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How
to Use Name Badger to Register Participants for an Event
How to Use Name
Badger to Register Kids for VBS
Your
Registrar can input names into Name Badger ahead of time as
registrations come in, so the kids' nametags are ready to print
when they arrive.
To
register a name into the database, the Registrar pretends they are
the participant -clicking NEW USER on the Step 1 Screen.
This will take them to the "Enter Your Info" screen seen here on
the right.
After entering info, they
click the FINISH button (seen on the graphic on right), this
saves the info to the datalist file, and takes you to the STEP 2
screen.
At
the Step 2 screen (seen on far right) the Registrar can click GO
BACK or "Don't See Name on List" to go back and add
another New User, or they can print out the nametag.
Name
Badger record's the DATE of ATTENDANCE each time that person's
nametag is printed. This info appears on the yellow post-it note
graphic on the User's Info page (seen below right) and can be
printed out as a report from the Admin page.
When you
click PRINT, this operation registers the attendance. If
you click 'cancel' on the print screen, the attendance
is still registered but the nametag will not print.
The
Practical Size Limit of Name Badger
The more
names you store in Name Badger, the longer it will take
Name Badger to display them, especially on a slow
computer. If you input over 500 names, you're going to
want to make sure you have plenty of processing power
and RAM. So large groups/churches might want to make
sure their computer stations are not too old and slow,
and may want to have multiple SEPARATE stations for A-M
N-Z for example.
The perceptible speed loss is technically minimal on a
quick computer. But it is perceivable and practically
annoying, for example, for a
user named "Simpson, Zebulon" who has to scroll through
a hundred "S" lastname entries to find theirs!
How
many names can you put in the database?
Practically speaking, the more names you input, the
more the user has to wade through to find their name.
BUT... the program will slow down a bit when a user
moves from one list of last names to another (switching
between last names ending in "N" to "S" for example), if
you have a lot of "S" lastnames to display. We have no
technical advice on "how many is too many" as it
involves the speed of your computer, but for the sake of
argument, we'd suggest no more than 100 lastnames per
letter, which gives you a suggested maximum of
2600 names. Again, you could have twice that many on a
fast laptop. It really just depends on your users and
pattern of use.
Name Badger
was not designed to be a church's membership program. It
was mainly meant for a USER to ADD their own name to the
database, and has limited import/export functionality.
It is ideal for small groups and Sunday School at a
controlled point of entry.
A solution
to "really large numbers of names" is to create two
stations, such as, Station 1: A-K;
Station 2: L-Z. Your particular solution will
depend on how you plan to use and deploy Name Badger.
Printing Speed?
Print speed
is purely a function of your computer processor and RAM.
Check your printer preference to print 'direct' rather
than to spool. Some thermal printers are slower than
others.
There is
no way to get rid of the "print panel pop up."
That's there to allow users to select to print multiple
copies of nametags. Just remember to set the default
printer to your label printer in the Windows Control
Panel.
You
must click PRINT or CANCEL on the printer window
for the user's attendance to get registered. If you
click their flashing nametag, and then click "Go Back",
attd is not registered.
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 There
is a "workaround" to creating
multiple
Name Badger database lists on one computer:
EXAMPLE:
Let's say
you have a new event, such as a Seminar, that you want to create a "fresh list" of names for,--one that does not include a previously created list, such as
a list you created for Sunday School. You do NOT need to
install a second copy of Name Badger (and actually, that won't
work).
You
would need to:
1) RENAME your original datalist file
to something like "datalist-SunSchl2012.txt. Remember,
datalist.txt is found in
c:\namebadger\labeldata.
2)
Start up NameBadger again and start adding new names for your
new event. NameBadger will automatically create a new
datalist.txt file for you.
NameBadger
does not have built-in controls that allow you to create
multiple databases. You have to manually swap in/out your own
datalist.txt files if you want to create completely separate
lists for separate events. Note to Techies:
No matter what directory you
may have installed NameBadger to, it will always update the
datalist.txt file it finds at
namebadger\labeldata, or create a new file if it doesn't find
one (...because you have spirited the previous datalist.txt file
away for safekeeping or renamed it). This is hardcoded and
cannot be changed.
