Newbie help please

[jay0]

Hi I have a database setup it is just a edited version of the Business Productivity Kit. What happens is when I add a contact lets say John Murphy everything works fine. But in this database I need to add maybe five or six different John Murphy's with different address's. When I go to sales orders and lookup John Murphy it only shows one John Murphy even though there are 6 in the contacs. Any ideas how I can show all 6 John Murphy's???

[WC Howard]

Could I actually give advice?

Not much more than a newbie myself, but here goes...

Check your found set - if you have more than one it will show that you have them there. If so, you can use a similar script like what I made to display a list of multiple records in a found set.

Check here:

With this script I made a layout (Multilist) that shows just enough to tell the difference between the found records so that the user could choose which one they wanted.

[mr_vodka]

I have not used the BPK, but a value list will only display a unqiue value once. So if the value list is displaying something like a concatenated field of firstname and lastname, it will only show you one if there are more than one person with the same name. It wouldnt really make sense to have a value list of:

Jack Bauer

John Murphy

John Murphy

John Murphy

Sponge Bob

So, you have to figure out how you want to distiguish one from the other. You may need to alter your value list to display something like

Jack Bauer - CA

John Murphy - NY

John Murphy - NV

John Murphy - AL

Sponge Bob - FL

or since even by state there will most likely be more than one person, maybe name & address.

Jack Bauer - 24 The Man Way, Los Angeles CA

John Murphy - 101 Law Street, New York NY

John Murphy - 187 Gangsta Lane, Compton CA

John Murphy - 777 Lucky Street, Las Vegas NV

Sponge Bob - 1 Screwedup Cartoon Ave, Orlando FL

[jay0]

still cant figure this out I had a look in the value list(by going file define value list) and cant see anything in there

[Stuart Taylor]

I always use the Serial in brackets ...

Its ugly but it works.

[mr_vodka]

Yes, but then how do most users still know the difference? While this will definately result in displaying all three John Murphy's in the list, they would still have to figure out which john Murphy [3785] would be.

[jay0]

Hi I have figured out adding in the value list( I added in the address) but I have to add it in individually for each John Murphy. If another John Murphy is added to the contact list I have to go into Sales orders and define the value list for that customer. is there an easier way to have it add the address automatically?

[mr_vodka]

I finally downloaded the BPS1.0 and I must say, I do not like the structure at all.

The key values are based on a concatenation of firstname and last name. What a horrible idea for a primary key!

[jay0]

I sorted this by changing the Contacts module from

First Name & " " & Last Name

To this calculation:

First Name & " " & Last Name & " (" & City 1 & ")"

And then changed the sales orders invoice layout from bill to name to first name and then underneath last name. Its working the way I wanted so thanks for your help..