Need validation rule to pevent duplicating a customer number

[John Vinson]

Thanks John

How do you get around the unique number when you need to pull up all of Jim
Smith's orders for the last year??

By assigning a unique ID to Jim Smith, and not changing it.

There is a CustomerID AutoNumber, but it
gives Jim Smith a different number on every order.

Then it's not a customer ID; it's an order ID.

The only customer
information they input is customer name.

Then you need to restructure your database to have a customer table
with one record per customer.

This is an internal audio visual
operation at a hospital.

<shrug> If you need to keep track of individual customers, then a
Customer is a valid Entity for your application, and as such needs a
Table with a unique CustomerID. It is neither necessary nor beneficial
for this unique CustomerID to be an "intelligent key".

John W. Vinson[MVP]