Very Very basic ID Calc?

[willoghby]

Hi FMP guru's,

Happy New year!

First time poster here, though I've been looking through some of the posts over recent days while trying to build our very first FMP databse. And have found the info to be very helpful thus far!

Although, I can't seem to find an answer to what I believe may be a very simple problem for most of you!

I have a simple Database ID field, which we'll use as a cross reference to part numbers, serial numbers etc. at some stage in the future as the DB grows, but I'll be darned if I can get the ID to show me any figure other than a simple "1", "2" etc.

Just to be a little different, I wondered if I can get it to show "XY10001", incrementing by 1 each time I add a new record to the DB?

Any help how to set this up would be gratefully received.

[bcooney]

It is recommended that you have an auto-entered serial number field in each table that will serve as a key field. It is this field that you will use to relate this table to another table.

If you wish to display this field with a prefix, then create a second field, dsp_CustID (my notation for any field that is for display purposes), for example, that is a calc field result text and is equal to "Cust" & keyID.

Happy New Year, and welcome to the forums.

Edited December 31, 2009 by Guest

[bruceR]

Hi FMP guru's,

Happy New year!

First time poster here, though I've been looking through some of the posts over recent days while trying to build our very first FMP databse. And have found the info to be very helpful thus far!

Although, I can't seem to find an answer to what I believe may be a very simple problem for most of you!

I have a simple Database ID field, which we'll use as a cross reference to part numbers, serial numbers etc. at some stage in the future as the DB grows, but I'll be darned if I can get the ID to show me any figure other than a simple "1", "2" etc.

Just to be a little different, I wondered if I can get it to show "XY10001", incrementing by 1 each time I add a new record to the DB?

Any help how to set this up would be gratefully received.

Yes. Enter XY10001 in the serial number setup. The alternative proposed by bcooney is also useful. See attached.

Edited January 1, 2010 by Guest

[willoghby]

Hey thanks guys,

I actually tried this yesterday, but for some reason it didn't show up the same way.

Just opened a new Inventory DB and though the first record still shows up as "1", any new records I create are indeed showing as XY10002 etc. (how do I change the first one to show XY10001?)

I notice however that if I delete these records, the very next one shows as XY1007 and not XY1002 as I'd expect. I'm presuming the DB is remembering deleted records - is this normal?

Thanks in advance.

Edited January 1, 2010 by Guest

[bcooney]

A change in the serial number does not affect existing records. You must manually change those records.

Your serial numbers will not be continuous if you delete records. That is OK! Remember serial numbers are meaningless keys. The only thing that matters is that they are unique and not empty. If you require continuous numbers, you cannot permit delete. You could mark the record as Void.

[willoghby]

Thanks for the clarification, and yes I can understand that the non-continuous "ID" numbers (serial numbers?)are pretty much meaningless.

OK, now on to sorting out all the relational info . . . (and I thought I had a weekend off)!