Bound continuous form with required fields - problem copying & pas

[Julia B]

Hi,

I've got a continuous form bound to a table which has some required fields.
Users are complaining because, if they get half way through a record and want
to skip out of it and copy & paste data from another record, Access generates
an error message because not all of the required fields have been filled in.

I'm wondering if there's an easy solution to this? The only one I can think
of is to change all the fields so they are not required, and put an event on
the form before closing to ensure that all records have all the required
data. My concern with this is if the system crashes or the user just exits
incorrectly, then there may be incomplete data saved, which has an effect on
loads of other processes.

Has anyone got any better ideas that I may have missed?

Thanks
Julia

 

[Allen Browne]

Teach them to press the Esc key twice to undo an entry they don't want to
keep.

 

[BruceM]

If it is a common occurence to copy data from other fields you could make a
listing of the data in that field available as the row source for a combo
box or list box. For instance, if the field is Comments, you could bind a
combo box to Comments, with its Row Source something like:

SELECT DISTINCT [Comments]
FROM [YourTable]
ORDER BY [Comments]

Another possibility, if they are entering standard data, is to create a
lookup table of acceptable values for the field. If they want to add a
value the combo box Not In List event can be used to add the value to the
lookup table. More details on that approach are available, if you wish.

You can use the Before Update event to validate data (instead of or in
addition to table-level validation), which lets you control the error
messages so that they can be friendlier (or not) than the standard Access
error messages, but that won't solve the problem, which is that Access
attempts to save the record as soon as you try to navigate away from it or
close the database. BTW, if the system crashes all bets are off. You can't
get Access or any other program to say "The system is about to crash.
Quick, finish entering the data!".

It may be possible to use the form's After Update event, and give the user a
choice between going back to complete the record or having it be deleted,
but that is off the top of my head. I can't be sure of how well that would
work in practice.

 

[Julia B]

Hi there, unfortunately they DO want to keep the record. It's all correct so
far, they just want to save time by copying & pasting data from another
record into it rather than having to retype something they typed previously.
They may not always know that they can copy & paste until they start the
record, so it's no use telling them to do the copy before starting the entry.

Julia

 

[Julia B]

Thanks Bruce, that's a great idea.

If it is a common occurence to copy data from other fields you could make a
listing of the data in that field available as the row source for a combo
box or list box. For instance, if the field is Comments, you could bind a
combo box to Comments, with its Row Source something like:

SELECT DISTINCT [Comments]
FROM [YourTable]
ORDER BY [Comments]

Another possibility, if they are entering standard data, is to create a
lookup table of acceptable values for the field. If they want to add a
value the combo box Not In List event can be used to add the value to the
lookup table. More details on that approach are available, if you wish.

You can use the Before Update event to validate data (instead of or in
addition to table-level validation), which lets you control the error
messages so that they can be friendlier (or not) than the standard Access
error messages, but that won't solve the problem, which is that Access
attempts to save the record as soon as you try to navigate away from it or
close the database. BTW, if the system crashes all bets are off. You can't
get Access or any other program to say "The system is about to crash.
Quick, finish entering the data!".

It may be possible to use the form's After Update event, and give the user a
choice between going back to complete the record or having it be deleted,
but that is off the top of my head. I can't be sure of how well that would
work in practice.

Hi,

I've got a continuous form bound to a table which has some required
fields.
Users are complaining because, if they get half way through a record and
want
to skip out of it and copy & paste data from another record, Access
generates
an error message because not all of the required fields have been filled
in.

I'm wondering if there's an easy solution to this? The only one I can
think
of is to change all the fields so they are not required, and put an event
on
the form before closing to ensure that all records have all the required
data. My concern with this is if the system crashes or the user just exits
incorrectly, then there may be incomplete data saved, which has an effect
on
loads of other processes.

Has anyone got any better ideas that I may have missed?

Thanks
Julia