Badging Thousands of Students and Faculty Passes the Test with Open Options’ Professional Services

Creating 3,000+ student and faculty IDs at a school is always a challenge. But when the ID printers are using older technology, there are several things  that must be done to keep them operational. The ribbons must be changed every 250 cards and require cleaning after every batch, while they depend on unreliable data, printing ID cards put a K-12 school to the test. Extra help came from Open Options’ Professional Services.

During the initial configuration of OpenDX, the Open Options team created packages to import personal information of more than 3,000 faculty and students from the school’s Active Directory to populate the cardholder data, making it easier and more efficient for the school. 

However, when it was discovered that the information in the school’s directory was not as reliable as previously thought and would have a direct impact on possible mistakes being made with ID cards, Open Options’ Professional Services team removed all previously imported data and re-imported, using accurate information from CSV files.  Then the process of mass production of thousands of ID cards began. 

“This work was an involved exercise because the ribbons on the printers were only good for 250 cards and the printers required cleaning after every batch, but our Professional Services team addressed any and all issues that arose, expected and unexpected,” said William Murphey, a Professional Services representative at Open Options. 

After the import, the Professional Services team created custom badge templates. Once the badge templates were approved, the team prepared the system to use the Fusion Batch Printing module, which enables mass printing of credentials outside of DNA Fusion.

Because the school’s printers lacked any sort of reader/encoder to read the card number and populate it, Open Options’ Professional Services adapted to the unique needs of the school and created a workaround to avoid having the school pay any extra costs. Once batch printing was complete, Open Options loaded the records into a CSV file for the school to assign card numbers so that the database could be updated with the credential information from the printed card.  

“The process took a couple of days, but with the assistance of Open Options Professional Services, success was achieved,” added Murphey. The school’s ID badging office passed the “test” with flying colors.