Crmid

Crmid is the internal identifier used by vtiger-based customer relationship management (CRM) systems to uniquely identify a record. It functions as the primary key in the central entity table and is referenced by other module tables to link related data.

In vtiger and its forks, crmid is typically an auto-incrementing integer stored in the vtiger_crmentity table. The value is global within the database instance and remains stable across module changes. The crmid is distinct from human-friendly display IDs and is used primarily for data integrity, joins, and internal referencing rather than direct user display.

Use in practice involves crmid as the canonical key when querying records and joining module data. For example, a contact may have crmid 102, and related activities or notes reference that same crmid. API calls and data imports often require or return crmid as the definitive reference to a record, enabling consistent cross-module relationships.

Limitations and notes: crmid is an internal key and does not inherently convey information about the record type. In vtiger, another field indicates the module type (setype), while crmid itself identifies the record. Different CRM systems may name this field differently or store keys in separate schemas, though the underlying concept is similar.

Variants: The concept exists in vtiger and similar forks; some systems use different names such as entity_id or record_id, but the purpose remains the same—a unique, cross-module identifier for records.