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How do I create unique record ID's?

  • January 25, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 388 views
A

Hi,
I’d like each record in my table to have it’s own unique ID.
I’ve tried the “Autonumber” field type, but record numbers don’t stay unique when I filter and change views.
I’m sure there’s probably a simple way to do this … but unfortunately I don’t know how.
Can anybody shed some light please?
Many thanks in advance.
Btw, Airtable is awesome!!

    3 replies

    A
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    • andywingrave
    • Inspiring
    • January 25, 2020

    Hey there, Andy - This should be quite straightforward, because all of your records has its own unique ID, and in order to surface it in your table, you can just use the following formula:

    RECORD_ID()

    Hope that helps!

      A
      • Andy_Foster
      • Author
      • New Participant
      • January 25, 2020

      Hey there, Andy - This should be quite straightforward, because all of your records has its own unique ID, and in order to surface it in your table, you can just use the following formula:

      RECORD_ID()

      Hope that helps!


      Thanks for this, just done it :~)
      The ID’s seem to be quite large complex numbers (eg; recjXtxBLtwLJZcMB)
      is there a way that I can simplify them so that they are just a few characters, for example 3452, MH475, MJ44 etc, something like this?
      Thanks

        A
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        • andywingrave
        • Inspiring
        • January 25, 2020

        So you want it to be unique, but not too unique? :joy:

        Yeah - The best way for you to do this would be just to take the last 5 characters, I guess… But ultimately you’re not going to be able to do much better than what Airtable has done here.

        I’d suggest you combine the last 3 or 4 characters of Airtable’s record ID with another string in your base…I’m not quite sure what your use case here is.

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