Should I use AutonumberID on my Forms?

[reddevil1]

Hi,

I have read that AutonumberID's should NOT be shown to the User? But are there any exceptions to this rule?

I have tblFinance which, hopefully, will have hundreds of different income and expenditure transactions every day and thousands over the month? I was thinking that a simple reference to FinanceID would be better than trying to search for a transaction that happened on a certain day, to a certain property, for a certain amount, for a certain transactiontype? I just think this would be easier to find and i cannot think of an easier way to locate a financial transaction quickly?

Does anybody have any thoughts?

 

[jdraw]

Try it, and tell us what you find.

 

[plog]

I always base that decision on the stupidity of my users. Ironically, if they are really stupid I use them and if they are really smart I use. Average intelligence I don't.

Here's the deal, you have to make them understand that the autonumber that gets shown means nothing. Although it seems that they get produced in a numerical order they don't and they shouldn't count on them to be in the future.

Smart people can understand this and don't assign any expectations or value to that number. Stupid people can be convinced not too because computers are these mystical finnicky beasts that they will never understand. Average intelligence people will listen to you, but will always disregard it and use that number for something else, or want you to tweak them so they contain value, or get mad when one "disappears" from the expected order.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

I often show them - it's often useful to know what they are.

what ought not be needed is for a user to need to enter the value of a key (autonumber or any other) in order to do something. The system should guide the user without needing him to enter the key values. (most of the time - there may be exceptions now and again)

 

[reddevil1]

I always base that decision on the stupidity of my users. Ironically, if they are really stupid I use them and if they are really smart I use. Average intelligence I don't.

plog - that is really funny, but probably very true.

 

[reddevil1]

I often show them - it's often useful to know what they are

It is very interesting to hear different opinions on whether the autonumber should be used/shown.

The system should guide the user without needing him to enter the key values

I think i will use the autonumber in certain cases and include other relevant data to guide the user as well.
looks like trial and error will be used here.
thanks for your inputs