Having a VLOOKUP in the primary key field?

[Access_Novice]

I have some employee data to import into Access but this data does not have employee ID numbers. I would like to assign employeeID numbers to each person then set the employeeID field as the primary key.

Here is what I had in mind. I would create a table that defines each employee with an EmployeeID number. Then in the table containing the imported data, the first field would be called EmployeeID. After importing the Excel data into this table, initially this EmployeeID column would be blank because the data in the Excel file doesn't have an employeeID. But the employeeID field would have a VLOOKUP formula that would look at each person's name and cross reference that with the employeeID table in order to obtain the employee ID for each person on each row. Then the VLOOKUP would return the employeeID number. Furthermore, I would like to have this employeeID field set as the primary key.

Is this possible? Can you do a VLOOKUP in Access? If so, can the employeeID field still be used as the primary key field, even though its values would be determined by a VLOOKUP?

[June7]

Access equivalent is DLookup. Can't use domain aggregate functions in table. So the answer to your question is No - cannot use DLookup this way.

You should run an UPDATE sql action to populate the EmployeeID field. Why would this be primary key? If you already have the employee in the database, why would this ID be unique value in this table?

Can you guarantee the imported employee name will ALWAYS be spelled the same?