Customer Key (cst_key)

The cst_key is the primary key or identifier of a specific NetForum Customer.

NetForum is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, and therefore the cst_key is the single most important database column in netFORUM as it identifies the customers.

The cst_key column is a av_key User-defined data type based on the 36-character uniqueidentifer base type. It is the primary key of the co_customer table.

The cst_key is also known as Customer Key. In eWeb, {CustomerKey} is used as a parsed value that indicates the cst_key of the eWeb Login, which is an individual who has logged in.

An individual is a customer in NetForum. An organization and a chapter are also customers in NetForum, and these records have a customer key as well.

A customer also has a Customer Number which is typically like this 0000076568I or perhaps only the integer portion 76568 depending on the implementation. This ID is stored in cst_id and is based on the integer identity column cst_recno. When communicating with customers, the Customer Number is used as a Member ID since it's obviously more user-friendly, but for any data processing or T-SQL, the customer key is the pivotal column.

Database

In NetForum, the following records have a customer key:

• Individual based on co_individual.ind_cst_key as a foreign key and primary key
• Organization based on co_organization.org_cst_key as a foreign key and primary key
• Chapter based on co_chapter.chp_cst_key as a foreign key and primary key

The Customer Key is also a Foreign Key column in many NetForum tables. For example, in co_individual_x_organization, this table has two columns that contain foreign keys that store cst_key values, the ixo_ind_cst_key and the ixo_org_cst_key.