Locking Records

[Megee]

im looking to freeze my orders once complete because some info is "magically" changing, such as my pricing info. NOT GOOD. also, i was wondering if i could make a button to lock/freeze the info in my customer table once i have entered in their phone and address..etc

[aaa]

You can use script for this fields such as:

if isempty(phone)

go to field pnone

endif

Or you can use security tools for not editing important fields.

[Brian C]

The first thing you need to do is to make sure you are making use of lookup field for storing related data and not just simply dropping related fields on your layouts. This will make sure that when an order is created, the price info etc will all be looked up at the time of the record creation. The only way for the information to change after this point is if the data key that the relation ship is based on, changes for this record, or a relookup records command is done.

Im not sure if there is an easier way to lock a record than this, but in the systems I design, I have layouts for different purposes:

Browse 01

Edit 01

Create 01

Find 01

List 01

It can be something of a task to maintain the fields on all of these layouts if your design is complex and/or changes a lot, but using this concept can allow you to then force users to use buttons to navigate to the different layouts. If you have a field created like "RecordLock", you can have your button that allows a user to go the the Edit screen to check if the record is locked or not. If it is, you can then produce an error message instead of allowing them access.

Another bonus of having the number tagged on the end of the layout name is that you can parse the last 2 digits of the current layout name using right() to control where a user will go in your script: Browse 03 will to go to the Edit 03 screen. The same is true for returning to the proper Browse layout from your edit layout.

If you have not done a lot of interface design, I would suggest setting up some sample files first, and get all your design ideas/issues worked out there first. This will allow you to more easily take the design across to other tables/files.

[QuinTech]

some info is "magically" changing

It sounds like you are jumping to conclusions and blaming the users. My experience with users makes me believe this is a good conclusion to jump to.

However, you should at least consider the possibility that it is not the users' fault. If you have any files on your computer or network with identical names, it is possible that FM looks to one file on Tuesday and a different file on Wednesday, thus making it appear that you data is changing.

Jerry