This article explains an overview of the ChicagoID.

Much of the business of administration of the University is managing information about its people. Large central systems like Payroll, Gargoyle, and Griffin, their Divisional counterparts, and myriads of departmental shadow systems, exist to enable management of a variety of programs and administrative functions at all levels.

The ChicagoID was designed to be used to indicate who a record in any of our systems pertains to; it is 8 digits followed by a letter (e.g., 12345678A). Everyone connected with the University is automatically assigned one: faculty, staff, students, hospital employees, lab school students beyond 6th grade, alumni; almost anyone for which there is any need to create a digital record. This is achieved by authoritatively housing the ChicagoID in the Master Constituency Database (MCDB), which is also the system of record for the CNetID.