How can I make a calculated, concatenated text field unique?

[alexandervj]

I have a calculated field which consists of a few other fields concatenated, ie. [field1] = [field2] & [field3] & [field4]. I need field 1 to be unique when its concatenated, but fields2-4 dont need to be unique. Is there a way to do this? I'm a noob so as much description as possible is helpful and much appreciated. Thanks

[ItsMe]

You can include an autonumber field in your concatenated field. I do this when I need to assign a serial number that is intuitive to something.

[alexandervj]

theres no way to set a validation rule or anything like that which will not allow a user to create unless the calculated field is unique?

[ItsMe]

A typical approach would be to use the Dcount() function. There may be a conflict since you are concatenating fields. You may have to create a SELECT query, include the concatenated fields as an alias (using Group By) and count your alias.