Here's an example of how I've used HashIds to create a non-numeric identifier for Django models based on their `id`.

hashids-mixin.py

import hashids

class HashidsMixin(object):
    """Add a unique 'identifier' mapped from the 'id' field of a django model."""

    # Updating this salt would change every identifier for all instances of
    # every model. This is probably a bad idea, so it should probably never
    # ever change. It's not used for security -- just a little bit of extra
    # obfuscation to the numbering.
    __HASHIDS_SALT = "20OGoZ5KsC"

    @classmethod
    def __hashids(cls):
        if not hasattr(cls, "__hashid_instance"):
            cls.__hashids_instance = hashids.Hashids(
                # We stick to the plain alphabet because we can't risk
                # having identifiers that start with numerals (I think
                # It'd break somebody's rules somewhere).
                alphabet="abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz",
                # Tagging the class name onto the salt guarantees that
                # the counting system is different for each class.
                salt=cls.__HASHIDS_SALT + cls.__name__,
                # Four seems reasonable, it'll be a long time before it
                # jumps to five digits, and the identifiers look 'meaty'
                # which adds to their inscrutability
                min_length=4,
            )
        return cls.__hashids_instance

    @classmethod
    def decode_identifier(cls, string):
        """Decode the integer from an identifier.

        >>> app.models.MyModel.decode_identifier('asnf')
        1

        Although hashids lets you encode multiple ids, we always assume
        we're only receiving exactly one, and anything else will be
        ignored.
        """
        ids = cls.__hashids().decode(string)
        return None if len(ids) != 1 else ids[0]

    @property
    def identifier(self):
        return self.__hashids().encode(self.id)