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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-08T16:29:26+00:00

I’ve been given the task of combining 7 databases into one legacy system that

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I’ve been given the task of combining 7 databases into one legacy system that will only hold static data.

So what I want to do is add a prefix of two letters to the identity field of each table so that I can see by the ID of which database it originally came from e.g.

StaffID = 1 in the old database, in the new single database I want it to look like this StaffID = AB1. This is also to get rid of the problem of users in all seven databases having the same StaffID (Along with other ID Fields).

Is there a quick and easy way of doing this? Or do you guys think there is a better solution?

Cheers!

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  1. Editorial Team

    Quick and easy; not really. If you want to update the existing IDs, instead of creating a new column to refer to:

    • First, you’ll need to change any ID fields that are numeric (int, etc.) into a varchar field to hold the new key. The varchar would need to be of an appropriate size to hold the largest ID plus the prefix.

    • You would also need to convert any foreign key fields from a numeric field to a varchar field of an appropriate size.

    • Finally, you would need to import the data into the new database, appending the prefix to any primary keys and foreign keys.

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