Features and Benefits of IDeal32

1. Batch Printing provides for collecting cardholders and printing all these cards in the one batch. This feature is essential when printing generic batches of cards in bulk e.g. Visitor Cards. It also saves a lot of laborious work when printing runs of cards. Due to internal system security it is possible to allow a low-level logon operator to issue batch-printing jobs, as the system will only print the default Pass for the pass holder. It also logs who printed the pass, date, time etc.

2. Batch printing can be performed via manual selection of the batch via simple mouse click from the auto-printing browser.

3. Batch printing can also be perform from automatic collections of all passes due to be re-issued based on validity dates or auto-validity based on when the passes where issued. Whilst the system produces printable reports of all pass holders due to be re-issued with new passes it also collects these for automatic processing. Cancelled passes and inoperative personnel will not have passes automatically printed.

4. On the main personnel window graphical information is included in the browse view. This makes it easier to observe conditions which are YES/NO TRUE/FALSE by displaying graphical tick boxes inside the browser.

5. Information like if a signature and image exists for the cardholder is displayed graphically from the browsers main screen. This negates having to enter deeper into the system to check these details and saves a lot of time.

6. When in browse view, any cardholder who is rendered inoperative or who has been rendered inoperative in the past, will be highlighted in red background with white text. No Card can be produced for an inoperative person.

7. When a cardholder is made inoperative a checkbox is enabled for Pass Returned to Security Section for Destruction.

8. Holographic Overlay of Generic type or personalised are available. Here the longevity and the quality of the security hologram depend on the printer model selected.

9. Any database field can be used for collecting data into groups. This process is managed via SQL type internal commands without the user having to type out long-winded SQL Queries. A simple mouse click at the top of any column will sort the view on the column selected in either ascending or descending order. These powerful sorted views can be accessed in browse view or on prepared data forms. If the operator desires they can print any of these collected tables directly to the report printer.

10. Re-Issue reports can be printed or displayed. This utility enables operators to search for pass holders whose expiry date will expire with the search time selected. Batch re-issuing can then be planned ahead of expiry of pass.

11. Each pass holder can hold multiple pass types without changing the default pass type in the database and without keeping multiple records. This functionality is reserved for high-level operators only.

12. Pass expiry periods can be automatically inserted at print time based on supervisor selected expiry time. The user may also manually stipulate a unique expiry date. The supervisor can also select expiry based on time since production of a pass.

13. Security Access Levels on the IDeal Card System are broken into discreet groups. Supervisor, Full Pass Issue, Limited Pass Issue and View Only. The encrypted operator password determines the number of menu items available to the user. So if the user does not have access to certain functions then they simply do not appear on this operator’s screen.

14. Image formats can be a variety of file types or restricted to certain types. While the system can cope with various images the generic default for images is BMP. This was chosen due to the portability of this image type.

15. Images can contain time date or other details within the image. This within image verification information can be turned on or off and the colour of the text is user selectable. (This is not the main image capture routine but an additional one that has been included for secondary images, logos and general image capture where within image verification is required).

16. IDeal Card 32 Pro is fully LAN/WAN ready so that location of database station, issuing stations, print stations, and verification stations can be anywhere or simply on a single PC.

17. Separate operations for image and Signature Capture ensures against accidental overwrites of image when capturing signatures. Also it allows video input from 4 separate sources to be saved as an image or a signature or in a user choice resolution and file format for capturing logos or secondary images.

18. If the operator needs to capture a full colour image from the signature camera there is no need to change plugs and sockets on cameras etc. The operator simply selects keep as an image instead of keep as signature.

19. Signature capture is a totally different type of capture technology. The New IDEAL CARD 32 automatically quantises or posterises the signature. This ensures extremely good quality signatures that will have perfect white backgrounds with good resin black writing instead of composite signatures.

20. Most ID systems have inadequate and poor quality signature capture that rely on double handling and touch up procedures. IDeal Card has the best signature capture with the best quality signatures at a single click of the mouse.

