I hope there's someone out there who can assist with this. Keeping it simple, I have two related files; Projects - primary key = Project ID and Deliverables - foreign key = Project ID. There is a third unrelated file that will import records from Deliverables, the unique ID being Project ID & "." & Suffix (e.g. 12345.2). It's up to the user to enter the suffix via a portal in Projects, so to prevent duplicates, I created a Calculation field in Deliverables to concatenate the Project ID & "." & Suffix. I was disappointed to discover that there isn't an option to make the result unique, which is a problem. I've tried a variety of workarounds without auccess. Any help is appreciated.

Edited August 12, 200520 yr by Guest

Hello Mike,

You might get some useful ideas on how to solve this problem from the FileMaker TechInfo article at:

http://filemaker.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/filemaker.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3483

It requires that you think a little differently about the problem (ie validating the source fields rather than the calc itself) but will get you to where you want to be, I think?! :(

Hi there - thanks for the link. I created a clean database and followed the instructions to the letter (I think!), however the only way I can produce the custom message on validation failure is to manually enter the value of FullName into the DupCheck field - it doesn't do this itself. I'm not sure if I've set it up incorrectly, or if the solution is flawed. Would you mind having a try yourself?

Mike,

The side-bar says that you're working with FM Dev 6, so I have attached a file created with that version which works straight off (following the instructions in the TechInfo article).

As is stated in the article, the technique is applicable to versions 3 thru 6 of FileMaker, so some variations would be needed if you were looking to implement it in v7. However I assume that is not the case?!

DupCheck.zip

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to assist me with this, it's very much appreciated. That solution works fine and is just what I'm after.