CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

After reviewing postings about import, I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to reset the external identifier field at the point where you have concluded import activities. You could thus make it a standardized string. Would this have a negative effect on how Civi operates? Or would it only be a problem if you had to go back and reimport some old data.

I guess I'm trying to set the stage for future imports, so that they will work better. The External Identifier appears to be key to successfully importing data.

Thanks for the quick response. Which use cases are affected? I want to be sure that we are using them. For example, if they are part of case management, then they would not apply to us, since we don't use CiviCase. However, if they are part of CiviMail, then I can see the wisdom in leaving them alone. Maybe all I really need to do is make sure every contact has one. (Currently, about 50% of the contacts actually lack external identifiers. That's one reason I was considering a reset.) That won't be as clean as a new enumeration, but it will honor the "sticky data" aspect of previous assignments. I do expect that in many cases, the external identifier is simply the previous version of the contact_id field. In one sense, CiviCRM is keeping a historical record!