Generate a new text field from the first 8 characters of a queried surname field

[jenkins]

Hi there,

In a nutshell: I would like to create a list of participants of an event. The list should contain at least the following 3 fields: Surname, Name and Account. Surname and Name are fields from the database whereas Account will be generated.

The problem: The field Account should be lower-case and 8 characters long. Furthermore, it should be generated from the first 8 characters of Surname (and Name if Surname is too short).

If anyone out there has already done something like this or knows how to go about it, help would be much appreciated!

[jenkins]

I have basically solved this problem at the SQL level instead of at the text field expression level. The Account name is derived only from the field Surname taking up to the first 8 characters. For this I used:

 

Select REPLACE(LOWER(LEFT(pePersons.`LastName`, 8)), ' ', '') AS Account

 

If anyone has a better solution I'd be happy to hear it!