Card, mobile credential, payment and security
The San Francisco Public Library has deployed a cashless system from by ITC Systems and the company’s partner on the project, Konica Minolta.
The job required 36 Cash Card Loaders, 42 Card Readers, 16 Microfilm Readers and a suite of ITC Print Manager software programs, all of which needed to support 300 workstations and 112 printers.
The library system needed a system that required minimal training for staff and patrons. The ITC Systems solution involved a PrinterOn Web-Based Printing program that enables patrons to send print jobs directly to their chosen Bizhub through the library’s wireless network.
Users can now view hot spots directly from the library’s home page. ITC Systems also ensured the entire project complied with the City of San Francisco’s “green” mandate.
A federal court is expected to rule this week on a mandate by the Northside Independent School District San Antonio, Texas requiring students to wear RFID-equipped name badges that enable school administrators to track a student’s whereabouts while on campus.
But 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez is objecting to the mandate for religious reasons, calling the requirement a “mark of the beast” as mentioned in the Bible’s Book of Revelation The case focuses only on her situation and not on the RFID program itself, attorneys said.
The school district has offered to transfer her to another school that doesn’t require the name badges but she wants to stay at John Jay High School, one of two in the district that’s testing the new name badges.
The main reason the district wants to utilize the tracking system is to maximize state funding, which is partly based on daily attendance, Northside Superintendent Brian Woods testified. It enables a more accurate count of which students are at school and could help locate individuals quickly in case of emergencies, he said.
The judge is expected to issue a ruling this week.
Read more here.
Employee ID credentials have advanced greatly in recent years, but as new security features and materials are added to the mix one constant remains: the need to print and personalize the badge.
Choosing the right card printer is like purchasing a car in that the buyer must balance wants and needs. While the organization may want the Ferrari of printers they must ask, is it feasible? Reliable? Maintainable? Will they even know how to drive it?
These are concerns that decision makers from every company–large or small–grapple with when investing in a card printing system.
Shane Cunningham, marketing communications manager for Digital Identification Solutions echoes this sentiment. “For businesses of any size that have tight budgets and ever-changing needs, the keys are versatility, reliability and a low total cost ownership,” he says.
When it comes to ever evolving card technology, companies must be mindful of versatility. “They need to look for solutions that can meet their current needs but can be easily modified should needs change,” says Cunningham.
Versatility, along with the size and ambition of the operation, should be the lens through which any end-user views the card printer market.
Small operations should look for solutions that will be easy to implement, operate and maintain–it is a case of simplicity. Features such as easy loading of card ribbons as well as integrated card design software within the printer are extremely valuable, says Alan Fontanella, vice president of Product Marketing for HID Global. “For small organizations with few employees and who require basic ‘one-off’ card design, embedded card templates located within the printer browser can eliminate the need for separate software installation.”
For small businesses, solutions that feature greater ease of installation are invaluable. “The printer should come with integrated software so they can be up and running fast,” says Kathleen Phillips, vice president of distributed issuance at Datacard Group.
Integrated software benefits smaller businesses by offering built-in card design capability, explains Fontanella. “Some printers include an embedded badging application that provides a ‘plug and play’ feature for creating simple card designs satisfying basic ID card printing needs.”
“A user can custom design and print a card quickly using the included design templates, eliminating the need to install additional card personalization software,” says Fontanella.
As the size of a business increases so too do its ambitions. For this reason, larger operations should seek out more powerful printing solutions. “These organizations typically seek intuitive and scalable printers that can meet evolving requirements,” says Fontanella.
Efficiency often goes hand in hand with growth, and for larger businesses, time is of the essence. “Mid-size business should look for printers with speed and performance to enable printing large quantities of cards at select times,” says Phillips.
Planning for the future of both the organization and card printer technology is key for any operation but as the size of the business increases this foresight becomes more crucial. “The printer solution should be modular, with the ability to add dual-sided printing functionality in order to scale in parallel to an organization’s growth,” says Fontanella.
