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Unique Identifiers (CX)

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About Unique Identifiers

Email addresses can change for many different reasons, so they’re not always a reliable way for Qualtrics to identify CX dashboard users. Thankfully, there is a Unique Identifier column when you add users, which allows you to specify users by whatever identifier your company prefers. You can use anything from numeric IDs to usernames, and in the event you need to change dashboard users’ unique IDs, it’s an easy process.

You have to be both a Project Administrator (often the person who made the dashboard project) and a Brand Administrator to perform the actions described in this section. This means you have access to the User Admin tab.

Attention: Unique Identifiers are case-sensitive!
Qtip: When uploading users with Unique Identifiers enabled, you can add users with the same email address as long as you include another column titled UserName with different values for these users. Without the UserName column, the upload will fail due to duplicate entries.

Identifying Whether Your Brand has Unique Identifiers

Unique identifiers are a feature in all CX licenses started after July 16, 2020.

Qtip: Older brands do not have this functionality. If you are on an existing brand and are interested in switching to unique IDs, you can reach out to your Customer Success Representative to learn more. Unique IDs are not a required feature for many CX licenses, although we recommend it if you’d like to host both CX and EX projects on the same brand. Once you’ve switched, see the Migrating from Email to Unique Identifiers section.

If you’re unsure when your brand was created and whether you have access to this feature already, then no worries – simply follow these steps to see if you have access to unique identifiers:

  1. Go to a Dashboard project.
    Dashboard project on the projects page
  2. Open the User Admin tab.
    User Admin tab of a dashboard opens a list of CX users. On the right of the page is a blue Add Users button
  3. Click Add Users.
  4. Click Manual Input.
    A new window opens. On the right in yellow is "Manual Input"
  5. If there is a Unique Identifier column on the left, your brand has unique identifiers, and you will need to include these every time you upload users to a dashboard.
    Unique Identifier column is the first on the add suers window, followed by email, username, first name, and so on.

Manually Adding Users with Unique Identifiers

When manually adding users, you can add unique IDs in the Unique Identifier column.

Unique Identifier column in the Adding Users window

Enter whatever identifier your company prefers to use in this column.

Attention: You cannot leave the Unique Identifier field blank! Qualtrics will not generate Unique Identifiers for you.

Unique Identifiers can be made of letters, numbers, and/or the at symbol ( @ ), periods ( . ), and underscores ( _ ). The maximum is 100 characters.

Qtip: If you upload more than one person with the same Unique Identifier, only the first person with that Unique Identifier in the list will be added. If you add someone with the same Unique Identifier as an existing user, that user’s information will be updated. Any user attribute updates are immediately reflected in dashboard data restrictions.

Importing Users with Unique Identifiers

When Importing CX Users, download the Example Document. This will contain a UniqueIdentifier column. Do not modify this column name to UniqueID or anything else, or it will not be recognized.

Example CSV file in the window

Enter whatever identifier your company prefers to use in this column.

CSV showing the described columns

Attention: You cannot leave the UniqueIdentifier field blank! Qualtrics is no longer generating Unique Identifiers.

Unique Identifiers can be made of letters, numbers, and/or the at symbol ( @ ), periods ( . ), and underscores ( _ ). The maximum is 100 characters. You have a limit of 200 columns in your import file.

Qtip: If you upload more than one person with the same Unique Identifier, only the first person with that Unique Identifier in the list will be added. If you add someone with the same Unique Identifier as an existing user, that user’s information will be updated. Any user attribute updates are immediately reflected in dashboard data restrictions.

Updating Multiple Users’ Unique Identifiers

You can update Unique Identifiers for many CX users in your brand by using the User Admin tab in any dashboard project.

  1. Go to any Dashboard project.
    Dashboard project on the projects page
  2. Go to User Admin.
  3. Click Tools.
    User admin tab of dashboard. On right of page is a white Tools button; update unique identifiers is the second to last option
  4. Select Update Unique Identifiers.
  5. Download the Example Document.
    Example CSV and Browse button
  6. For each user you want to update, include an oldUniqueID (current Unique Identifier) and a newUniqueID.
    CSV with the columns described
  7. Save your file. Do not change the format from CSV.
  8. Click Browse to upload your CSV.
    Browse button on left of the window; import button blue, bottom-right
  9. Click Import.
Qtip: If you are having trouble uploading your CSV, see the CSV/TSV Upload Issues page.

Updating One User’s Unique Identifier

If you only need to update one user’s Unique Identifier, you can do this by finding them in the Users section of the User Admin tab, and then clicking their name or email.

Searching for and selecting a user in the user admin tab

Click their name. On the left, click into the Unique Identifier’s value and change it as desired.

User info window with Unique Identifier field on the left

Unique Identifiers and SSO Self-Enrollment

If you have Unique Identifiers enabled and would like to use automatic enrollment with SSO, there are a few things to consider.

Your IT team is responsible for establishing your company’s SSO. On your end, you and your team need to create an attribute you’ll use to assign roles. You must also ensure that you have an attribute that is used as Unique Identifier in SSO settings. This should be the same attribute that you use as a Unique Identifier when adding CX users.

When you reach out to Qualtrics to let them know what attribute you will be using for role assignment, make sure you also communicate what your unique identifier attribute is for SSO. In SSO, you should have the same unique ID mapped that you use to upload CX users.

Qtip: If your identity provider cannot pass your chosen unique identifier, then email address can be used as a unique identifier for your brand. We don’t recommend the email address approach for brands that will ever want both EX and CX projects hosted on the same brand. If you are using email addresses as your identifiers, this must be for both CX users and SSO; you cannot use both unique IDs and email addresses as identifiers.

Migrating from Emails to Unique Identifiers

This section is for existing licenses who voluntarily chose to switch from emails to unique identifiers. If you have been using CustomerXM for a while, chances are you are used to the CX user’s email address as the means of identifying them, and have never used a Unique Identifier column. This section will go over the easy process of switching from using emails to unique IDs.

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