ahh - missed that.
ok, first a couple of basic errors to sort out.
a) It's not recommended to display primary key component fields on the form as "string" fields. You've got them as auto-number, and "read only" - but it's still a bad thing to have them there as "Strings" or :"Numbers" - Change them to "display" if you want to display them (at least for early development) in the long run hide them away completely. To be fair, while this was a hard "rule" in NT4, it's no longer the case, and these days read-only fields are ok, nevertheless it's considered "poor form".
b) pth:Pathology_complete field, client-side tab, "on focus" - refresh value - tick this off. (It's just wrong.)
>> When complete they are to mark Pathology Complete in the pathology data section.
your data layout seems a little strange. So you have a field in the Pathology table, which is really a short-cut for the user setting the "path complete" setting in the specimen table? I suppose I should ask why they don't just set the spe:path_complete on the UpdateSpecimen table. I mean, you could put the field on the Pathology tab and everything. It seems to me it'd make more sense there. But ok, I'll presume there's some logic in your layout, so....
you have 2 problems;
(we'll ignore the fact that they can in fact change the pathology records after selecting that field.)
a) the specimen record may not have been written to disk at all at that point. If you're doing an insert then the parent record has been created, yes, but is currently blank.
b) the form is still open for UpdateSpecimen, so changing the record on disk would be useless, as it'll shortly be overwritten.
No, in the ValidateUpdate routine, all you can do is
p_web.SSV('spe:date',today())
p_web.SSV('Spe:case_number', p_web.GSV('spe:source') & '-' & p_web.GSV('spe:specimen_id'))
p_web.SSV('Spe:pathology_complete','Yes')
setting the current session values, and using the existing session values where existing values are required.
Your next issue is refreshing the other fields on the _specimen form_ when the _pathology form_ is completed.
That's a fair bit trickier, so perhaps take on board all the above, then repost your example with the changes etc, so we can take it further.
cheers
Bruce