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I have a customer that exists but for some reason after I added a contact to it, it quit showing up in search.

I exported my Customer table and I see the record, but I can't search and find it within Method. Attempting to add the Customer again with the same name fails b/c it says it already exists.

What do I have to do to get it back visible in Method? There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the record when looking at the exported data.

What gives?

Just found another Customer record that won't show up in search. I have not modified this record at all.

In fact, this one doesn't even show up in my Customer table export...but if I try to add it as a new Customer, it says the name already exists.

What's the deal with these "hidden" records? How am I supposed to work with these?

I looked into this further....

I exported my Contacts table and noticed a couple contacts that I was trying to add were pointing to the wrong Customer Entiy.

I think there's a bug with my Contacts screen that makes it possible to  inadvertently "move" a Contact from one Entity to another, therefore making my Customer inaccessible through the application and causing me some really nasty, time consuming data import/export tasks to fix the incorrect data.

By pointing my Contact back to the proper Entity (Customer), the Customer is now coming up in search again. I had to do this by importing that one Contact row to update its Entity Record ID to point to its correct Customer.

Frickin' hastle....and since I don't know the exact scenario that causes the mixup, I can't duplicate it and come up with with a fix (whether it be a screen logic change or just a process to follow).

It sucks that there's Method logic somewhere preventing records from coming back in a search result on the UI but the data is clearly there....and the only way I have to get to it and fix it is by a lousy integration tool export/import process.

Shouldn't the Contacts screen check this logic on Save rather than burying a data issue that will clearly cause me problems later on when I try and search for a customer again only to find out it's unavailable?

That really sucks

I confirmed there was an action missing for some reason on my 'Add Contacts' button from EditCustomer screen that was not setting the Entity Name (for some reason it's not the RecordID, but whatever) as a shared result.

As a result, the subsequent Contact add was successful but it was creating orphaned records that never showed up in the UI. I only saw them by exporting the table and finding them in the data. Ugh.

I still think the Contact screen should protect that situation by default. It's weird, but the Contacts table does not require Entity to have a value, so I'll have to put that check in the action.

Try doing a database rebuild. it sounds like an index is a little confused. It is under FILE UTILITIES then REBUILD DATA.  it will require a backup and if the database is very large it could take hours but it is well worth it in improved performance and removing these issues.

Blake C:

Shouldn't the Contacts screen check this logic on Save rather than burying a data issue that will clearly cause me problems later on when I try and search for a customer again only to find out it's unavailable?

It would be hard to account for every possible mistake a user can make within Method.  We provide the option to customize just about everything but you're resposible for the work you produce unless we're talking about a stock screen.

Blake C:

I still think the Contact screen should protect that situation by default.

The stock screen protects this and functions correctly.  We allow you to customize Method fully with the downside being you can cause problems on your custom screens if you're not careful.  When in doubt you can review the stock screen to review functionality or feel free to ask a question here on the forums (or contact us for paid support).

micheleh:

Try doing a database rebuild.

A database rebuild will not help the situation here - different problem.

Thanks for the responses.

I still think it would be useful to have a tool in Method that will help identify orphaned records like the Contacts issue I was, err, creating myself (doh) b/c I clipped an action from a stock screen accidentally.

It's nice being able to customize a lot...it's tough not screwing stuff up, though.

Thanks again!