NameBadger Name Tag Program

Note to Advanced Users:

If your question isn't addressed here, go to our Name Badger FAQs and Advanced Help at www.sundaysoftware.com/namebadger/faq.htm

Name Badger Installation Notes

Insert the CD in your computer's drive and either wait for "autoplay" to pop up and run the setup.exe file, or manually access the CD's files and start the installation that way. Afterwards, put the CD in a safe place.
Start Name Badger using the desktop icon, or by double-clicking the file c:\namebadger\namebadger.exe
Begin by adding your name to the list, then click Step 1, follow the process, and PRINT yourself a nametag. See the Printer Installation Notes below for help.
The Admin password is: 12345. See notes on this page for resetting it.

Tips on Using Name Badger

Name Badger has been tested in numerous churches, locations and groups. But every situation is a little different. Do some experimenting to discover works best for you.

1. In some situations, you can leave Name Badger unattended for walk-up users. But through our testing, we learned that it's always a good idea to have someone assigned to help new users, and administrate some functions. But....make sure you let people print their own nametags! ...that's part of the attraction to getting a nametag in the first place.

2. Depending on your church's floorplan, you may want a nametag station at more than one location. If so, you'll need to purchase additional copies of the program and equipment. Some churches have put 2 laptops in one location to speed up the printing process. It's possible to hook up two laptops to one label printer. Printing speed mostly a function of the speed of your computer.

3. Always have an extra roll of nametag labels on hand. Teach your volunteers how to change the roll.

4. Make sure you know the difference between the two custom "footer texts" you can print on the nametags. See our notes below.

5. Remember to discuss "the importance of nametags" with your leaders and encourage them to set a good example.

6. If you're using Name Badger as a preschool sign-in program, print two labels per child, -giving one to the parent as a "receipt."

7. You can use Name Badger to Register participants at a special event and give them a nametag. See our advanced usage faq for details about this. www.sundaysoftware.com/namebadger/faq.htm

8. Yes, you can use Name Badger merely to take attendance without printing a nametag. To do so, simply click the person's name on the Name Badger screen. Select "print", then when you see the print panel screen -select "cancel". Their attendance is now registered ...even though you cancelled the print.

9. No, you don't have to print a person's nametag. After they select their name on the screen the program registers their attendance and you can cancel the print job. If they print their nametag twice on the same day or make a mistake, Name Badger only registers their attendance once for that day.

PRINTING

About your thermal label printer

You will need to by a thermal label printer to use with Name Badger. Rather than ink, these label printers apply heat to treated rolls of label. There are a number of thermal label printers on the market which can be used with Name Badger. We have been using the Brother QL 570. You can find it and similar printers priced anywhere from $40 to $90 depending on the website or store you visit. They are small and light, and can be used for many sizes of labels and uses -in addition to using with Name Badger. Make sure you get a printer than can print 2.4" wide labels.

Here are a few recommended makes & models:
Brother QL 570, Dymo Labelwriter 450, Seiko 440/450, Smart Label Printer 440. Any thermal label printer which can print up to 2.4" wide labels is good. Some offer manual cutting of the label, others automatic, and that's often the difference in the price. Check Amazon.com, Tigerdirect.com and OfficeMax.com for deals.

Name Badger has been designed to print nametags 2-3/7" WIDE (2.4") and 4" LONG (a standard nametag length). Make sure the Label Printer you are using can handle up to 2.4" width labels. Most newer ones can. You might be able to set the length a little shorter than 4 inches but this will cause the nametag font to shrink.

Important Tip: You will want to set your Label printer as the default printer, so that users don't have to do it each time they try to print a label. If you do not set your label printer as the Default Printer in the Windows Control Panel, then each time a user attempts to print a nametag, the print panel that pops up when you select PRINT --may have a different printer selected!

You may also need to adjust the printer's DEFAULT preferences in the Windows Control Panel to match your label dimensions (see notes below). Each printer brand's control panel is a bit different. IMPORTANT: Be sure to set their preferences through the Windows Control Panel's printer option so that they are the default for all the labels you will print.

