How can I: not update key (ref) when someone else edits record?

[dw2020]

I currenlty have records for staff, which they can add their notes to. Their manager can update these notes but when they do, it updates the key/ref (email) to their email. How can I stop this from happening but still enable a manager to edit their own team-members’ notes?
I’ve tried a few different ways eg adding an edit_if constraint but I’m not able to add that to a ref-field.
Thanks in advance.

[Jonathan_S]

I think you are setting the ID with the email to see which of the staff added the notes? is this right?

[dw2020]

Yes, but I want those notes to only belong to the team-member and never their manager. The manager should only be able to edit but not update the key at all.

[Jonathan_S]

If you manager is editing, this should not update the key.

What formulas do you have in your [ID] Column?

[dw2020]

initial value is set to useremail()
I tried removing that but it still updates the email to manager-email, if the manager edits.

Have added the following to app_computed: IF ( isblank ( [_this ] ), useremail() , [ _this] )
and that seems to have taken and not broken anything else.

[Jonathan_S]

Awesome