As with small businesses, the idea of versatility comes into play with mid-size firms as well. “Mid-size companies often require electronic personalization and encoding to support their technology migration needs,” says Fontanella. “Printer and encoder solutions should be capable of accommodating magnetic stripe as well as more robust card technologies to support an organization’s transition from one technology to another.”
Larger companies must be familiar with technological advancements in printing–namely security–as they often have both the security demands and the resources to employ the most advanced solutions. “Larger businesses need to be cognizant of security features the printer offers–do they need features like fluorescent printing or custom laminates?” says Phillips.
Large organizations are also concerned with print speed and quantity. “They typically require high throughput for growing staff requirements, contractors and visitors,” says Fontanella.
Campus card services provider CardSmith is launching a mobile version of its online Cardholder Account Center.
Students, parents and other authorized users can use their smart phone to check balances, view transactions and revalue their meal plan or Campus Cash accounts through a scaled down mobile-friendly version. The smart phone interface also enables users to switch to the full Web site if desired.
CardSmith tested the mobile account solution with a number of clients throughout the fall 2012 semester.
Usage and adoption have been high and performance has been good, CardSmith said. All current and prospective CardSmith clients can now add mobility to their cardholder account center for their programs without incremental charges or fees.
Enhancements for 2013 are already in the works and include digital offers/rewards and the ability to pay by phone.
How providers determine what schools pay
From cloud-based services to software delivered on-site, colleges and universities have a myriad of options for handling their card programs.
Understanding the ways in which the different vendors determine their fees is essential to making informed buying decisions.
While the systems from campus card providers serve similar needs and offer similar services, the manner in which they charge for these services can be very different. It’s not a one size fits all pricing structure for any of them. Most frequently pricing depends on size of student population and what functions the school opts to deploy.
“What card providers are offering is basically a consulting service,” says Fred Emery, vice president and general manager at Heartland Campus Solutions. “We’re recommending services to meet their needs and the needs of their students. Our goal is to give them the flexibility to create the best solution at a competitive price point. It becomes a partner approach between vendor and campus.”
Cloud-based CardSmith’s subscription fee includes an all you can eat approach for transaction processing, applications and customer support, says Brian Farley, CardSmith’s vice president of business development. “There are no separate fees for different tiers. You get what you need.”
Enhancements and upgrades are included in CardSmith’s subscription fee. “We’re about to roll out a mobile application service. We don’t say you have to pay more to access that application, you just get it,” says Farley. “You buy that with your subscription. You never have to upgrade your version of the software, and you never have a gun to your head that says to upgrade or else.”
Heartland charges on a per module basis, says Emery. “This allows campuses to choose the modules they utilize and then expand and add to the system as they see fit.”
For example, you could start out with the company’s dining module and financial services module and later add access control. “It’s all done in a modular fashion that provides flexibility and keeps costs down,” says Emery. This, he adds, allows the client to budget accordingly.
Little has changed with CBORD’s licensing policies over the years. “From the very beginning in 1975, we licensed software with an initial licensing fee and then an on-going licensing fee that covered software versions as well as maintenance and support,” says Read Winkelman, CBORD’s vice president of sales.
CBORD adjusts its software prices as the Consumer Price Index changes, says Winkelman. “In some versions–ones with smaller upgrades, like from 3.2 to 3.3, we have modest fee increases. That’s not a major version,” says Winkelman. “But if you’re going from 3 to 4 that’s generally a major upgrade that would include significant new features added to the product.”
CBORD’s pricing model also varies according to the product. “In our quotes the customer can see the investment needed year one and can see what the annual fees, if any, will be,” adds Winkelman. “For hardware, we have a price and an annual maintenance fee.”
Additional fees may apply to modules that are added on over time. “And, if hardware peripherals, or third-party software will be needed as part of the system, fees for these applications/modules may be applicable as well,” says Winkelman. “For CBORD, the key is ensuring the customer can see this price information ahead of time.”
