Every Shapes account includes a built-in Unique Identifier field in the Identification section of Employee Fields. It's a number field that can be configured to automatically assign a sequential ID to each new employee — no manual entry needed.
For more on managing fields generally, see How to add new Employee Fields & Tables and the list of pre-created fields in Shapes.
How to Enable Auto-Incrementing IDs
Go to Account Settings → Employee Fields.
Find the Identification section and click into the Unique Identifier field settings.
Toggle on "Automatically assign IDs to new employees."
From that point on, every new employee added to the system will automatically receive the next available number in the sequence.
Formatting Options
You can set a minimum number of digits (between 3 and 10). For example, with 5 digits enabled, employee #42 will display as 00042. This is useful if you want IDs to always appear as a consistent length.
Good to Know
Deactivated/terminated employees keep their ID.
IDs are only released if an employee is fully deleted from the system.
Existing employees are not affected when you first enable this setting — only new employees added after enabling will receive auto-assigned IDs.