Contact ID incrementation

[lvermeulen]

Hello there, 


I have a question regarding contact ID incrementation. It seems that everytime that I'm adding a contact into my Hubspot CRM, the contact ID is +50 than the previous contact. But sometimes I also see some contact with +1 thant the previous one. 

Is there any rule regarding the incrementation of the contact ID? Does it depend from the source (+50 import, +1 API, ...)  I would prefer to have +1 instead of +50, is there a way to manage that part ? 



Many thanks ! 

Louis

[MFrankJohnson]

We have access to the HubSpot Contact ID (vid) via contact exports and the via the HubSpot Contacts API. However, we have no ability to manipulate the creation of vids in the portal.

[lvermeulen]

Thank you for the answer ! 

However, do you know what is the rule ? why is +50 or + 1 ? 


Best

[MFrankJohnson]

Could find no docs regarding vid creation 'rules'. Maybe HubSpot knows.

cc: @Derek_Gervais, @jennysowyrda 

[Derek_Gervais · Accepted solution]

Hey @MFrankJohnson , thanks for the tag. 

@lvermeulen , contact vids are generated and assigned automatically, and the process isn't configurable. Each contact in a HubSpot account has a permanent auto-generated vid.

Regarding how vids are assigned: I checked in with my team, and it turns out the process that generates vids is something that we don't publicly document. It's not a secret, but it's something that we've changed before (and will likely change again) so it's important that integrators or customers don't make any assumptions as to how contacts will be asigned vids.

Currently, brand new contact vids jump by ~50, and the vids in between are used to track visitors before they become contacts. Like I mentioned above, this isn't set in stone and it's almost certainly going to change in the future.

I hope this was helpful; let me know if you have any other questions here!

[lvermeulen]

Thank you for the answer, it's clear for me now ! 


Many thanks again 🙂

[Eileen_N]

Hey @Derek_Gervais , 

I do have a follow-up question on this topic. The id is always an increment, is it? So in case I delete a contact its id will still never be available again for new contacts?

[Derek_Gervais]

Hey @Eileen_N ,

Yes, that is the case. But like I said, I would strongly discourage building anything that depends on the behavior of vids. The only thing we guarantee right now is that vids are numerical, and they'll fit into a long. Even those two details, as unlikely as they are to change, aren't strictly set in stone.