How to create unique IDs based on users names?

[Felix]

Hi everyone,

I want to create 'user friendly' IDs using names to create unique IDs. eg. John Smith would SMIJ01, and the second John Smith would be SMIJ02

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to how to do this with triggered actions?

Thanks!

EDIT: I'm not sure how robust it is but think I figured it out.

Created an 'ID building block' column

This is populated by a 'update #inserted' trigger action (concatenate first 3 letters of last name and first letter of surname)

Then immediately followed by a second 'update #inserted' trigger action to concatenate the 'building block' with a count of pre-existing blocks that match. Creates a series of unique IDs based on the surname/first name.

If anyone has a more elegant solution I would love to know

[telly]

Hi @Felix,

What I did was add a formula field and use left and right text function and set the field as unique:

Combining the first character of the First Name field and the last character of the Last Name and combined the autonumber value:

Sample formula: Left([@field:FirstName], 1) + right([@field:LastName], 1) + CONVERT(VARCHAR, [@field:ID])

 

Hope this helps

[telly]

Hi @Felix,

By the way you can check this helpful article for the function: https://howto.caspio.com/function-reference/

You can adjust the number of the character that you want to fetch on the left or right string.

[futurist]

Hi @Felix

You can actually just have one update block that determines the value of the unique username, so that if its the first instance of combination, 1 will be appended to it, and if not, it will be appended by the number based on the number of existing records that has the same combination, plus 1.

 

Hope this helps!

 

 

 

[Felix]

Thanks @telly! That is much better than what I had devised (which started to break once the table was updated).

 

[Felix]

Thanks @futurist!