>>Just show it.
>
>Oh, that should be simpler than I thought, then. Just make a UDF that takes the field and formats the result according to some rule.
>
>I think that the real question is, depending on what condition do you want to change the display format? Depending on the answer to that question, you will put the formatting options into different places.
>
>A certain field always uses a certain format: some sort of data dictionary.
>
>The same field will appear different for different users (depends on user preferences): some table that stores user preferences.
>
>The same field will appear different between different records, depending on some additional criteria: either deduce the formatting from other fields, or store an additional field for the display options.

I think that this is the one that applies to mine. I will have one set of records per carrier/payor in the table with as many records in the set as there are fields to be formatted. Each record would additionally have the name of the field to be formatted and the value from the dropdown. Then when I'm processing my message, I would lookup the carrier/payor and appropriate field name to get the corresponding formatting value. Then have a CASE to handle what to do with that particular field value.

Does that sound reasonable?


>There are probably some other combinations possible, too.