At this time you cannot change the font or layout of the nametags, only the size of the label.

Most printers come with one roll of labels (about 300 to a roll).

Important Printer Settings

When you select PRINT, the Printer Dialog Box will appear, and it will have a "preferences" option. However, this particular pop-up printer panel in Windows only sets preferences for one print job. Rather, you want to set your Printer's preferences for EVERY Label you print. To do that, follow these steps:

1. Open the Windows Control Panel
2. Open Printers
3. RIGHT CLICK your Label Printer and select “Properties”.
4. Select "landscape".
5. Select 2-3/7" width label size.* Please note: this is 2.4 inches, not 2/3rds of an inch!
6. Select your label length as 4". You can set it slightly shorter, but your fonts will shrink.
7. Select OK. These settings will now be the default settings every time you use this printer.

Remember: While you’re still in the Printers area. RIGHT CLICK your Label Printer and choose "Select as Default Printer”.

*Depending on your printer's software, you may have quite a few printing and label options. Name Badger can accommodate itself to most 'name tag sized' settings. However, if after printing a test label you have text running off the label, or running onto a second label, try selecting another label preset in your printer's options.

If your printing process is a bit slow, go into your Windows Control Panel, select your Printer, and look in the advanced options for your printer. You may be able to select "print direct to printer" rather than "spool print jobs" which will increase the speed of the process. If you're unfamiliar with these options, ask a techie to help. Older computers can have slower print times. Adding RAM will help. If you are using donated laptops, you'll also want to 'clean' them up when you get them.... uninstalling software and disabling unnecessary programs and processes which may be running in the background.

Note: Attendance is still registered if you click Print then click Cancel to cancel the print job.

Tips

You can click on "Go Back" to revert to a previous screen. Or, you can click on "Step 1" to go back to the Step 1 "alphabet screen." (Clicking the Step 1 button is not intuitive the first time people use it. Show them). If you click "Go Back" in Step 3 and do not click the flashing nametag, attendance is not registered.

Once you print a nametag, or cancel a printing, Name Badger automatically returns to Step 1.

When selecting a name to print, you can select multiple labels on that same screen to print (families like this option). Note: in version 1.0 this feature had an attendance recording error. If you have 1.0, download the fix.

To Register Attendance but NOT PRINT a nametag, in Step 3 click PRINT then click CANCEL to cancel the print job. This will register the attendance and not print the tag.

Conversely....it will NOT be registered if you do not click Print or Cancel Print on the Printer Window. In other words, you have to click the Flashing Nametag in Step 3 -PLUS- click Print or Cancel. If you click the flashing nametag, then click "Go Back" on the Name Badger menu, attendance is not registered. This is a failsafe in case people have selected the wrong name to print. There may also be times when you don't want to print a nametag, and just register attendance.

Name Badger will only registered ONE attendance per day, this keeps kids from repeatedly 'attending' an event (though they can still print). Thus, if you have two events the same day which a user attends, it will only show up as one attendance for that date.

Give parents a "pick up receipt" for their preschooler by printing the child's nametag and writing the child's name on the peel-off backing using a permanent marker, ---then give that backing to the parent as a receipt. You can print a second nametag if you'd like, but the 'backing' receipt save money and accomplishes the same thing.

The Admin Screen

The default password to the ADMIN SCREEN is 12345 You can change it by changing the password text file -which is located in the installed C:\namebadger folder on your harddrive.

The Admin area is where you can

Edit User Info

Export/Import data

Change the two kinds of printable label footers

About the Label Info and Additional Information printable footers...

In addition to the person's name, Name Badger gives you two separate fields to fill in that can print text below the person's name: The Label Info field, and the Additional Info field.

The "LABEL INFO" field prints your message on ALL nametags. This field is found at the bottom of the main screen of the ADMIN panel.

Whatever you type in the Label Info field will print on all nametags, ...until you change it.

The "ADDITIONAL INFO" field prints information on the SPECIFIC USER'S nametag. This field is found on each person's User Information screen.

Footer Suggestions:

Print a special global message on everyone's nametag, such as, "Canned Food Drive Next Sunday" or the church's website address.

