So I have a situation where I want my unique ID field to be a serial number with the prefix of "16-", with the 16 representing the year 2016.  In a perfect world this would update on January 1 of next year to "17-", but I'd be just fine with going in and updating the necessary field for it to show 17. Surely there is a way to do this, and its just me having no such luck? Any help greatly appreciated! 

I would suggest you use two fields: one that auto-enters a serial number, and one that auto-enters a calculated value =

Right ( Year ( Get ( CurrentDate ) ) ; 2 ) & "-" & SerialID

Or, if you have a Date field, you could merge it with the serial ID field and format the object to display only the YY portion of the date.

 

 

Edited April 3, 20169 yr by comment

Ive never been a big fan of "smart" serial numbers for use as a primary key value for a record.

human interaction with keys usually = data integrity issues.

Use smart serials for display to the user but think about avoiding them for relationships.

Just my two cents worth.