Hi Catelyn. You're running into a common problem resulting from what's called a de-normalized database. It's a technical concept, but basically in your case you have several records worth of information stored in a single field, and so it's hard to retrieve just a portion of that field to display somewhere else.
Another example of the same kind of thing (but much simpler and therefore easier to resolve) is if you have a person's full name stored in a single field, like "Sam Q. Jones IV" and want to extract only the last name or the middle initial.
I don't know of a way using a native Quick Base formula to return only the most recent message, especially if there are an unlimited number of messages appended to the field, and they vary in length and formatting.
The best solution is probably to normalize the database by adding a child table that will hold a single record for each one of these messages. From there, it's easy to surface only the most recent message on a form or in a report either by using a Report Link field or a reverse relationship.
I'm happy to help further if you need it.
Yours truly,
Phillip
PHILLIP DENNIS
Principal | Watkyn LLC
Quick Base Solution Provider
(954) 900-6690 |
hello@watkyn.comwww.watkyn.com
