External identifiers help you connect participant data in Rival with identifiers from external systems — such as CRM IDs, loyalty numbers, or panel member IDs. They ensure responses collected in Rival can be matched back to the same participant record across other platforms.
1. What Are External Identifiers
External identifiers are attributes used to store a unique participant reference from another system.
They are managed under the External Identifiers tab in the Attributes section of the Participants / Community area.
Each external identifier represents a single data field (for example,
crm_id,panelist_id, ormember_number).Values can be imported during migration or bulk updates, allowing you to link existing participants from other systems.
Important:
External identifier values must be unique across all participants in a community.
You can import external identifier values during community setup or migration to maintain existing mappings from other systems.
2. When to Use External Identifiers
External identifiers are useful whenever you need to connect or synchronize Rival participant data with information stored elsewhere. Common use cases include:
Maintaining records between Rival and external CRMs or databases
Use external identifiers to link Rival participant profiles with records in systems such as Salesforce, HubSpot, or a client’s proprietary CRM. This ensures survey data collected in Rival maps back to existing customer records, enabling a unified participant view.
Tracking participants from external survey vendors
When participants are sourced from external panel providers or survey vendors, use external identifiers to store their vendor-assigned IDs. If the same vendor is used for multiple projects within the same community or research domain, this allows Rival to recognize returning participants and prevent duplicate records.
Migrating existing communities into Rival
During community migration from another platform, external identifiers preserve original participant IDs. This ensures data continuity and prevents loss of linkage between old and new systems.
3. Using External Identifiers for Tracking and Linking Data
External identifiers act as a bridge between Rival and external systems, helping maintain consistency and synchronization across datasets.
You can use them to:
Match participants across Rival studies and external databases using the same ID.
Merge data from Rival exports with CRM or operational datasets.
Recontact participants for follow-up studies using known external IDs.
This enables seamless data integration and ongoing participant management across different systems.
4. Passing External Identifiers into Chat Surveys
When distributing a chat through a link, external identifiers can be passed into Rival using query parameters.
To learn how to configure and pass external identifiers step-by-step, refer to the dedicated guide:
5. Using External Identifiers in Chat Exports
All configured external identifiers are available to include in chat exports.
Chat Exports
When setting up an export, include your external identifiers as columns.
These identifiers appear alongside participant responses and can be used to link Rival data to other systems.
For detailed steps, see the Exports guide.