Posted by John Bell on 10/01/81 11:27

Hi

If you are not writing a new interface then you are probably better using a
fixed notation. Such as InvoiceNumber/VendorAcronym/Status. If each part is
a fixed length then you don't need a separator, but it may help the users
differentiate the different parts. I would have expect that you can
determine the fact that an invoice is a referral by a different means.

John
"Scott Marquardt" <wasREMOVEket5@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1127575738.f429cee989a6daeb985244c70f0bb497@teranews...
> John Bell opined thusly on Sep 24:
>> Hi
>>
>> I am not sure why you think the users would want to enter some cryptic
>> code
>> rather than exact values in two separate fields.
>
> Developing more fields in this N-tier application whose upgrades are
> controlled by a vendor whose dev I'm not privy to, isn't an option. If I
> could do that, I would. I'm not posting to inquire about better
> alternatives; I'm wanting to wring juice out of an unfortunate turnip.
>
>> That is more of a usability
>> with the UI, for instance if your parts were both numeric you may be
>> slowing
>> your users down forcing them to use non-keypad characters that require
>> shifting. You should also look at the business processes, for instance if
>> you processed everything for one vendor together then retaining the
>> vendor
>> information would remove the need to type it in again.
>>
>> If you need to concatenate the values for display purposes then you can
>> do
>> that in the code for your stored procedure or create a view.
>
> Again, beyond my control. I've done a few necessary hacks of the software
> (both the asp and some sprocs), but I can't expand the number of such
> edits
> beyond reason. Next vendor upgrade, I'd be flailing about.
>
> The users are more worried about being able to have reports on data
> they're
> unfortunately left to enter in a free-form description field, type
> varchar.
> My posting is to inquire whether a string formatting convention I'm
> considering is the best I can do under that circumstance. I'd be glad of
> any hints at how to most efficiently query the data as well.
>
>
> --
>
> Scott

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