Print special messages on specific user's nametags, such as, "Wheat Allergy", "Awesome Child of God", "5th Grade Class", or "Parent Pick Up Only."

Caution: There is a practical limit to the amount of information you can put in these two footer fields. If you put too much, the program will try to print it all by continuing it on a second nametag! If the footer is printing onto a second label, shorten the amount of text in your footer fields.

Where is your label data stored?

NameBadger's hardwired code saves all data to c:\namebadger\labeldata\datalist.txt. No matter what directory you may have installed NameBadger to, it will also update the datalist.txt file it finds at this one location.

About the Export Option
...which exports your list from Name Badger to a file you can print/view, and includes attendance dates

You can Export everyone's name and attendance data from within the ADMIN screen by clicking EXPORT, then BROWSE to select a location to copy your attendance report. It will EXPORT your entire list and include the "last 10 dates" that the user printed their tag. Contact information is also included so that you can use the list to make calls or send emails to the users.

You can give your export file a name by typing it in the FIELD and clicking Export.
If you don't give it a name, Name Badger will name it "NameBadger[date].csv".

The exported file is in the CSV format. This is a common database format that can be opened in any spreadsheet program, such as Excel, -or it can be opened in notepad or Word. IF you have imported a LARGE number of names into the database, you may want to view the data in a wordprocessor, rather than print out the entire file as an attendance report, and highlight or takes notes about those who's attendance you want to follow up on.

This text file can be edited in any wordprocessor or spreadsheet program. You may want to edit this saved file before selecting "print" if your list of names is very large. For more advanced comments on syncing and working with Name Badger's export/import datalist.txt file go to www.sundaysoftware.com/namebadger/faq.htm

Note: If a user prints their nametag more than once on the same day it is only registered as one attendance.

**Please see the Tech Note at the end of this document regarding version 1.0. If you select multiple nametags to print all at the same time in v1.0, only the first person's attendance will get recorded.

About the Import Option ...which allows you to bring data into Name Badger from another program

The Import option found on the Admin screen will allow you to import a database file into Name Badger from another database program, such as your membership software. First you must go into your membership program and "export" the names you want into a simple "CSV" format file. Once you create that file, open it and examine it in Notepad or Excel (see notes below). When you are ready to import that file, select IMPORT on the admin screen and point the dialog box to your saved file.

** Importing will update the file "datalist.txt" found in your installed Name Badger folder on your computer. It is recommended that you BACK UP that file before making changes to it.

Again: Name Badger only creates and works with one datalist.txt file. If you are going to import names, they will be put into that file. If you want to create multiple datalist files for various purposes, see our tech note on renaming datalist.

Here are the data "fields" (a.k.a. "comma separated values (csv)
that Name Badger wants to import.

Your exported file MUST HAVE these fields in this order -in order for Name Badger to properly display the data on the screen:

First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Street Address, City, State, Zipcode, Phone Number, Email Address

Having extra fields may cause the Import Process to freeze up and throw a Flash Player error.
Read on for details about working with/creating these fields.

EXPORT/IMPORT EXAMPLE:

1. Back up your datalist.txt file in Name Badger by saving it to another filename/location.

2. Open up your Church Membership Software and sort your list until you have all the members/kids you want to export.

3. Then select the data "fields" you want to export. Name Badger wants these fields: First Name, Middle Name, Last Name, Street Address, City, State, Zipcode, Phone Number, Email Address. It won't know what to do with any other fields, so don't select them. (Note: the onscreen instruction in Name Badger tells you to export the area code separately, but don't do this. See graphic here at right for help.)

Your membership program will ask you what format you want to export these entries into. Export them using the common "CSV" format (comma separated value). Save that file on your computer desktop.

4. Open that saved file in notepad or Excel for a quick inspection. You may need to edit that file prior to importing it into Name Badger -depending on the condition of your data, and the membership program's export capabilities. Look to make sure you have all the required Name Badger fields. If your membership program didn't export the middle names, for example, you will need to manually add that column to your data. See notes below.

