Card Issuing for users

Card Issuing is part of the ALIVE Platform designed for printing and selling cards at individual points of sale, which are properly equipped for direct card printing and selling. Card Issuing is an Internet-based card issuing and database management application available from your web browser that enables you to issue ISIC, ITIC, IYTC, Scholar and Staff cards.

Terminology:

To log in into the application, please go to http://www.aliveplatform.com/ . Choose Card Issuing module (application in green colour) and click on the “Launch application” button. Put Your user name and password into the blank fields and click on “Sign in” button. If your credentials are OK, you will enter into the application.

Logged in as Head Agent user, you can:

• work with serial numbers

• assign serial numbers to Branches

• export Issued Cards to .xlsx file

• check sales

• view information about your Branches

Logged in as Head Agent user, you can’t:

• issue cards (only Branches can do that)

Open

On left side of your environment, you see main menu. All items which will be described in following tutorial are in this menu or in its submenus. On right side, you can find some useful links and tutorials about the application. At the bottom of your environment, there is a list of most recently issued cards.  

Working with serial numbers

In Inventory->Serial Ranges, there are all Serial numbers which were assigned to you and which you can work with. The list has following important columns:

• Distributor: Branch, to which the Serial Range is assigned.

• Serial Range: First and last number of the range.

• Card Type: To which Card Type is the Serial Range assigned.

• Design Name: To which Design is the Serial Range assigned.

• Preprinted: Are the serial numbers preprinted or not?

• Status: Is the range already in use?

• Total/Available: Total number of serial numbers in the range/number of available (not yet used) serial numbers.

If you want a Branch to be able to issue cards, you must assign some serial numbers to it. How to do it? First of all, you have to possess some available Serial Ranges in the Inventory. If you don’t have them, you have to order them from ISIC authority in your country. Do it through “Orders“ in left vertical main menu. Click on “New Order” button and in the form, specify the amount of numbers you want to order and click “Send Order”. Your ISIC authority should get your message and assign the serial numbers to you. 

Now, in your Inventory, you possess enough serial numbers and you can assign them to one (or more) of your Branches. This can be done using green arrow in the “Actions” column (on the right). See picture below and click it to enlarge. When you click the arrow, from drop-down menu, select your Branch that should obtain these numbers and click on “Move Range” button. You will get the message that the range was relocated. From this moment on, this Branch can use these numbers and issue cards.

Sometimes it happens that you must remove Serial Range from a Branch and relocate it to another Branch or return it to Inventory. In such case, in the Inventory->Serial Ranges, click again on the green arrow in the right column of the list and choose a Branch that the serial number should be moved to.

Splitting & joining

Now, please go back to Inventory->Serial Ranges and look at the “Actions“ column. Beside the green arrow icon, there are two more icons which haven’t been described yet. You can see a “scissors” icon. This icon splits serial range into pieces and once done so, the pieces can be assigned to different Branches. The “glue” icon does exactly the opposite – you can stick two serial ranges into one.

Issued Cards

In “Issued Cards” (in the vertical main menu), you see all cards that have been issued by your Branches. Using filtering fields (for example combination of Cardholder name and Distributor name), it is possible to find particular card if you don’t know its exact Serial Number. Just put appropriate information into the fields and then push “Filter” button.

Exporting Issued Cards to .xlsx file

All cards issued by your Branches can be exported into an excel file (.xlsx). Go to Issued Cards and at the top of the table, you find “Export Issued Cards” button. In case you can’t see such a button, it means that this possibility is probably not allowed to you. Contact ISIC authority in your country and ask them to allow it for you.

Checking sales

Go to Sales Overview and you find a list of your Branches. In an easy to read table, you see all your Branches and the numbers of issued cards, divided into groups according to the card type. Clicking on header names, the table could be sorted. This way, in one second you can identify which Branches are crucial for your business.

A Branch is an endpoint where cards are issued and given to customers. Usually, Branches are located on places with high concentration of students.

