One of the most powerful yet under-leveraged functions in GoldMine is the LOOKUP.INI, which has been available since the good old days of GoldMine for Windows. Think of it as a script file that GoldMine uses to update fields automatically. A “poor-mans” SQL trigger, if you will. It can also be used to “default” values on new contact records.
Let us suppose we want to make every newly entered record a “Prospect” by putting that value in our Key1 field.
If you have no LOOKUP.INI, then we must create one. Open Notepad and paste in the following text:
[AutoUpdate] NewRecord=Key1 [Key1] Otherwise=ProspectThe NewRecord entry under the [AutoUpdate] header specifies what fields should be evaluated when a new record is created.
Then the process skips to [Key1], the first item in our list.
When evaluating Key1, GoldMine then uses the Otherwise value, as no other instructions exist under [Key1].
As Otherwise=Prospect, the value of “Prospect” is autofilled into the Key1 field upon record creation.
You can add more default fields/values to your Lookup.Ini thusly;
[AutoUpdate] NewRecord=Key1, Key2 [Key1] Otherwise=Prospect [Key2] Otherwise=House AccountWhen you are finished creating your Lookup.Ini, save it into your GoldMine folder with the specific name “Lookup.Ini”, then restart GoldMine to affect the changes.
ProTip: Lookup.INI instructions are also processed when importing contact records.