Advanced techies might
think about writing a simple batch file with copy and ren
(rename) commands. Maybe!
Click here for more about "datalist.txt"
Tips on using Name
Badger in a large church
setting with multiple stations....
We didn't design Name Badger to be your church's membership
management program. It was primarily designed for walk up
nametag creation by the end-user, at a controlled point of
entry. Multiple computers all trying to use the same database is
complicated stuff, and its a task for which Name Badger was not
designed.
Name Badger is not a network solution. It was designed for a
laptop or two. That said, a techie with coding experience could
probably create a small program to do what they wanted to do
with the data.
For those with multiple installations of Name Badger, i.e.
computers at various points of entry, here's a workaround:
Many large
churches want to merge the attendance reports
from various stations, and while it can be
done, it takes someone with some spreadsheet knowledge to do so.
A
Clever Suggestion from one large church:
A church with two Name Badger stations didn't want people
registering their attendance one week on one computer, and
the next on another. So they put their two laptops in one
central location and named them, "A-K" and "L-Z".
Then, when they want to export their attendance list, they
generate one from each computer.
....Or
just let the enter their name into each Name Badger station that
you have. They won't mind, only have to do it once or twice
more, and most people LIKE to input their name!
Best Advice: K.I.S.S.
What is datalist.txt?
This
is the name of the data file in your Name Badger folder which
holds all your nametag entries. It's a basic text file with some
special markers in it. To find it, use "Computer" (or My
Computer in XP) to navigate to c:\namebadger on your harddrive.
Open the Labeldata folder there and you'll see datalist.txt.
I advise AGAINST trying to manually edit datalist.txt. If you
need to edit your datalist file, either EXPORT it as a CSV
database file and edit it in Excel or a similar spreadsheet
program, OR, edit user information from the ADMIN screen within
Name Badger.
EXPORT FILE TIP:
When looking for your export file, be sure you are telling Excel
(or whatever program you are using) to
look for files
with the .txt file extension.
Excel's default is to look for other formats. Click the dropdown
box to select "all file formats".
Important IMPORT
Note: When
importing into Name Badger, Name Badger will not copy over an
entry in datalist.txt. It will just append new data. It will create an additional/second entry
in datalist.txt. So for
example, if you import a file with the entry "John A. Smith," and
that entry already exists in the datalist file, you will end up
with two entries for John A. Smith. Why does it do this? Because
there may indeed be two John A. Smiths in your congregation. So,
if you Export your list, then reimport it to the datalist file,
you will end up with TWO ENTRIES for EVERY USER.
Solution: After exporting your list from datalist.txt,
rename datalist.txt to something like save-datalist.txt for
safekeeping. Then import your new file. Name Badger will name
your imported file "datalist.txt".
WHERE is it? datalist.txt is ALWAYS found in the
c:\namebadger\labeldata folder. That's where NameBadger is
hardwired to store info, no matter what directory you have
installed NameBadger to. If you attempt to have two
installed versions of Name Badger on one computer, both
versions, no matter where you install them, will overwrite
datalist.txt. To workaround this, you'd have to
manually swap in/out various copies of datalist.txt you wanted
to work with.
Networking?
At this
point, there is no "network version" of Name Badger. That said, it is QUITE
POSSIBLE that a networking/data expert could develop a small
application that managed datalist.txt for several stations. For most
church applications, however, a simpler approach, such as naming
your stations so people remember where they put their name, might be
just as suitable.
For
now, datalist.txt must be manually moved/renamed in order to
deploy 'same' across several stations.
Changing the
Fonts and Layout of Nametag?
At this
time you cannot change the font or layout of the nametags. Adjusting
the printer label size can affect some layout, but you need to
experiment with that.
To Use Name
Badger to Register Attendance Only
Click
the person's name on the Name Badger screen. Select "print", then
when you see the print panel screen -select "cancel" on
the print screen. Their
attendance is now registered.
Important Tech
Note:
We've discovered a
glitch in the attendance feature. In version 1.0, if you select
several nametags to print at once, only the first name you check
gets registered as "attended" on that date. We released
a downloadable fix at
www.sundaysoftware.com/namebadger/update.htm.
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