Dear Richard,

It is very strange. Although it looks obvious, I tried either options and surprisingly, it does not give the desired result in an Access 2007 database. Give it a try and you will be shocked. Illustration: When i used General Date as a the table format, i got 01/20/2011. When i changed to a custom format like mm/dd/yyyy hh:nn i got 01/20/2011 00:00. When i added quotes to the custom format "mm/dd/yyyy hh:nn", the field contents became mm/dd/yyyy hh:nn. If you use Now() as the default value, you get say 01/20/2011 01:40. This is better but i think it can create a possible problem. The Now() value is saved in the table before you insert the next record. This means, if you are tracking exact time when say an employee arrives, you might miss those who may come late because the Now() that will have been saved will be the time when you were entering data of  the last record i.e., the last employee who arrived.

This probably shows the limitations of using table level rules. Probably using the Form's BeforeInsert event would be better. We would write something like
Either
MyFieldName = Now()

Or using a recordset (summarised)
rs.AddNew
rs!MyFieldName = Now()

Has any of my fellow students encountered something like this before? Can someone try out in a Access 2010 or 2003 and share their experience?

Best regards,

MICAH

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Reply from Richard Rost:

I agree. Using Now() as the default time at the TABLE level is only good if you really don't need to be exact. For example, I'll use it for the DateAdded field for a Customer or even an Order because it's usually "close enough." But if you need an EXACT time, use a form-level VBA event like Micah suggested.