It would be lovely to be able to customize the Student ID Card, specific to our institution with information we determine and layout. We also would love to choose how many ID's per page.
Thoughts?
Date
Votes
57 comments
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Adam Sentz @Christopher - The background image of your card is already customizable, just not the info that's printed out or the placement of that info. If you aren't able to edit the Photoshop template yourself you can just let us know what changes you'd like via a support request and we can help you out.
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Joel Wingo Some kind of bar code would be nice too.
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Robert Damon I like how you think, Joel. Hope we'll talk sometime - we are new to this tool and having a great time with it.
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Shane Flynn I like this too. I think the new templeting system they added in the last release is a logical solution for this. That way we just upload our own template. -
Adam Sentz You can already customize the ID card to a degree.
I've attached a .PSD of the template that is used to create the background for the ID cards the print from Populi. Anything in the "template" group is dynamically generated so you can't edit it, but you can do whatever you want with the rest of it.
Just make whatever modifications you want, email me the file back and I'll pop it in for you.
@ Shane - we'll certainly look into that.
@ Joel - that's something we've been talking about.
EDIT: I posted a better template below. Use that one instead.
EDIT 2: You can customize your ID cards in Populi now.
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Jason Haché Is there a way I can export the student ID #s?
We make our own student IDs but for the life of me I can't figure out how to include student ID #s in any kind of report or exported XLS.
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Robert Damon Jason, yes. Go to Academics tab, then Students Table. Click on the "cog" in the upper right, and you can export Student ID's as a whole.
We are not overly happy with the layout, but determined to stick with the old system for this Fall and will adjust/adapt later to the new ID's and potentially new layout. (I have some late-adapters in our staff. But I love them anyway.)
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Brendan O'Donnell Jason,
Student IDs are also included in the export of the Students Table. You don't need to add any extra columns--it's automatically included.
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Eddie Grigg I would like the option of printing ID cards through a ID card printer. We have always used plastic cards. Students, faculty, and staff are required to wear them at all times while on campus. Does anyone know if Populi can be used with any Badge ID Printer that makes plastic ID cards?
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Adam Sentz @Eddie - We don't have an ID card printer here to test with, but when we designed the ID cards we made them the standard 2 1/8" x 3 3/8" size so they should work OK. Just make sure if you're doing more than one that you choose the "one per page" option. Let us know how it goes!
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Carlos Marin I'm printing from the pdf files straight to an ID card printer. Genius!
However, how can I export the number that's on the barcode? For example, when I scan a Populi-generated ID card onto an excel spreadsheet, it shows something like: "ID123456789ID". Sometimes, the number between the "ID and the ID" is is the student ID; but when it's staff or faculty, it's not related.
I need to export lists of students/faculty/staff and the barcode-generated ID numbers as I plan to use this with other non-Populi applications that will match the scanned ID number with the person's profile. Is there any way to export this anywhere in the system?
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Adam Sentz @Carlos - The number that is in the barcode, between the "ID"s, is actually a person's unique Populi ID number and not their student ID. Student IDs can be changed and are often too long which would have made the barcode too long to fit on the card in some cases.
Currently this number is not exportable, but we're going to add it as an export option soon.
UPDATE: The number in the barcode has been exportable for a few weeks now. It's called "Populi ID" in the Available Columns list.
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Ben Coumerilh Carlos - What ID printer are you using? We are looking for one right now to use with Populi. Thanks in advance!
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Carlos Marin @Ben - We use an Eltron like the one listed here (except that when we purchased ours 4 years ago it was around $1,500). I'm sure there's much better technology out there. Also, you may not need a monster of a printer since Populi doesn't do magstripe encoding yet. http://cgi.ebay.com/Eltron-P420CM-Dual-Sided-Color-ID-Card-Printer-/140509955595
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Carolina Cordero We recently purchased a Zebra ZXP Series 3 and the printer is working ok with Populi; however there are a couple of things that I would like to see in progress for the IDs. #1 The card Id's we use in the school are not only for library purposes but for SECURITY reasons. We want to be able to identify who is on campus, having said that the FONT on the id's is too small and it is extremely difficult to read the name of the person even if you are right in front of them. The font needs to be bigger. #2 The ID's do not cover the academic year, they only have a semester term on the card , this will not last long and it will duplicate the cost of making ids every semester. In other words the ID cards need to be editable so we can make changes to the template or format. This is becoming a major priority in our school. Is there any other way around that we can work this out?
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Adam Sentz @Carolina - #1 We haven't heard any reports of the font being too small and extremely difficult to read. In my own extensive tests I have never found either of those things to be true. Maybe an issue with your printer?
