This article outlines how External ID is used in Feathr for contact records, and provides guidelines for using External ID correctly when importing data into your Feathr account.
Deduplication of records
Feathr uses External ID as the primary field for deduplicating records. This means that there should be only one unique External ID per person record. If a record has an external ID that matches another record, it will always deduplicate. If two records have conflicting external IDs, they will never deduplicate, even if they have a matching primary email. If you are mapping External ID in your imports, you must remain consistent across all of your imports to avoid duplicate records or erroneous overwriting.
External IDs and Integrations
If you are using an integration with Feathr, that integration may require a specific ID be mapped to Feathr's External ID. For example, Raisers Edge NXT requires the use of "System Record ID", and iMIS requires the use of "Contact Key".
For more information about about mapping fields for Raiser's edge NXT, check out this article.
Best Practices for Importing Historical Data from Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT
For more information about about mapping fields for iMIS, check out this article.
Best Practices for Importing Historical Data from iMIS
If you have an integration not listed, search our help desk for information about that integration.