Sometimes when handling data, especially in Excel, the leading 0's are not preserved. This can cause complications when uploading your student data.
Help! Why is my user not able to check in to the kiosk? ("User not found") Their card ID is swiping a lot of 0's that aren't on their user profile!
If you have access to the Importer App, please start by including the card_id field in your next student upload. If there should not be any leading zeros in this field, remove these before saving your CSV file.
How can I check that the original file has lost the leading 0's, since Excel removes them upon opening the file?
Using a text editor, or right-clicking the file and "open with" notepad or a comparable program, you can take a look at the raw text, to ensure that the card_id's have the leading 0's.
Ways to avoid losing your leading 0's:
- Try opening in a program other than Excel, if possible
- If opening in Excel, remember to reformat the card_id column before saving
- Right click column> Format Cells > Custom Format > Add the number of characters in 0's
- E.g. if all card ID's are 16-digits, add 16 0's:
- This will prefix any ID number that does not meet the 16-digit specification
- If a card id reads: 123456789
- Adding the above customization will cause it to read: 0000000123456789