Unique ID system - multiple data sources?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jason
  • Start date Start date
J

Jason

I was given a database that has unique IDs for each record such as:

AL00001
AL00002
AL00003
etc

The trouble is, I'm going to need to import data from another source that
will also have IDs such as this and more than likely there are going to be
duplicates. So if I import data that already has an AL00003, how can I get
access to automatically read the table and figure out the latest ID and then
bump it up or update from AL00003 to AL00004?

In this same field the IDs can be anything like AL00001, or CA00001 so I
also want to look at those first two characters and then figure out the max
num thats in the field.

Make sense? I'd like to setup an import query, then run this unique ID/dup
check/update function, then append those temp records into the main table.
Thank you in advance!
 
Hi Jason,

If you are going to get records with the same ID that actually represent
different thingies in the real world, the best thing to do is to create
your own unique IDs - probably by using an Autonumber field. Use these
for all linking and so on within your database. Store the original IDs -
which are unique only within their own domains - for historical
purposes.
 
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