FAQ
In this article, we will briefly describe solutions to the most frequently asked questions about the ALIVE Platform.
How can I test the ALIVE Platform?
You can find the test installation of the ALIVE Platform on https://test.aliveplatform.com , this environment can be used for the testing of the system. If you don't have access to the test environment, please contact us at support@aliveplatform.com and we'll be happy to create the account for you.
How to create a new user in the NCDB for a new team member?
In NCDB Go to Users -> Users list -> Add User
You should fill in all required information here, such as login details, name and email, and you will also set up Application Access Rights and User roles and Notifications here.
The password is the same for all Alive Platform modules
Passwords differ only for production and testing environments.
Which type of Serial Ranges is needed for Online Ordering?
For Online Ordering, you should ask ISO for “NCDB Orders“ Serial Range.
Where can I change the prices of cards for Online Ordering?
Solution of this problem is in NCDB -> Card Issuers -> Price Lists. Go to “Online Ordering" price list and edit it.
If you want to add other card variants to the Online Ordering menu In “Allowed request types" window, you have to define which card types and other items will be available in the first step of Online Ordering form.
What are the other types of serial ranges?
If you are publishing as an external publisher, you must select the external publisher option when creating a new serial range.
If you are issuing as Card Issuing, select this option.
If you issue any other way you choose NCDB orders.
How can I export card orders from Online Ordering module to NCDB?
Go to “Card Orders“ and press “Export to NCDB“ button. Only orders in status “Approved“ will be exported. You’ll get a message whether the export was successful or whether there was a problem.
What should I do if an export error occurred?
The export error has the most common cause in duplicate requests. For example, if you have one customer with the same
personal data will create multiple orders.
The export will not take place if one of the customers has an unprocessed card in Batch card printing
The export crashes if one of the customers incorrectly fills in the email with accents
If you are unable to detect the error at first glance, please contact our support team to help to resolve the issue.
IMPORTANT: Even in the case of a failed export, an order is created in the NCBD - either empty or with part of the orders from the given export. This order needs to be processed manually in its detail.
When a customer uploads to Online Ordering form a photo in poor quality, will he/she be contacted by the system automatically?
No, at the moment, the e-mails are not sent automatically. You have to send them manually and to describe to your customers what’s wrong with their orders.
How often does the system send notifications when someone doesn’t pay for his/her order?
The customer receives two e-mails: in 7 and in 14 days. For a maximum period of two months. These e-mails are sent automatically.
How can I use Discount vouchers?
For your partners, you can create discount vouchers (promo codes). When a customer pastes the voucher’s code into the Online Ordering form while ordering a card, he/she’ll get the discount. Go to “Discount vouchers“ and click “Create vouchers” button. You can create vouchers either via uploading an excel file, or automatically. Choose one of these two options. Specify the „Discount type“ you need, select “Partner“, “Number of uses“ (number of uses for each voucher!) and validity. When you click “Create vouchers" button, the vouchers appear in the list automatically. You can export them as an .xlsx file and send them to your business partner, in case he/she needs these codes for example for web pages, for printed materials etc.
How can I create a personalized online ordering form?
Every online ordering form has its URL. Modifying this URL, you can make personalized forms for your Card Issuers and Partners. Below you can see the URL of a standard online ordering form (in the example, the form is for Spain; for your country, replace the two letters “es” by your country code):
https://es-online.aliveplatform.com .
When you want to personalize this URL for a Card Issuer or a Partner, you have to use their IDs (see “Where can I find Partner ID or Card Issuer ID?“ in NCDB FAQ).
The URL looks as follows. For your Card Issuer:
https://es-online.aliveplatform.com?schoolintegratorId=XY
and for your Partner:
https://es-online.aliveplatform.com?partnerId=XY, where XY should be replaced by Card Issuer/Partner ID. Beside that, in NCDB, in “Card Issuers"/"Partners" detail, you have to check “Integration with Online Ordering"/"Online Ordering Affiliate Partner" checkbox.
Where can I find Partner‘s ID or Card Issuer‘s ID?
Every Partner and Card Issuer has an unique ID number. With this number, you can (for example) create personalized form for Online Ordering. If you don’t know this ID, go to Card Issuers -> Issuer List/Partners -> Partner List and click the Edit icon next to Issuer’s/Partner’s name. When you are in the edit mode, you can see Card Issuer’s/Partner’s ID as last part of the URL in your web browser (it is the number after “=" sign).
Where can I define my own plastic card design?