21. There is context sensitive Online Help. Operators rarely access this as the system is basically intuitive.

22. ToolTips exist for extra assistance to operators on some items.

23. Most ID systems allow single data fields only for any pass design. This means that there is a problem for preferred names and surnames being of differing lengths. IDeal Card allows concatenation of data fields so that both preferred name and surname can be written on the same line and differing lengths are not an issue.

24. Cards that are to have back printing can be produced in the one single operation. Cards may be back-printed separately if required. The back print in one operation or duplex feature depends on the printer selected.

25. Bar codes are available for all pass types. The bar code source data may be any database field or any text element from the pass design.

26. Smart Card programming may be added to the pass production process if desired. This may consists of SIMM Style Cards or contact less smart cards. While this is an option for the printer and the software it is not immediately available as this functionality requires user input and has to be designed around this given information.

27. Magnetic Swipe encoding in either high coersivity or low coersivity is automatically done when a pass is produced that has this feature within it template. While magnetic swipe is not a high security technique it can be a useful addition for asset borrowing and library services. It can also serve as low-level access control. The read write capacity for magnetic swipe is a printer option.

28. Lost and / or Stolen Passes are recorded by the system. These can be retrieved and viewed by the operator for any particular pass holder.

29. Individual Pass History is recorded and can be viewed by an operator.

30. Fixed data entries utilise dropdown lists for data entry. The content for fixed data is editable by the supervisor. Once entered these become the only choices available for the field. The supervisor has full modify, add new and delete available. The fields have default values and are also frequency sensitive so that the most common selection is closest to the mouse cursor for ease of selection. This also means that modification can be achieved without the need re-compile the application.

31. Most subsystems in IDeal Card are user definable. The location of database directories, image directories, signature directories, initialisation files are all user definable.

32. Standard image size is not adequate for ID pass photos. Standard images are rectangular and have a lot of wasted space in then. The image most suited for ID purposes are closer to being square. Most systems get around this via getting the operator to reprocess, resize and crop the image. This adds extra time into the production process. IDeal Card shows you the actual image that will appear on the pass and with one click of the mouse all is done. There is no extra processing.

33. When the image is being captured there may be variations in the ambient light levels caused by changing amounts of natural light coming in from windows. While the camera can adjust for most of these variations it is also possible for the operator to adjust for this from the capture screen via software controls. There are controls for brightness, contrast, saturation and hue.

34. Software settings for control of brightness, contrast, saturation and hue are remembered by the system so that there is no need for adjusting these each time the operator wants to capture an image.

35. There is also an image enhancement screen that allows the enhancement of images that have been already captured. There are controls for brightness, contrast and gamma. The original image is also displayed so that the enhancement can be compared with the original image.

36. The speed of printing a full colour ID using IDeal Card is about 23 seconds if you use the P310 printer. If you use the professional P500 with 1mil laminate this time will be 5 seconds for monochrome or 35 seconds for full colour plus laminate.

37. Printer cleaning will automatically occur after every 1000 cards are produced. This will extend the life and quality of the printer and the product. (Applicable when supplied with the P310 Printer)

38. Printer can be directly controlled from the PC e.g. eject card, resynchronize ribbon. There is also a printer maintenance and test program.

39. Printer ribbon types are automatically selected by the printer. This avoids the problem of printing with the wrong ribbon type selected. (Applies when supplied with the P310 Printer).

40. Most Pass and ID systems use the standard windows default printer. IDeal card used both a pass/card printer and a report printer. These printers exist as printer objects that are programmable or selectable but in running the application the operator does not have to select the appropriate printer for the job. The appropriate printer is automatically selected for the job. This means that you do not get the situation of sending material with an incorrect driver to a printer and then trying to purge this job from the printer buffer and the print manager.

41. IDeal Card also incorporates a Temporary Pass issue management system. This records the issue and the return of Visitor/Contractor and Temporary Passes. It enables guards and management to be able to trace non-returned passes from anywhere on the IDeal Network. There is also allowance for documenting a supervisor or escort person along with other details. There is no requirement for entering all the data, only the essential is required and you may use or not use the other fields available.

