How do I prevent entry into a field if another field already has data in it? I'd also like to display an alert that says "You cannot enter field X because this record is being used for data types described in field Y. Please create a new record."

Appreciate any help you can give!

JT

Hi JT and welcome to the forums!

If you don't want to be able to enter anything into field B if field A has something in it...

Go to define database, go to options for field B, go to the validation tab, choose validation by calculation, then just type IsEmpty(FieldA) //if field A is empty, the calculation will return 1 which means you can edit field B, if field A isn't empty, it will return 0 or nothing which means you can't modify field B.

Now the alert, hmmm, unfortuantly you can't use dynamic values like x and y but can enter some sort of other message in the display custom message if validation fails box:

"Cannot enter a value in Field B because this record is already being used for the purpose described in field A"

Thanks so much! I've been screwing with this for what seems an eternity!

Glad i could help

Actually... that validation message is kind of annyoing i've never really liked it.. another method would be writing the script below and then just attaching it to FieldB:

If[isEmpty(FieldA)]

Go To Field[FieldB]

Else

Show Custom Dialog["You cannot enter field X because this record is being used for data types described in field Y: " & FieldY & ". Please create a new record."]

End if