>How many fields are in this candidate key? Are all of the fields *required* to have something in them once the record finally hits the table? When does this occur in relation to the initial INSERT with blank values..is it a minute or two later?

Two fields were present in the candidate key. All fields will have a value once the record is created. But, no table level validation has been defined. All that is inside the code. This occurs immediately. When I do the INSERT INTO, while the fields are being added (from the same command), for a short time, they will be blank. So, when another user was doing the same, this was causing two blank fields, thus a uniquess of candidate key violation was present. This is why I dropped that approach. It also reminded me why I wanted to stay away from candidate key because of the potential violation that can occur. See the other thread with the FLOCK() solution which has worked so far. That seems to be the way to go.