Object IDs

This page covers Object IDs, one of the Advanced Concepts that are useful for anyone using Glencoco's platform, general CRMs, or are otherwise data-oriented.

In object-oriented programming, structured databases, and CRMs, Object IDs are an important concept.

Definition(s)

• Object IDs are a special type of Object Attributes. This is what uniquely identifies and differentiates between different object records, or instances.

• A classic example of this is in action is a person's legal name. While legal names are distinct, they are not necessarily unique, and so governments typically issue Social Security Numbers instead as the person's unique Object IDs.

• Object IDscan be Integer, Decimal or Text, but are most commonly Text.

Examination of Different unique ID approaches

Person (object)

• Social Security Number

  • ✅ Pros: always associated with a person. government guarantees uniqueness

  • ☹️ Cons: sensitive/private information. not realistic to store for database operations. person may not give it out.

• Email Address

  • ✅ Pros: typically only associated with a person, email service providers guarantee uniqueness. Easy to visually associate with a person

  • ☹️ Cons: A person may have multiple email addresses, creating duplicate instances of the same person if they sign up with different emails.

• UUID

  • ✅ Pros: industry standard, and designed for IDs.

  • ☹️ Cons: Not visually easy for a human to tie back/associate with a person.

Company (object)

• TaX EIN

  • ✅ Pros: always associated with a company. government guarantees uniqueness

  • ☹️ Cons: often can't be generated/easily inferrable/collected for company signups.

• Website Domain

  • ✅ Pros: typically only associated with one company. DNS registry guarantees uniqueness. Easy to visually associate with a company.

  • ☹️ Cons: A company may have multiple websites or email domains. If a domain is not renewed, another company can take/claim the domain.

• UUID

  • ✅ Pros: industry standard, and designed for IDs.

  • ☹️ Cons: Not visually easy for a human to tie back/associate with a person.