Square Connect v1 Item ID Changing Across Locations

Question

I have been writing an Square Connect integration that rests on the fact that an item has one and only one ID, even when it is present in multiple locations. After testing with a subset of products on a separate Square account/App, things were working smoothly. I have now pointed the integration at the "real" Square account/App, using that account's credentials, which contains the same subset of products in addition to many others, and the integration is failing. It seems I have many items that now have a unique ID for each location. This means that a single item has multiple IDs. The item only displays once in the Square dashboard, but there are two unique IDs associated with it. In fact, I have one item that has two IDs, yet those IDs share a single variation ID.

I have also noticed two different formats of IDs, which from my research sounds like a variation due to information created pre- and post- a certain date.

Format 1: XXxXxXXX-xxXX-XxXx-XXX-XXXxxxxxxxXX

Format 2: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

I suppose the first question is, is this normal behavior? And if not, any thoughts on what might be causing it and is there a way out of it?

Answer 1

There are some nuances to items with older accounts. Items were originally scoped to a location, which doesn't quite make sense with larger multi-location businesses. Internally we are migrating to a location independent item catalog, which should be invisible to you as an end user (save for the change in formats, like you mentioned) and depending on the date of your account it might have a mix of "old" and "new" item ids. It seems like you have basically a "new" location and an older one.

Basically in our current model you are only guaranteed that items will have unique ids within a location. We are working on new APIs that will allow you to manipulate items across locations more easily.