Go to Licence Management -> Card Designs. Click “Create Card Design" button. Upload front and back side picture of your card and from drop-down menu, add all placeholders that your card should contain. In the end, don’t forget to click “Print Test Card" button to see, whether the positions of placeholders are defined well.
How does synchronization with CCDB work?
When a Card is issued, NCDB automatically exports the information about the Card and its Cardholder into CCDB.
However, the trigger to export to CCDB is the moment the Card is saved.
So, when you edit some details in Cardholder profile (Cardholder of an existing Card) and you want this new information to be shown in CCDB, after saving Cardholder profile, you have to go to Card Detail editing mode and resave the Card. Doing so, new information about your Cardholder will be sent to CCDB.
CCDB export errors overview
On the bottom of NCDB dashboard, you can now find an overview of failed card exports into CCDB.
If you click on the text “CCDB failed exports”, you will be transferred to the cards list where only those cards with failed CCDB export will be shown. We only show you the currently valid cards. As you can see, this is a new filter criteria which you can use on the card list as you wish. Of course, you can combine it with other filter criterias.
On each line you can see a yellow triangle icon. If you move your mouse on it, a tooltip will show you a warning linked to this card.
On the card detail, you can find the reason of export failure.
After the cause of the error is fixed, it is possible to force the new export by manual re-save of the card (by pressing Edit Card and then Save). Also, every night the system automatically re-export those cards where the initial export ended with failure.
Are there any technical requirements for my computer to run Alive Platform?
Screen resolution: 1024x768px and above;
Web browser: IE8+, Firefox, Chrome;
JavaScript enabled;
Cookies enabled.
Are there any technical requirements for card printing?
There are no technical requirements for your card printer from Alive Platform. The NCDB only generates documents for card printing. You should take care of all the settings and configurations of your card printers. GTS does not provide support for printers and printer drivers.
What is the Personalization Center and what do I need it for?
The Personalization Center is a restricted interface for an external company that prints ID cards in your country. Under the given personalization center, 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 the printing of the card and thus the status of the order automatically changes to the final status.
The personalization center must be used for printing ID cards, even if you print the ID cards yourself.
A very first step, on your part before we start dealing with the issuance of cards is the design approval from the ISO office. It is impossible to start without this step and it is crucial for issuing cards. After the ISO office approves your designs, you need to start dealing with the license numbers for the cards for which you have the agreed designs. License numbers are always firmly tied to individual cards. For each type of card, there must be a design first and then license numbers.
Who is External issuer
When you sign-up deal with external partners like schools or banks that will issue cards themselves, you need to make sure they will report back data about issued cards. This is critical so the cardholder can take advantage of discounts requiring online verification and to use the mobile ISIC app. In this course you will learn which options you have available and how to set everything in the NCDB.
ERRORS IN EXPORT in DM
During import into BM, all items in your uploaded Discount Provider/Branch/Discount are checked. If there is any problem in your data, BM refuses the data and the export from DM fails. Sometimes, some of your data is in incorrect format, sometimes the problem is more complex.
How can you find out that your Discount Provider was not exported successfully?
First sign that something is not OK is indicated by a red triangle with an exclamation mark which is shown beside the Discount Provider’s name. This sign tells you that something is wrong, but you have to make deeper analysis to find out what is wrong.
Go to detail of this Discount Provider and look at “Basic information” window. At the bottom of this window, there is a column called “BM export status”. This status can have either “Not Exported”, “Exported” or “Export Failed” value. “Export failed” status means that there was some kind of problem while exporting the item.
BRANCH EXPORT ERRORS
Maybe you haven’t found anything wrong at Discount Provider’s level. Then, probably one of the Branches of this Discount Provider has a problem. Export problems at Branch level are very common, so in next parts of the tutorial, we will focus on them. In Discount Provider detail, click the tab “Branches“. In the list, look at Branches‘ names. Probably, beside one (or more) name, you’ll see the red triangle again. You will get the description of the error when you hover with your mouse directly over the triangle icon. It can take 3-5 seconds for the label with error description to appear. If you still can’t see the error description, move your mouse out of the icon and try it again. The error description is written in a way that could be understood even though you are not a programmer 🙂 See the following picture (click it to enlarge).
Changing DOB
The correct process from the ALIVE Platform perspective should be:
1/ go to the edit mode of the card
2/ here, change the date of birth and click the Save button
3/ in the next step, confirm that you want the changed data to be saved also for the cardholder
4/ the data will be updated and the card with new date of birth will be automatically exported to CCDB (NCDB knows there was some change on this card, so it immediately forces the reexport to CCDB).