#2 I'm not sure what you are referring to. The ID card doesn't list an academic term name at all. The only date on the card is the year in which ID card was generated (this comes after the Role e.g. "Student 2011" or "Staff 2011").
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Shane Flynn @Adam - When I looked at the card it looked to me like the year after the role was the semester it was valid for. I can see the issue of it being printed this fall (2011) and seeming to have expired once spring semester starts in Jan 2012.
Also~ Would changing the font on the template you uploaded previously solve the issue of wanting a larger Name? Wasn't sure if the ID template worked the same as the OO templates used throughout the rest of Populi.
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Adam Sentz @Shane - Our only intention in listing the year after the Role was to let you know in what year the card was issued. Different schools have different procedures with regard to student ID cards, but we haven't attempted to build any of those in to Populi.
The ID card isn't driven by the same engine as the custom documents. It's just a dynamically generated PDF. I would guess, though I couldn't say for certain, that perhaps the printer is choking on the font somehow. I can't think of why else the name might be illegible. It's tricky because we have to make sure that some very long names don't run off the side of the card, but I'll take another look at our data and make adjustments where possible.
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Carolina Cordero @ Adam- The printer is printing totally fine and the font is about an 11 font, for example: if you are looking at someone 2ft away from you, you probably need to take a moment to determine who that person is. Let me remind you again that we use this for security reasons and we need to recognize who is who in the school.
@ Shane- Yes , that is what I am referring to, if the card was generated for Fall 2011 , it won't be good for Spring 2012 because it will basically be expired. If we have the academic years instead , it will be 2011-2012 and this will cover the whole year, this will cut time, cost and labor when generating this cards.
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Adam Sentz @ Carolina - Glad to hear your printer is working properly. I have looked at our data and determined that I can't increase the font size of the name field without significantly increasing the number of users whose name runs off the right hand side. (Right now there are already a handful.) Even a small size increase (less than a point) has a serious effect on the length of a printed name.
I know formatting varies from state to state, but my Idaho driver's license actually has my name in smaller type than my Populi ID card.
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Shane Flynn I know this is an old topic but I've just been working on printing our ID's using Populi's built in system and I would like to thrown in a suggestion to move the ID generation over the template system used in other areas of Populi.
I would like to have the ability to rearrange the data, change the orientation of the card and ideally pull different data to place on the card. Having the ability to pull our own data fields would allow for the addition of the academic year and removing name fields (like the middle name) so we can make the font larger.
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Timothy Grace I've been doing ID cards in Publisher for the past few years and it's become somewhat tedious, so I like the ability to export a dynamically generated PDF.
A few things though:The photo, although a good size on the card, isn't that great of quality. Any chance to increase it?
Any chance of getting an ID card template designer built within the Populi system, or a way to upload files with placeholder markings in them to dynamically generate?
Also, I'm only at Staff permission which means I can't get a ful list of students currently registered. Is there a way to create an ID Card role or something to that extent which gives a full list of current students and their cards for me to export without having to go to someone who has higher privlidges? -
Adam Sentz @Timothy - The image that is saved is of a high enough resolution to print properly provided the image that you upload is also of a high enough resolution and you don't crop it too much (thereby making the resolution too low) after uploading.
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Samuel Figueroa Need the ability to customize the ID!
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Eddie Grigg You're absolutely right Samuel - It would be tremendous to have the flexibility to customize the names. I know I wear glasses now, but I can't read the names from two feet away!
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Carlos Marin Would most schools be Okay with having the student's "Preferred name" and "Last Name" fields on the ID (versus the full name as it is now)? Perhaps this would allow the Populi team to have more space for those with very long names...
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Carlos Marin @ Samuel Figureoa: I don't see my post here, but was wondering what else would you customize that is not customizable already? I was able to send Populi my custom design and they uploaded it just fine... just wondering...
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Permanently deleted user That would be awesome, Can Populi do this? I would love to have the id's customized so we can have them the way is more convenient for us. I did not know this possibility existed.
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Carlos Marin @ Test Student: Check out Adam's response at the begining of this thread:
"You can already customize the ID card to a degree.
I've attached a .PSD of the template that is used to create the background for the ID cards the print from Populi. Anything in the "template" group is dynamically generated so you can't edit it, but you can do whatever you want with the rest of it.
Just make whatever modifications you want, email me the file back and I'll pop it in for you."
The .psd file is attached on Adam's response...
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Adam Sentz If you want to customize your ID card background like Carlos has just send in a Support Request and I'll send you a template of your current card that you can modify and send back.
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