I have an application that contains a field for Job #. One of my clients wants the mask to be XXXXXX-999 while another one wants XXXXXXXXXX the third wants 999999999 - auto generated. In the first case, when they add a new job for the same customer they want the same prefix and a new incremental number created so C12345-001, C12345-002, etc.

Background: When setting up a customer they enter the code manually and in their current system it can be a max of 999999 (though they have never gotten larger than 99999), which they prefix with the first character of the customer's name. My customer number on my system is XXXXXXXXXX.

In the second's case, they will enter their own code, which may be characters or numbers. In the third's case they want the system to generate the next number.

Because of these differences, I thought I should store the input mask somewhere and use it dynamically. The question is what is the best way to do this, should I create a system setup field where the user enters the code if so how would I use this field - how can I code the property on the forms to use this edit mask???

Any other suggestions would be welcome,
TIA

Sandi Cassidy