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up vote 5 down vote favorite

I have a custom object. I want to put in a business rule so that a combination of two fields must be unique.

So I have Field1 and Field2 and want the combination to be unique:

Field1=4, Field2=7
Field1=4, Field2=8

is ok

But, 

Field1=4, Field2=7
Field1=4, Field2=7

is not ok

What is the easiest / best way to do this? Thanks.

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2 Answers

up vote 7 down vote

The easiest way to do this is to create a Unique Text field. Then, concatenate the values of the two fields together and update your Unique Text Field with the resulting value using a Workflow Field Update or a before Trigger.

Smashing the two fields together would essentially create a composite key that can be used to verify uniqueness.

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2  
Innovative use of declarative platform features here :) – user320 Feb 26 at 16:07
Thank you for the compliment! – Kevin O'Hara Feb 26 at 16:17
If you go for workflow remember to design criteria that include ISNEW(), ISCHANGED(), ISBLANK(unique_field__c) etc :) Also careful with any datafixes that'd fill the field from Apex - Id fields (lookups) have 18 chars when queried in apex but workflows see only 15 and that's what will be filled in to the unique field. – eyescream Feb 26 at 17:10
up vote 1 down vote

I would create a BEFORE trigger. You'll need to run a SOQL query with those values and reject the save if any matching records are found.

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