Two forms on the same page drupal

Question

I have a database of clients. Before entering a new client, I want to make sure that that client is not already in the database. So I want to put a search form at the top of my page to search by client number, and client name. Further down the page, I'll have another form to enter and submit the client's information. Would this be the best way to go about something like this? How would you approach this? i'm using drupal 6.

Answer 1

It is better that when the user is inserting a new customer name, an autocomplete shows the names matching the characters inserted by the user; if the user wrote "Mic", and in the database there is a customer with the name "Michael Greenpeace", the autocomplete will show "Michael Greenpeace", and the user will understand there is already a record for that customer.

Even without the autocomplete (which would help the user to understand if the data for the customer has been already inserted in the database, and continue with the next customer), a user that inserted the name of an existing customer should see the existing data; this would help the user to avoid rewriting data that are already updated (customer information need to be updated, sometimes, and not only inserted).