Cleaning Input Data – ISO FileMaker Magazine

Dealing with data entry issues by your users can be an ongoing problem.  And how you deal with them, especially if you are importing lots of records routinely, might have bad side effects for your users.  The takeaway in this great video about a pretty boring subject is simple:  Fix the problems as the data are entered, and do so in a way the least impacts the user and the system.  Matt Petrowsky has some advice:

Users make mistakes. There’s no doubt about that. When given the opportunity, they’ll enter characters and text strings you never expected.

The easy solution to this problem is to simply control the result of what they’ve input. When capturing the input, there may be a variety of rules regarding how you want the data stored.

Do you want to store “4 pm” or 16:00:00? Is the user entering suffixes such as Jr. or Sr. into the last name field or the first name field? Should the input be super simple for an iPad and just happen within one field?

Making the input process easy, yet conforming to your storage rules is often desirable. So is performance! Do you know the performance impacts of that auto-enter calculation versus simply using a script trigger?

There is a video and a downloadable sample file at the link.  Enjoy!

Source: Cleaning Input Data – ISO FileMaker Magazine

 

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