Show Id of last record on form

[Maggie23]

I am very new to Access so would appreciate help with this. Each record I have has an unique ID number. When I enter a new record I would like the form to show the last ID used so user knows what ID to use next. As a safety I would like field to not allow any duplication of ID numbers.

I have no clue how to create automatically unique sequential numbering so I thought this might be the simplest approach. Just let user know what the last number was and let him type in the next number.

Thanks for any and all help

 

[Pat Hartman]

If you define your primary key field as an autonumber data type, Access will generate a unique id for you.

 

[Maggie23]

From what I understand autonumbering isn't always the most reliable. I can't have any skipped numbers. Each item logged in must have a unique number in chronological order. So back to my original question I am trying to find out how to have the last record ID show up on the form as reference so the user knows what the next number to use should be.

 

[Pat Hartman]

If the sequence is so important to you, you should not be trusting the user to enter a valid value. You can use DMax(...) to return the current maximum value and DMax(....) + 1 to generate the next value. However, this is not all that straightforward in a multi-user environment. Search the archives for advice and code samples.