serial numbers excel

[JpBar]

I am an addmissions counselor at a high school. Can excel assign an unique
serial number for each applicant's ID number? Or do I have to use a Bar Code
System? The purpose of the serial number is to prevent fraudulent use of
someone else's acceptance letter. Thanks

[Ron Coderre]

I'm not quite sure what you had in mind, but see if I'm on the right track
here.

You want to append a unique identifier (UID) to each applicant's ID number.
You must be able to independently recalculate that UID to verify the
authenticity of the acceptance letter.

I'm guessing that the odds of a fraudulent applicant having the same
birthday as the intended applicant are less than 1 in 365. Consequently, if
the intended applicant's birthday was the unique identifier, you would have
at least a 99.7% chance of catching fraudulent applicant.
(99.7%=100%-1/365)

Now, just plopping the birthdate at the end of the applicant ID would be too
obvious, so here's my idea:
Convert the intended applicant's birthdate to hexadecimal and use that.

Example:
A1: Applicant ID
A2: 99999999

B1: Birthdate
B2: 01/01/2000 (which is really 36526 to Excel)

C1: AcceptanceID
C2: =A1&"-"&DEC2HEX(B2)
That will display as: 99999999-8EAE

If you include a blank birthdate field on each letter that the applicant is
required to complete, you could easily test the validity of the letter.

Is that something you can work with?

***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP-Pro


"JpBar" wrote:

> I am an addmissions counselor at a high school. Can excel assign an unique
> serial number for each applicant's ID number? Or do I have to use a Bar Code
> System? The purpose of the serial number is to prevent fraudulent use of
> someone else's acceptance letter. Thanks
>