Unless you've got a table of distinct companies for registrants to choose
from, you've got to solve the problem in the search application. Using a
drop down list here, when you know there could be multiple spellings of a
company, is probably the wrong approach. It depends a little on how exact
the search needs to be. For instance, are you trying adding up $$ amounts
for billing purposes, or do you just want administrators to be able to drill
down to the individual registrations? If it's the latter, then searching
using wildcard matching should suit your purposes.
Jim
----- Original Message -----
From: "Erika L. Walker" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 9:52 AM
Subject: OT: Data Integrity - Q of the Day
> Here's a question that's been bothersome for some time.
>
> We have an interface where participants register for meeting. There is a
> form they fill out with basic information, including the pharmaceutical
> company they are associated with.
>
> We use drop downs where we can to keep data as constant as possible, but
we
> cannot use dropdowns for the company they are with as there are far too
many
> to compile and list.
>
> And therein lies our problem. Users from one company can have a half dozen
> different ways to spell their company name.
>
> There is an admin search page where an administrator can search for
> registered users by several different criteria, one of which is the user's
> company name. I dynamically build a drop down for this field on the search
> page by pulling all distinct company names from the db. Of course, there
are
> several different variations of the company name in the dropdown, which
> makes it very cumbersome.
>
> Has anyone had to deal with this? If so, how did you deal with it? And/or
> does someone have an idea on how to go about dealing with it?
>
>
> Erika
> (with a *K*)
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