Hi Andrew - your question. I am trying to do the same also in php. Did you come across a solution for your question? Basically I want to keep a foreign_reference to the old record id so I can update it or create it.

Currently I am considering to alter that table to add a "_foreign_reference" field which will hold that old key so I can either create or update if the record is imported or not.

Also I am considering to do direct SQL queries into the database instead of utilizing the API. is this an accepted solution? For example I want to add or update a res_partner record. I could utilize the API or I could do a direct SQL query. If I do the direct SQL query, would something be missed? I am assuming that Odoo would probably fire some event when using the API. Or should I not worry?

Thank you kindly...

I don't use PHP.

External ID's are not created unless you import or export data, so your newly created records won't have them.

In Python, you would create a dictionary containing the model, module, name and res_id (of the record you just created), then add a new entry in the ir_model_data model.