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>but then I have to have the dealer table open every time I want to use the customer table (including in the form designer) While I can do this, it seems messy.
>
>The user needs to be able to select which order they want, most of which are on the customer table. I can create an external index each time I need to use the index but this also seems a bit messy.
>

Geoff, I am guessing that this is an end-user reporting grid you are building. If so then a possible solution would be to create a temporary cursor (for the grid) of the data from the relevant tables . The cursor creation routine would include getting the dealers name (or space's) as per the index expression in your post. Then the cursor could have all the necessary indexes needed to allow the user to sort the grid.

This solution would avoid forcing the dealer table open everytime you want to open just the customer table since there is no index to dealer.

HTH