Preventing duplicates and providing suggestion

[mateoc15]

I have a key on my Visitors table of just the ID.  First Name and last name are not necessarily unique, but I'd like to suggest to the user that if they enter an existing First Name and Last Name that they be prompted with something like "hey, did you mean this existing visitor?".  Any functionality or workarounds for that?

Thanks!

[Marc_Dillon]

You don't actually want to prevent a duplicate name, correct?

Nevertheless, search this forum for "prevent duplicates" to see an idea for such an expression to use. Use that expression as a show_if in a Show column, and have the Show column's contents display your message to the user.

[mateoc15]

Hi @Marc_Dillon.  I'm finally getting back to this.  I do want to prevent duplicates, but it's entirely possible that there are two legitimate people named John Smith.  So I really just want a popup of some kind to say "there's already a John Smith, you can add a new one, but maybe you should check out visitor ID 12345 first" (bonus - link to record 12345!)  Does a simple valid_if work for that?  Seems like a long "error" message to put in that little confirmation box.  This is in a FORM view by the way.

[Marc_Dillon]

No, not a valid_if, because that would prevent the duplicate. You say "prevent", but you don't actually mean it. You just want to alert of a potential duplicate. My original suggestion stands.