Allow duplicates, but warn about them anyway

[Guest]

I have a form that holds data on all of the cases my office works on.
Each case has a unique ID, this is a number. Each case also has a clients
name attached to it, this may not be unique. It is possible for a client to
have more than one case, say they were here a year ago with a completely
different issue. This is fine, and should be allowed. However, due to our
overwhelming case load and understaffed office, I am worried that some cases
may be accidently entered into the system twice, with two different unique
IDs, and thereby confuse our summary data. So what I want is, during data
entry in a form, to be able to check whether or not there is an existing case
with the same client name attached. If there is, I would like to alert the
user, BUT, if the user still wants to enter the new case, I want this to be
allowed. I am getting the sense that this may not be possible, but if so, I
would really appreciate the help,
Thank you

 

[Guest]

Hi;
With Access almost every thing is possible (but to make money I still broke).
When youa are ready to enter a new client to a case, if you right click the
blue bar with the name of the form, will allow to filter the table based on
the (name of the person, the SS number, de address etc. etc and you will find
if that person have a case with you open or close, if is new or not in the
data base.

However I recomend you to have a least 2 table, one with the clients data
and other with the case data and to link both table with the client ID number
( That is some kind of ID external to the data base, Driver Lic, SS Number or
ID card that you may create for him) that will allow you to Know all your
clients without duplication and to have the cases with only the clients tha
belong to it.

Better if you have 3 tables with the third one as Insurance company or
defendant.

 

[Larry Daugherty]

You can do it but since we don't know what forms and constructs you
have in play all we can do is suggest things and leave it to you to
decide and implement.

I'd use a combobox on a query on the client's name and case number(s).
Enter the client's name in the combobox and it will show up once for
each associated case number. From that point your users should be
able to decide whether to use an existing case number or add a new
one.

HTH