Row ID alternative

Is there a way to generate a ID number in glide but not by using Row ID

They can’t be duplicates though

Thanks in advance

It depends how you’re adding rows — there is a Unique Identifier special value that can be used.

It would need to be done for every new user.

E.g.
1902543
2234654

To my knowledge, the only way to add a unique identifier to the user profile sheet as soon as someone logs in for the first time would be to use a RowID.

If you can make the process part of your onboarding of new users — for example, if a user is asked to complete a process when they first log in — you could add a unique identifier special value to that process that would get added to that user’s row.

Is there a reason RowID can’t be used?

RowID is a really useful code but in this case its to long and it would look better if it was just numbers

I have a idea now thanks for your help

Returns a uniformly random integer between two values, inclusive.
Google Sheets - RANDBETWEEN

Will this accidentally create double-ups etc?

I would think that RANDBETWEEN could always have the potential to return duplicates and would constantly change, unless you are somehow building in logic to save that random value…and even then, it would have to somehow allow multiple users to get a unique random number at the same time

I think the safest bet for a short and unique random number would be some kind of mathematical logic that uses the date and time in combination with a number generated from part of a user’s name and a global number that gets incremented, and combines all of those numbers together. Still not fool proof, but much less likely to run into duplicate ID numbers.

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I have previously used Integromat to hold a number and increment for each Login but that does of course require a 3rd party service (if you’re not using it already).

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