Removing unnecessary blank spaces at the end of an entry...
OK this is going to sound completely crazy, just hang with me for a minute...
I need to eliminate unnecessary blank spaces at the end of an entry. Here's why... we had issues with our employees creating new records every time a customer called - for instance, John Smith calls and wants to purchase more of our services, and they just create a new "John Smith" and enter all his info again, rather than search for him in the database and then add a new job (we call it "opportunity" under his existing record). In an attempt to combat this, I made a formula field which combines the first and last name and then is required to be unique; i.e., a second "John Smith" would not allow the new record to be saved - it kicks back an error. This worked for a short time, until the lazy employees figured out that they could just add a blank space to the end of either name and the system would see this as a unique record.
This is also plaguing our "opportunities" field - we do custom closets, so when we first started, everyone was naming opportunities "master closet" which then became a real mess when looking at reports, etc., so we required the opportunity to be unique, which prevented "master closet" until they learned they could just add a space at the end. By now I imagine they must have to just hold the spacebar down for a minute to bypass this rather than just do it the correct way. (I know, I know...)
Any ideas on eliminating the spaces upon a save, so that I can take this cheat away from them? I cannot simply just count, as the # of words is not fixed, (for instance, "Van Halen" as a last name) and especially in the "opportunity" name field, as we use the street address followed by the room (so that we can keep up as owners of the residence change).
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Thanks,
Chris Newsome
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I need to eliminate unnecessary blank spaces at the end of an entry. Here's why... we had issues with our employees creating new records every time a customer called - for instance, John Smith calls and wants to purchase more of our services, and they just create a new "John Smith" and enter all his info again, rather than search for him in the database and then add a new job (we call it "opportunity" under his existing record). In an attempt to combat this, I made a formula field which combines the first and last name and then is required to be unique; i.e., a second "John Smith" would not allow the new record to be saved - it kicks back an error. This worked for a short time, until the lazy employees figured out that they could just add a blank space to the end of either name and the system would see this as a unique record.
This is also plaguing our "opportunities" field - we do custom closets, so when we first started, everyone was naming opportunities "master closet" which then became a real mess when looking at reports, etc., so we required the opportunity to be unique, which prevented "master closet" until they learned they could just add a space at the end. By now I imagine they must have to just hold the spacebar down for a minute to bypass this rather than just do it the correct way. (I know, I know...)
Any ideas on eliminating the spaces upon a save, so that I can take this cheat away from them? I cannot simply just count, as the # of words is not fixed, (for instance, "Van Halen" as a last name) and especially in the "opportunity" name field, as we use the street address followed by the room (so that we can keep up as owners of the residence change).
------------------------------
Thanks,
Chris Newsome
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