We use the students UCAS number as their Constituent ID, when student data is brought across from our in-house student records database. Currently, we don't automatically generate any constituent IDs. Instead we have a printed spreadsheet to allocate Constituent ID's for other non-alumni records. I think this is inefficient. It would be straightforward to get RE to generate Cons ID numbers from a starting number that won't interfere with the UCAS numbers. However, my main concern is when I import the student data into RE with their UCAS numbers will this conflict with the Con ID numbers RE automatically generates. Or can I simply switch off the autogenerate option before I do the import.

 Any comments on how other institutions do this would be appreciated.

 
Cyrus Bulsara

Database Marketing Manager

University of Kent
 

When you import the records any constituent id you give will take precedence over the automatically generated one so you have no need to worry with that one. I would definitely recommend starting the automatic constituent ids at a value greater than the UCAS numbers.

David