>Who's to say that the alias used in the controlsource of the control is the same as the table name? Your interface layer shouldn't have intimate, binding knowledge of the names of backend fields and tables.

I don't assume that, but probe further using a routine from Visual Maxframe Professional.

>Your object is less a business object than a universal validator- business objects are usually domain specific instead of universal, and contain domain specific methods that represent actions that can be performed on the represented entity.

I see what you mean. My concern was to find a more practical way of implementing validations than as methods of an object.

A middle of the road approach would be to base the domain specific business objects on the universal validator. The name of the table with the rules is in a property of the domain specific business object. To avoid clutter some rule tables could be combined.

Does this seem like a sound approach now? I have no experience creating proper middle tier BOs. Would this be OK for an Excel front end?

Thanks for your help.

Alex