Error when updating employee IDs

Question

I'm attempting to do a bulk upload and update our employee IDs, because we got a new HRIS system, so I want everyone's new ID to be reflected. WE have a large org (20,000+ employees) and when I the bulk update, I get 1,000+ errors. All are the "DUPLICATE_ID" code, and it looks like because someone's new ID is the same as someone's old ID... is there an easy way to fix these in bulk without manually fixing all 1,000+ one by one?&nbsp;

wb2026 · Answer

&nbsp;
Unfortunately, there isn’t a single‑step bulk fix when new employee IDs collide with existing (old) IDs.
In Viva Glint, Employee ID must be globally unique at all times. During a bulk upload, if someone’s new employee ID matches any existing employee ID in the system (even if that ID belongs to someone else’s old record), the upload will fail with the DUPLICATE_ID error.
Glint does not automatically reconcile or “swap” IDs during an upload, because Employee ID is a core identifier used across:

Manager hierarchy
Historical survey data
Reporting permissions

However, you may be able to use a two-step workaround to fix this issue:&nbsp;
Step 1: Temporarily free up the old IDs

Run a bulk employee data upload that updates only the existing Employee IDs to a temporary unique value(for example: prefix them with OLD_, TMP_, or append _LEGACY)
This clears the collisions so no current Employee ID matches the incoming new IDs

Step 2:&nbsp;Upload the new HRIS Employee IDs

Run a second bulk upload that replaces the temporary IDs with the final, correct Employee IDs from the new HRIS

Once complete, all employees will have the correct IDs and the hierarchy will recalculate cleanly.

Forum Discussion

Error when updating employee IDs

1 Reply