How do you deal with pebcak?

[kiwiora]

Hi guys,

I'm just wanting some different ideas to deal with pebcak.

I have a user who insists she is creating a new record and losing her data. Everytime I stand behind her it works fine. No one else is having this problem. Truth be told we did have a server crash and stupid filemaker opened up a backed up copy unbeknownst to us (what a drama). Anyway, the only conclusion that I can come up with is it's a pebcak and the user is in find mode.

Problem - try telling that to an over confident self assured person who insists she is clicking on new record.

My strategy so far is:

Get her to use short cut keys (less likely hood of mind wandering and clicking on wrong button).

Tell her to mutter to herself under her breath (OK now i am creating a new record CTRL + N)

I have double checked with filemaker and the guy there says in all his life he has never heard of filemaker "losing" data.

Any ideas on how you deal with pebcak's who insist that they are doing everything right?

[Ender]

Script finds and navigation, and don't allow users to access menu commands. This give you much tighter control. You can have dedicated Find layouts, dedicated View layouts, and dedicated Edit layouts. Use buttons attached to scripts to run finds and to navigate between layouts.

This will seem like a hassle to users who are used to find and edit access on any layout, but it's a good way to go to improve data integrity.

[Vaughan]

The server should not automatically (or otherwise) open a backup copy after a crash, something is wrong there.

Scour the network for rogue copies of the file, delete or zip any that you find.

[CobaltSky]

Hi kiwiora,

Congrats on your 100th post... Hope you've found a suitable way to celebrate.

Meanwhile, your user may well be clicking on the new record button. But if she clicks on it while she is in find mode, it will likely give her a new request instead - and therein lies a problem.

If that's a possibility, I suggest that you attach the new record button to a script which explicitly places the db in browse mode before issuing the New Record command.