You are right, good skill to have. Everything is in a DB these days and all RDBMS work pretty much the same, so anything you learn is fairly generic knowledge. CREATE TRIGGER <trigger_name> ON <table_name> FOR INSERT AS DECLARE @pk int DECLARE @link varchar(20) SELECT @pk = (SELECT pk_id FROM Inserted) SELECT @link = (select substring(birthdate,1,2) + substring(birthdate,4,2) + substring(birthdate,7,2) + right(ssn,4) FROM Inserted) UPDATE <table_name> SET linkid = @link WHERE pk_id = @pk ok, I am rusty at SQL Server, I have been using mySQL for a while, so this may not be quite right, but should give you the idea. Basically the "As" part will execute whenever a row is inserted. the "Inserted" field is special temp table sql server makes with fields from last insert. replace "pk_id" with your primary key field http://www.informit.com/guides/content.asp...&seqNum=70&rl=1 what polices and guildlines do you have to follow that prohibit correct DB design?