allows 3 "Salesperson" names only.

What I need to do is set up (and I need your help here) a separate field called "OriginalSalesPerson". This field will hold the first salesperson listed in the first portal row. And never change even if the "first salesperson listed in the first portal row" is changed.

Here's why. The "first salesperson listed in the first portal row" is the "Originating" sales person. If that person goes to another department or leaves the company but eventually comes back. We want to be able to re-assign him his customers, or at least be able to know who his customers were. Is there a way to do this?

Thanks,

Bill

[stanley]

The way I'd do it is to have a field in the Customer db, "OriginalSalesPerson," which would be filled in when each customer's record is created, and would be unmodifiable. Make it completely separate from the portal. When a sales rep returns, you could have a script reassign him/her the correct clients by searching the Customer db. In this way, you keep the data where it ought to be - in the Customer's record.

If the system is already set up, you could write a use-once script to populate the "OriginalSalesPerson" field throughout the Customer db from the data you've already got.

-Stanley

[BigZilla]

Is there a way to automate this?

The ideal is once the first "SalesPerson" is entered into the first portal field, that name would be automatically entered into the "OriginalSalesPerson" field?

My concern if a button is scripted to copy from one field and past into the other, it may not always be clicked by the operator and the data is lost.

Bill

[Ugo DI LUCA]

Hi Bill,

If the salesperson is entered through a lookup rather than a calculation, and if your lookup mechanism is locked at a certain point to avoid bad updates(it should) , then you won't need anything else than a single related calculation

c_firstSlesperson = ::Your relationship S :salesperson.

where Your relationship S is a relationship sorted by record_id.