CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I am in the process of setting up a disaster assistance site, and have installed CIVICRM.

I want to import a fairly small (contacts) Excel CSV file.

In looking at several previous posts, I have come to the conclusion that:

1.  I can use Excel's rand function to populate the "Contact Hash" field.
     Source: http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,4179.msg42820.html#msg42820
     "yes, we only care about uniqueness. We use this hash in civimail and in profile when generating urls"

2.  There won't be a possible problem of CIVICRM duplicating a hash later on as it checks for existing values.
     Source: http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,4179.msg42820.html#msg42820 (same page as above).
     "the column (hash and external identifier) in the civicrm_contact table have a unique contraint against it. So the DB takes care of this for us"

As a "newbie", I just want to make sure that import of a CSV with the hash field populated will work fine on all functions required of it.
"hash in civimail and in profile when generating urls"

Thanks for your anticipated help!!

Ron 

Will CIVICRM generate a hash upon upload of a CSV?  If so, I don't have to populate the hash field.

Ron 

Have you needed to use civimail or attempt to generating urls?

I don't know if I would ever need these functions, but as shown in my first post, these functions need hash.

"yes, we only care about uniqueness. We use this hash in civimail and in profile when generating urls"

I just want to be comprehensive and not regret leaving something out later on that comes back to bite me.

Ron 

xavier, I truly appreciate your assistance, but it seems as if we are not addressing my basic questions, I never stated anything about checksum, I don't even know what that is.  I am a newbie, and trying to make sure that if I import a CSV file, I am doing the right thing.

I have a two choices I can make:

1. I can populate the hash field in my CSV file, but want to be sure CIVICRM will handle it properly. 

2. Or, if CIVICRM will automatically populate the field on a CSV import, I don't have to worry about doing that in my CSV.

My question is, will CIVICRM automatically populate the hash filed, if not, will CIVICRM accept my hashed code, and not allow duplicates?

I hope this clarifies my confusion and you can help on this.

Ron 

might be a lot easier and quicker to try and do a few small imports to anwer your question

I think civi will set the hash column if not set

lobo

Just wondering if there was any conclusion to this.

[CONCLUSION]

I have tested this and yes the hash will be generated