Automatically creating an alphanumeric number for each new entry

Question

I have setup a JSON feed to allow single sign-on to another system. Currently the entry_id and email are used as part of the URL string to access the 3rd party system, but this number could be guessed. I would like to provide some security by outputting an alphanumeric string as one of the fields, and using this in the URL instead.

Is it possible to have such a string created automatically in a new field when an entry is created? Are there other options for implementing this type of security?

So currently the single sign-on URL looks something like:

http://example.com/SingleSignOn/Microsite?externalId=123_someemail@foo.com

Where externalId is a combination of the entry_id and email address of the user.

I want it to be more like:

http://example.com/SingleSignOn/Microsite?externalId=983FFC60-90DB-4527-81FD-831F4C4AD5B3

I'm not sure where to start - any advice or suggestions welcome.

Answer 1

If you are using EE4 then you could use the built-in encrypt / decrypt variable modifiers. So your template entry could end up with something like this perhaps:

{path='SingleSignon/Microsite'}?externalId={entry_id:encrypt}{email:encrypt}

HTH