Thanks for the detailed response! Yeah, I experimented with adjusting the user interface, but in end decided it wasn't a good solution for now b/c I'm not sure who might be affected by a change like that on the sizeable team I've recently joined.
I ended up adding a note to the child form visible in edit mode to say, essentially "If you create a parent record from this dropdown please make sure you fill out fields x & y" (ensuring the created record will show in the picker later).
The formula query solution is intriguing though. So if I understand correctly I would set up a query to look for other records with the same value(s) in whatever field(s) on which I want to enforce uniqueness? I think I'm missing something, because how would this be different from just giving those individual fields a uniqueness constraint?
Is it that I can allow a single field or subset of fields to be duplicated but not the full combination of fields?
Qrew LegendWell, the main difference by using a formula query as you may be able to detect the duplicate earlier and give a better user experience so the user knows earlier in the data entry process that they're about to create a duplicate. It also will allow you to better craft the error message. When you save the record and block the safety based on a unique field, the only control you really get over the messaging is what you name the field, which is said to be unique. So you can have a pretty long field name to work into the error message but not as much flexibility as if you detect it with a formula query and then make a Rich text field to put up an error message.
Ah, of course! So they could see an alert immediately after entering a duplicate value in the name field (for instance) rather than potentially minutes later when they get to the end of the form and hit save.
This makes sense and I'm grateful you took the time to relate the info. I've always found formula queries somewhat inscrutable and you've boiled them down nicely.
