No - I could not say how many tasks we are likely to get - we are hoping to grow this - so we want to keep increasing it. I could add a do until EOF loop since the new work is always being re-queried - that should work? I would have to do a requery of the preferences at the end of the preference record count and then movefirst again - right?

I was trying to dynamically create the preference table but ran into problems with that too - I was thinking of taking the original preference list - as it has things in the order i want - mostly and then making a new table that started off with just the 1st preferences. Then if we got to the end of the record count for the newwork and nothing was assigned - it would go and get the next preference in order for that employee ID and append it to the new preference table.

I am having trouble getting it to append the next preference though - looks like I would have to do a simultaneous count of the current preference query and the new preference table and then append that record into the table when no work was assigned. (ugh!) That would make 3 counters for this program.

Question though - if i open a recordset at the begining and then append records to it as I go along - will Access 'see' those new records without having to requery the recordset? requerying might mess up the order i have for the preferences....