Force a field "refresh" so a lookup works?

[hellohelp]

So I have a database that has lookup fields that populate when data is entered into an ID field. The problem is that this ID field is entered through CWP, and it seems CWP doesn't tell FileMaker that the field has actually changed, so the lookups never get populated. If you enter the ID numbers into the fields in FileMaker, rather than the web, the lookups work without a problem.

To solve this, I tried to change the ID field to an auto enter field in which I used the Replace() function, basically substituting the original text for the original text, thinking this would "touch" the field. No dice.

Any ideas? Thanks for your help!

[Mikhail Edoshin]

The lookup must trigger after you submit the page; doesn't it?

The simplest way is to redesign the web pages to first submit the initial page and then go to another that displays the looked up data. Technically you can do this without leaving the page: use JavaScript to catch the moment the field changes, silently send an additional request to FileMaker® Server to get the data, and after they have come, populate the fields on the page. This technique is called AJAX.

[erostratus]

The web user doesn't actually see the lookup fields at any point. It's just for the database administrator. There's a layout that provides a list with the ID numbers (entered from the web), plus related info about the IDs (name, email address, etc.). So there's no need to use Javascript in this case. The web user will not see this layout. But when the administrator goes into this other layout, all these lookup fields are blank. But once those ID fields are tickled, the data shows up.