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COURSE DESCRIPTION This course describes how to start using batch card printing features in NCDB. You’ll be able to print your cards directly from your web browser. Before you start, it is advisable to have a look at “How to process NCDB Orders” and “How to work with Online Ordering application” |
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🖨 WHAT IS BATCH CARD PRINTING?
What is Batch Card Printing? Batch card printing is a way of printing non-chip cards directly from your web browser. The only thing you need is a card printer connected to your computer, your NCDB and an up-to-date version of standard web browser. Batch card printing feature prints data for each card on one page of a .pdf file. From this .pdf file, you print data directly on your cards. Note that if your cards contain any kind of contactless chip, using Batch card printing isn’t good way for you. Batch card printing supports bardcodes (several types) and QR codes, into which you can encode your data.
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Rotation – text rotation. Please make sure your design meets ISO standards before you overuse rotation.
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Important note: when the defined width of the placeholder is too short, the text that goes outside its borders will be cropped. Take this into account when defining your placeholders! In case you want to delete the placeholder, just mark it with your mouse and click “Remove Placeholder” button. |
✅ Custom fields
Custom fields are special type for optional data that can be defined differently to fit needs of every card issuer. Through custom fields, basically any value or more values can be attached to a specific card holder or card. This can be for example name of study course, student ID, blood group, card serie etc. Custom fields should reflect the “real world” – information that are tied to a person should be bound to cardholders, whereas information tied to card should be defined as card bound. Values for custom fields can be added using the API for external issuers (most recommended way for External Issuers), or manually in edit mode of cardholders/cards.
How to define new custom fields? Custom fields can be defined in NCDB -> Cards Issuers -> Custom Fields
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Uniqueness of ‘Personal ID’ and usage of custom fieldsAs behaviour of the ‚Personal ID‘ parameter which is a part of cardholder data. This parameter needs to be unique on a card issuer level. That means there cannot be two cardholders with identical personal IDs under one card issuer. If a card issuer tries to insert a duplicate value in this field, he will receive an error. |
When creating a new custom field, several things need to be defined:
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Below is the picture how to assign your custom field to a text placeholder when creating new card design. All accessible custom fields are displayed and you can just click them to add. You can also put more custom fields into one placeholder, even in combination with standard text. We are aware that Custom fields problamatic is complex and the short text above doesn’t cover it completely. In case you have some specific questions about custom fields and how to use them, feel free to ask us using our Service Desk (support@gtsalivesupport@aliveplatform.com)
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IMAGE For “Image” placeholder, from the drop-down menu, three different types can be chosen:
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If you want this Card Design to become the default one, in left vertical menu, go to Licence Management –> Card Designs and click on “Default Designs” button. In drop down menus, you can define default Card Designs for different types and forms of cards. Again, don’t forget to save your changes.
💳 BATCH CARD PRINTING
Batch card printing feature is available for ER users (ISIC authority in each country) and personalization center users. Logged in as user of personalization center, please navigate to Orders –> Batch Card Printing page. The list shows you all plastic card order entries (new cards, duplicates) of the orders which are in “In Production“ status and were not marked as printed yet. You can filter out records by your needs using the filter options. To reset the filter please click “Reset filter“ link.
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Individual Card Printing Every plastic card with associated card design can be individually re-printed from the card detail (Cards –> Card List –> Card Detail) by clicking the “Print Card“ button. When you hover mouse over this button and wait a while a card preview will be shown.
💻 LABEL PRINTING
Although it is not recommended, it is still possible for your Personalization Center to use label printer to print labels for cards. Imagine the following situation: in NCDB, you have just processed the order and you sent it to Personalization Center to print the cards. However, for whatever reason, you need to print only the card labels. How can you do it? Log into the account of Personalization Center and go to Orders -> Order List. Find the “Unprocessed Entries Export” button and press it. The system will download an excel file with all entries, that are ready for printing (each line is one entry – it means one card).
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Using the information from this excel file, you can print labels for your cards. This process includes connecting the excel file with a text editor like MS Word and creating the design of your labels there. The process of connecting MS Excel to MS Word will not be described in this tutorial, help can be found on the web. When the labels are printed, you have to tell NCDB that the print was succesfully done. This can be done through importing the modified excel “Unprocessed Entries Export” that you downloaded in previous step. Into this excel file, to the “Process result” column, write “OK” (see the picture). This way, the system will know that labels for these cards were already printed. After saving this file, import it back to NCDB (still logged in as Personalization Center user) using the “Import processed” button. At this moment, the cards that you marked with “OK” should disappear from Batch Card Printing completely and they should appear in NCDB among other issued cards.
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Note: custom fields cannot be printed through label printing, but only through standard Batch Card Printing described in previous section. |
🖨️ The Personalization Center
The Personalization Center is a restricted interface for an external company that prints ID cards in your country. Under the given personalization centre, you will create a user who has access to orders intended for printing but does not have the right to edit information. The PC user confirms that the card has been printed, and the order status automatically changes to the final status.
The Personalization Center is set at the NCDB - Settings - Personalization Centers
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Use the plus button to add a new personalization centre or use the pencil button to edit the existing one.
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The Personalization Center must always have the "Active" box checked |
Users of the Personalization Center
Each personalization centre must have its own users (usually the company that prints your IDs or you if you print them yourself)
You add users using the head icon in the overview of personalization centres. Fill in the required information. The user must have the checked boxes active and access to orders.In the user Roles section, always select the Personalization Center role The user then logs in to the NCDB Alive Platform via the classic login page. The user of the personalization centre only sees an overview of orders and print orders, which he can mark as printed. It does not have access to other data in the NCDB and cannot make changes to the data.
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A view of the NCDB from the personalization centre user's side
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