Our organization uses this field to track student ID numbers and avoid duplicate entries. It is vital to our record keeping.

The need for this field is vital to our organization. We use it to store student ID information that is unique to each student to avoid duplicate records when importing. We also need this ID information when communicating with the College to verify we are dealing with the right student. We do not use the same systems, so it is imparative that we have the ablilty for store information in the SS field.

We also use SSN for our college ID (students & staff). We prefer this field b/c it is one of the fields allowed for import and because it only allows a unique entry per constituent, it flags us if we try to enter a constituent who's ID is already in the system. Our IDs stay with students even if they become staff, so it's a wonderful way to confirm that a person is the same and is not a duplicate. Losing this functionality in the move to webview would not be ideal.

Julie's suggestion is exactly accurate - many of my clients use this field for importing staff payroll gifts, and other imports - ability to search and see in web view is important!

Is there a timeline for this to be implemented?

It is one of the important fields to track the duplicate constituent. Highly recommended.