Firstly don't use count as a field name it is a reserved word, use something like PhoneNumCount. Also, you don't have any uniqueness in your records so I guess you haven't got a primary key since you are allowing duplicates, however not knowing exactly what you are trying to achieve I can't give you any advice.
Are you wanting to store the 'PhoneNumCount' at the time the record is created OR do you just need a count of the number of problems recorded for each phone number, because if the latter you do not need to have a field in your table, this should be obtained using an aggregate query OR using DCount.
You don't give a name for your table so I'll assume it's PhoneProblems.
I think DCount will be the easiest option for you, if you are storing the value, you will need to put the following code in the AfterUpdate event of the phone_num control:
Code:
Me.PhoneNumCount = DCount("phone_num", "PhoneProblems", "phone_num = '" & [phone_num] & "'")
Depending on what you want, you may want to add 1 to this value, as this returns the number of records that already exist with the phone number you have just entered for this new record. This is setting the control which is bound to the 'count' field, which should be read only. When the record is saved the count will be saved too.
If you're not saving the count then just put the DCount formula in the control source of your 'count' control.
On your form that displays your records you then need to create some conditional formatting. For each control on your record since you said you want the whole record to change font colour, select Conditional Formatting, select Expression Is and enter [PhoneNumCount]>5.
HTH. Maybe a poor explanantion so if you have any issues post back.
Malc.
simple question about counting
