InfoPath Dev

I am very new to InfoPath and am trying to understand the FX functions. I have a field that want to propagate with a a reference code made up of: the first, second and last letter of the users surname, plus first 3 letters of the data from another field, plus the current time. For example, if the surname was Williams, and the other field I want to use had the data 'BASIC' in it, and the time was 09:23 , - then the result would look like this WISBAS0923 - is this possible to do. I have tried different variations in the formula section but without success. Thanks Angie

You 'll need some helper columns I think for this so that you understand what is going on.

I have a Surname Field
A data field called ExField
A current time field

Break it down into pieces so that you learn and understand how to get what you need.

Field UserName 2 - to show the first 2 letters of a surname - default value -  substring(Surname, 1, 2)
Field TTime - to show the now () function with no spaces or T - translate(substring-after(now(), "T"), ":", "")

put it all together in another field ie RefNumber - concat(substring(Surname, 1, 3), ExtField, TTime)

I can't get the last letter of a surname (yet). Substring functions in InfoPath rely on you telling the forms how many characters are in a word. Obviously surnames are of different lengths. You could, if this is in SharePoint add a calculated column and it could give you the last letter using and excel function.

 Wow, Thank you for that quick response. I will have a play with this to understand it better - I follow the substring part, but the 2nd line will take a bit of work to comprehend (or maybe not)

Thank you for the help

A