42. There is a special Museum feature within the software. The purpose of this is to enable a full historical record of personnel through out their time with the organisation. When the operator is about to take a new photo or change a person's status they can send the old record to the museum. When you visit the museum you can call up an individual any see their images and all records for each museum entry. The data can also be printed out for hard copy.

43. When in the pass design section the placement of pass elements can be achieved with mouse clicks onto the pass window. This allows easy positioning and repositioning during the design phase. Also the pass design window feeds back co-ordinates to the user for their information.

44. When printing from the various report fields if the user marks selected fields then only these marked fields will be sent to the report printer.

45. There is no messy default printer selection when printing cards or reports. The software is printer alert and will automatically print to the correct printer. This avoids the nasty situation where you accidentally send a print job to the wrong printer and have to empty the spooler and the print buffer on the printer.

46. If the supervisor has designed a complicated pass template and then wishes to create another pass which is very similar then all that needs to be done is to select the copy template button from the pass type window. A new pass type is created which is a clone of the previously high- lighted pass. This template is then modified e.g. change of background colour and the new template is now complete without the need of entering all the other elements.

47. Before a pass is printed the user can display a preview on the screen. This means that the operator can check that all essential information is present on the pass and that the pass type is correct and proceed to print without wasting valuable card stock.

48. When a card is printed the system records when who for who by what type for all passes whether they are issued or deemed to have failed by the operator.

49. The Software Licence allows for a single instance of the software on a PC. This doesn't mean that you can't have multiple systems on the one PC. The structure of the system allows for multiple databases which are laid out in what is called the bureau directory structure. So if you wanted to bureau an ID production service then you can have all your customers in their discreet databases, which not only keep order but makes reporting much easier.

50. The IDeal Card System will collect photos into a collection for printing photo boards. There is a choice here also for adding text into the photo for internal or external reference to the image.

51. Since the system tries to cater for all our clients the main data entry screen has data fields that may never be used by some clients. AGS Number is a field that wouldn't be used in private enterprise for instance. To make it easy for lower level operators the supervisor has the ability to render unused fields disabled so the tab sequence will jump to the next valid data field.

52. The IDeal Card 32 Professional Photo Identification software is an easy to use system with powerful features. It is very easy to use and it creates professional high quality photo Identification.

53. The IDeal Card System allows for complex graphical manipulations to be formed automatically at the time of pass production without user intervention. The pass type template stores these procedures for you. E.G. The system will print good quality signatures over the top of complex images like logos, background pictures or images. This allows the use of complex backgrounds which interact with extra images, logos, cardholders image and signature.

54. The system also incorporates a Lobby control system for logging who comes in and out of a building. This means there is monitoring of foreign traffic and gives the user full control over visitor, contractor and temporary cards. This is all a part of the networkable side of IDeal32. It gives security officers the ability to monitor unreturned cards and to account for these in a proper manner.

55. IDeal32 also contains a physical key register. Again it is graphical as it uses colour to distinguish keys that are returned and keys that are still out. If any person is made inoperative the system checks for out standing physical keys before the process is complete.

56. The system also has an other card or item register. Many security officers are responsible for the issue of other cards to their personnel. These may be Federal Airport Passes, Parliamentary Passes or Qantas Club Cards. This register may also be used for any asset that an organization or company has issued to an employee. If a person is made inoperative then the system will check to see if there are any outstanding items in this other card or asset register and will warn the operator of the number of items outstanding. Also this register also uses the colour to distinguish items out and returned and therefore a history.

57. Case forcing on names is programmable and can be either None, Mixed or Capitals.

58. There is an option to use a special pan/tilt/zoom camera that has presets for Image and signature. There is the provision to control this camera via the keyboard or mouse.

59. The system also now allows images to be procured from a remote capture station that doesn’t have the usual PC and operator. It is done with full voice, images and full control over the camera. This solution can also be achieved with a variety of connectivity including LAN, WAN, Dial Up and even Web or Internet. This means that you can save labour cost in both training and task as well as reduce the costs of maintaining a full remote capture station.