Multiple Alternative Lookup IDs

Aimee Fitzgerald
Aimee Fitzgerald
Name Dropper Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud CRM™ General Discussions

Hello! We store multiple alt IDs to assist in matching and deduping when loading records. We typically have IDs from our student/admissions system, student/financial aid, athletics ticketing, HR system, patient system, and a few others. (we have 11 active types.)

What is frustrating is that we have to append a suffix (eg: -A for athletics or -H for HR) because we can't seem to be able to have IDs with the same value, even though they are a different type. So a 7-character ID of 1234567 of Athletic type, can't exist if there is a 1234567 of HR type.

This creates problems for our users if they are trying to load a selection using the alt lookup Id, which happens a lot more than you would think. They have to manipulate the ID column, concatenate etc to get the “right” ID type - and we've even further complicated things because we added an additional appendage for our Athletic Ids of -001 or -002 because households share the same IDs.

How does everyone else deal with this??

Comments

  • Alan French
    Alan French
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    @Aimee Fitzgerald I can't replicate this problem in our database (service pack 35). BBCRM allows me to enter the same value ID as long as I use different types, whether they're both on the same constituent or on different constituents. In fact the error message I get when deliberately trying to enter a duplicate ID with the same type explicitly says "The lookup ID must be unique for the selected type" so I don't think what you're describing is intended behaviour. Maybe log a ticket with support? What happens when you do try and enter an ID that already exists under a different type?

  • Aimee Fitzgerald
    Aimee Fitzgerald
    Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Alan French - Thanks for this. My team had tried removing the appended code prior and gotten errors - but after your message, we tried again in one of our lower level environments and did not get an error.

    It's good to know that this is not intended behavior! It seemed a little counterintuitive that a different type should cause a problem.

    Maybe the BB gnomes were at work in the background. Either way, appreciate the response!

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