Can I have an unbound field that will retain the date entered in it until changed?

[SummerSolstice]

Maybe this isn't possible, but it can't hurt to ask. I am working on a continous form that maintains a list of room assignments. The room assignments is stored as part of the large primary table, I'll call TblClientDemographics for the post. One of our daily work assignments is to go in and update any of the room assignments that have changed since the day before.

This data changes a lot for some and very little for others. I don't want / need to know when each record has been updated last (plus there is a bunch of other information that changes on a regular basis for some). There are now four of us that cover the updating of the data (use to be just me) and I wanted to create a form that would have just a single "Updated On" field in the Header area so that if any of the four of us go into the form we can see that the update is done or not. I don't need to track any past dates it's just so we know when it was last done as the four of us are in two different locations within the facility.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for the help

[hype261]

As far as I know this is not possible. One of my apps has a date time stamp when the app last connected to the master server. All I do is store this value in a table and update it when the user connects. Unbound fields lose there value when access closes.

[TheSmileyCoder]

Several options:
If you store for each record, when the record was last updated you could place a textbox with a DMAX function in your header.

You could create a seperate table, with just the single entry, and update that in your forms AfterUpdate. Then make a subform, tied to that table, and insert that subform into your forms header.

[Stewart Ross]

Just to add to what has already been posted, Access users cannot see or share values between their applications in any way except through the tables themselves, or some other shared file accessible to all.

Values in unbound controls only exist in memory on the local PC for the current user, and no-one else.

If you want to have values that persist so that other users can see them you need to include them in the underlying table, as both previous posters have said. It is routine to include a date/time field in table to record a timestamp, updated using (say) the form's After Update event.

Anyhow, it can only be done using a persistent form of data storage such as a timestamp field in a table.

-Stewart

[SummerSolstice]

I thought the date would have to be stored in a table, but I hadn't thought about using a subform to bring the data in. That was exactly what I needed. Thanks much.

[SummerSolstice]

My concern with doing the auto datestamp After Update is that the Unit assignment is only a small part of a much larger amount of data that does get changed often so that stamp might not be based on the "room assignment" field rather some other part of the record.

Thanks for the input everyone.