Paul,

>I recently updated our main management program at all of our locations. The only changes I made had to do with enforcing and checking for user errors. We had been dealing with incredible mistakes that were just being swept under the rug because the software let them. My modifications simply checked their work before they could close a job (which is partially how they get paid). If it wasn't right, it would give them a reason why it failed but it wouldn't let them close it until it was fixed.

I too have struggled this battle. I came to the conclusion users where frustrated because they hadn't a clue that they've brought in invalid data until they tried to close the job. The solution I cam up is "modeless warning" and don't allow users to make mistakes.

When in a orderform you must input a articlenr. If the users doesn't input a correct articlenr you can:
- Use a autocomplete combobox where the combo goes blank when an invalid article has been choosen
- Popup a incremental list to let them choose a valid article

Where it's possible you could give all invalid data another color indicating that the data is invalid.

Walter,