Understanding Person Identifiers

Person Identifiers have many uses in the system. Their main use is to help uniquely identify persons and businesses. Another use is to store other non-uniquely identifying attributes about a person that are better suited to identifiers than they are to person contacts or characteristic. An example is a customer provided password or PIN that is verified before account details are provided.

The installation record defines if and when at least one person identifier is required on persons and businesses. Identifiers can be required when the record is created (always), when linked to an account, when linked to an account as financially responsible, or when linked to an account as the main customer. The system enforces these rules when a person is added or maintained or when persons linked to accounts are maintained. The installation record also defines the default identifier types for person and business records.

When a person identifier is required, the person identifier collection requires that one and only one record is marked as the primary identifier. Identifier types indicate if they can serve as the primary ID and also if they are validated for duplicates. Typically only ID types that should have unique values are configured to validate or duplicates.

Identifier types can be setup to indicate a format such as prefix, delimiter, and value. For example, an identifier for passport can indicate that the country code is the prefix followed by a dash then the passport number. A validation algorithm is provided to ensure all entered data conforms to this format.

Most organizations prefer that the primary identifier is uniquely identifying or a high-quality ID. However, it is not always possible to obtain such an identifier from all customers. The following are two common ways this is handled:

  • An identifier type, such as a PIN, is configured and allowed to be the primary identifier, even if it considered a lesser quality or non-uniquely identifying identifier. These types should not be configured to validate for duplicates as their values are not uniquely identifying.

  • The desired identifier is used, but a value such as all zeros or all nines is entered, indicating that the customer did not provide the value. In this scenario, the system cannot distinguish between an entry with a quality value and an entry with all zeros since the same ID type is used.

Note: Note: the customer service request-based start service process has configuration that allows your organization to differentiate between identifier types that can be primary and those that represent a high-quality ID. Refer to Verifying Identity, Checking Credit and Requiring Deposits for more information on how the start service process uses person identifiers.