Make sure the data fields are exported in the correct order too. For example: some programs may try to export the lastname first, whereas Name Badger expects the firstname to be first in your data. These are simple adjustments to make in your member program during the export process.

EXPORT FILE VIEWING TIP: When looking for your exported file in Excel or some other data program, be sure you are telling Excel (or whatever program you are using) to look for"all files" -and not just Excel's format. Click the dropdown box to select "all file formats".

5. Once you are satisfied that the exported file meets Name Badger's specifications, Open Name Badger and Select IMPORT in Name Badger. This will open an import dialog box. From there, find the file which you created in the other program and select it for importing.

Important Note: Once you import the file into C:\namebadger\labeldata\datalist.txt, it cannot be undone except by deleting it and pasting in your backup copy of the datalist.txt file you backed up before you started the import process!

Things that can go wrong:

The layout of your imported file on the Name Badger screen will be wrong if you didn't include the required fields. For example, if your export from your data program didn't including a Middle Name field, then Name Badger will put the Lastname's into the Middle Name field, and so on.

The importation process may hang up if the file your are trying to import is not in the correct format "comma separated values" (csv) text format. With database files, if you have even one comma in the wrong place, the file will be thrown off. You can hang up the process and get a flash player error if you have too many strange fields coming from your membership data. See the graphic example above for which fields should be in the file created by your membership software.

There is a functional limit to the size of the datafield you are attempting to import. After about 500 entries, the flash-database generator may crap out.

Very Important Exporting/Importing Notes:

(1) When creating an export file FROM your membership software, you must export the RIGHT data in the RIGHT order for Name Badger to properly display each part of a User's data. If you don't export the data in the correct format, or in the correct ORDER of data which Name Badger expects (as seen above), you could end up with Middle Names listed in the Last Name field, or Zip Codes put in the State field, for example.

If you are not familiar with exporting member data from you membership software, we suggest you find someone who is. The data you want to import into Name Badger must be formatted properly for Name Badger to read it properly. If you are unfamiliar with database programs then go slow and get help. If you've already manually typed in numerous names into Name Badger, then you should BACKUP YOUR NAME BADGER DATA txt file BEFORE importing any new data. There is no "un-do".

(2) Prior to importing a big list. we recommend doing A TEST EXPORT - IMPORT from your membership program into Name Badger. Only export a few names, and then open up that file in Excel or Notepad to first VIEW the information --before importing that file into Name Badger. You want to perform a VISUAL check that the format of the exported list matches the exact fields and order of fields of Name Badger's importation requirements (seen above). In particular, you need to make sure that your export file contains the same fields as what Badger expects. When you create your export file in your membership software, you can open it in Excel to visually check it. And... if you need to delete a column of info, or reorder your columns of info to match Name Badger's specified order or data (first, middle, last, street, etc) it's easy to do in Excel, and impossible within Name Badger itself.

(3) If you import a person's name into Name Badger, and their name already existed in installed database, Name Badger will create a second entry for that name (it will never erase data). Only import new data. For more advanced importing tips, go to www.sundaysoftware.com/namebadger/faq.htm

More Importing Helps and Tricks:

If your membership program data does not have middle names, you will either need to create a dummy field for that in your membership program, or open the exported file in a database program and add that field -leaving it blank of data, of course. In Excel and ADD a column of data in-between the First & Last Name fields. You can leave this column blank in each entry. Name Badger just needs you to create a placeholder field, otherwise, it will put the Last Name in the Middle Name position.

Even if you don't want to import phone numbers, you still need to "pretend" to do it by adding an area code and phone number column in your export file before you attempt to import it into Name Badger. Otherwise, Name Badger will put your email address in the Phone Number slot. You can have blank fields.

If your membership program treats the street address as two separate fields (street number, street name), you will have to merge those two fields in Excel after you export the data from your membership program. (Most member data programs treat the street address as one field, so that is what Name Badger expects, but some separate the street number from the street name.)

For Advanced Users and Usage... see our Name Badger FAQs at www.sundaysoftware.com/namebadger/faq.htm