Logged in as Branch user, you can:

• issue cards (plastic cards, virtual cards, both types)

• print welcome letters and give them to customers

  On left side of your environment, you see the main menu. All items which will be described in following tutorial are in this menu or in its submenus. On right side, manuals and other useful materials are to be found. At the bottom, there is a list of most recently issued cards.

How to issue cards

This course assumes that everything you need for card issuing is already well set up. If not, contact ISIC authority in your country to do so. Important: When ISIC authority assigns new serial numbers to you, you will get the message on your dashboard. You have to confirm that you got the serial numbers. Unless you do the confirmation, you won’t be able to use these serial numbers! Now, imagine the situation that a customer comes to you and wants to have a new card issued. How will you proceed? In vertical left menu, click on “Card Issuing”. In next step, choose which card type you want to issue.

  Choose the card form (Virtual Card, Virtual and Plastic Card). Which type you can choose depends on your settings. In this tutorial, we will issue ITIC, “Virtual and Plastic Card”.

Next step is the most difficult one, because you have to fill in all fields in the form. All fields with an asterisk are mandatory.

In “Card Details“ window, choose card design (maybe there is only one design, so you don’t need to choose anything). Serial Number – in this case, we are going to issue card with preprinted serial number. So, into the empty field, you have to put the serial number which is preprinted on the plastic card. You can type this number manually. However, you can do it using a Copy&Paste way if you want. Open new tab in your web browser (to not to cancel your form) and go to Inventory->Serial Ranges. Go to the details of the serial range and from there, you can copy the serial number of the card you are going to issue (see the picture below).

  When you use non preprinted serial numbers, you don’t need to bother with this issue. The serial number for your card will be chosen automatically from free serial numbers. In such a case, “Serial Number” column in your form is not visible. After filling in all information into the columns, click on “Issue Card” button. At this moment, Card Issuing software connects to your card printer/label printer and after you confirm preview, the card/card label will be printed. Check the card once again. If it is OK, confirm that it was issued correctly by clicking on “Yes, save card” button. At this moment, the information about the card is sent to the database and the card can be found among “Issued Cards” in vertical main menu.

If you use a label printer, insert the label under plastic foil, add card holder’s photo and complete the card manually.   How to adjust your card printer settings It can happen that your card printer/label printer has some special needs and that default print setting doesn’t work properly. In this case, please go to “Card Print Settings“ in left vertical menu. In the list, there are all items that will be printed on your card. Of course, only items with checkbox checked will be printed. Every item has its position in millimetres. The position is defined from the top and from the left side of card edge. Before you change position of some item, from drop down menu, select Card Type and Part Number (Design) which you are going to change. After that, change positions that you need to be changed and press “Save Settings” button.

After these changes, try your new settings. Click on “Print Test Card” button and check whether the positions of all items are correct. Sometimes, problems in positioning while printing are caused by the fact that in your web browser settings, printing of headers and footers is allowed. In this case, the whole printed picture is a bit smaller and it doesn’t fit into your card design. To avoid this, please do following steps (the steps are described for Google Chrome web browser). After clicking on “Press Test Card” button, window with a print thumbnail and print settings appears. Click “More settings” option and after that, uncheck “Headers and footers” checkbox. After doing so, the printed area should have correct dimensions.

Printing Welcome Letters

Welcome letter is a confirmation for your customer, that the card was succesfully issued and that it is valid. Especially when your cards are only virtual, welcome letter can serve as an evidence for your cutomer that the whole process has run without errors and that the card really exists.

Click on “Generate Welcome Letter” button to generate and download .pdf version of Welcome letter. As a second step, print this letter and give it to your customer. In case the letter contains some errors or the letter template is not set up at all, please contact ISIC authority in your country and ask them to fix it.  

Card cancelling

If the card was not printed succesfully or if there is another problem, you as the Branch user can cancel/delete the issued card using the “red cross“ icon in the Actions column (in “Issued Cards“). If you choose “Card is ready for next use“, the serial number will be returned back to the Inventory automatically and you can use the card again. You can make cancellation up to 48 hours after the card was issued. After 48 hours, only ER-User (ISIC authority in your country) can do it. Please ask them  to do so if you need a cancellation.