Allison Duquette, vice president of global sales and marketing for Blackboard Transact, says the company’s annual license fee includes support and maintenance. “That also includes ongoing research and development for one all-inclusive price,” she adds.
The license fee also covers new releases of the product, says Duquette. “If we move to an entirely new platform the annual license fee will simply transfer,” she adds.
When first approaching a campus, Blackboard wants to know the number of students and what the school wants to accomplish with the card system. From there Blackboard will let them know the types of services it can offer and at what cost, says Duquette.
CardSmith’s subscription fee is based on a school’s population. “We establish that (price) up front,” says Farley, “and the primary driver is how many people are at the school.”
Blackboard has eight pricing tiers covering schools with less than 2,000 students to schools with more than 150,000 students. The annual fee is based on the number of students to be covered by the service, says Duquette.
Heartland also bases its module cost on the number of cardholders. “Software modules are licensed in year one and year two we charge maintenance/licensing on that module at 15% a year,” he explains. This annual maintenance/license fee includes upgrades to software, 24/7 support and access to user groups.
“We charge a lower price for smaller institutions. The software is designed to handle any size population. There are a couple ways we can scale it, based on cardholders and then scale it down for smaller institutions,” says Winkelman.
Blackboard offers its clients the opportunity to sign for up to five years making it easy for the campus to determine expenditures over time, Duquette adds. “We try to be very transparent when working with our customers,” she says. “We’re showing them the five-year run rate. If they want to lock in for five years we’re delighted to do that.”
CardSmith also offers up to a five-year contract for its clients. “It may not be the same price for all five years but they would know what their price is going to be,” says Farley.
The common denominator for all of CardSmith’s programs is transaction management, beyond that, it’s À la carte. “Customers can just choose the transaction service and a lot of them do,” adds Farley. That includes the core necessities for a campus card program, including dining, bookstore, vending and copy machines.
The only other programs CardSmith sells separately are cardholder care and card program marketing services, explains Jay Summerall, CardSmith’s president. “For pricing purposes, operations management and off-campus merchant program management are included with our core transaction management service,” he adds
CardSmith also offers a package deal covering all of the modules in what it calls its “total management solution.”
CBORD’s annual fee is based on the products the school licenses. “Some customers are doing just door access, some just meal plans, others are doing both,” says Winkelman. “As there are so many applications, this works better for us because it allows customers to license what they need when they need it.”
The fee also covers support. “Our thinking is that the customer should have a single point of service experience. So, annual fees are aimed at achieving this goal. In addition to 24/7 help desk support, annual license fees also cover versions, patches and some upgrades,” says Winkelman.
With Heartland, modules can be chosen À la carte with discounts based on the number of modules a university orders, says Emery. Its four base modules include the core functions most clients utilize: dining/meal plan; building access; financial (vending and debit); and recreation and events (equipment rental and event management). Additional modules such as parking and Web-based account management are also available, says Emery.
Heartland went with the module model in order to give schools choices. “If we put them all in one software piece you would have clients purchasing things they don’t need,” Emery says.
At its simplest, Blackboard has two modules, the basic module covers commerce, retail capability and account management. “The basic module includes dining, vending, laundry anything that’s using Blackboard readers,” says Duquette.
Blackboard’s security module covers building access. Campuses have a choice of what technology they want to deploy.
“Typically a customer will start with exterior doors in a few buildings, then they may work their way up to interior doors,” Duquette says.
Across the vendor landscape, there are a variety of options for systems and a variety of pricing models. The key for campus decision makers is to gain a full, thorough understanding of the upfront costs to obtain and deploy a program … as well as the ongoing costs to maintain and grow it.
Only when all the various components–purchase prices, licenses and ongoing fees–are understood can a campus make an informed decision on a system’s total cost of ownership.
