How to handle Duplicate Last Names

[sierra7]

For the benefit of Twigy who had previous thread deleted

Selecting a user from LastName only is obviously doomed to failure. Selecting by Lastname + FirstName stands a better chance, but let's assume there are too many many John Smith's or Abu Ali's etc., so you need some other distinguishing data.
Let's assume you have date of birth (DOB). PostalCode (ZIP) is not that good because of the tendancy to name sons after their father.

Let's assume you have a unique ID for each person's record, plus FirstName, LastName and DOB. You can then use the multi-column feature of the comboBox to help differentiate your selection.

First set the RowSource to a query where all four fields are returned, in the above order.

Column 1 will have member ID but if you set the column width to zero then the second field will be displayed. On the Format tab of the comboBox property sheet you will find 'Column Widths' enter something like;
0;3;3;3cm
Below that you will find 'List Width' and this must be set = 9cm
When you run your form and open the combo box it will expand (across and down) and youshould see the two extra colums FirstName and DOB.
see how you get on
S7

[twigy]

thanks this worked perfectly