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Digital ID Card Set Up Guide

How to import school rosters, customize card designs, manage photos, and assign digital stickers from start to finish.

Setting up digital student ID cards allows your school to eliminate physical printing costs, secure campus entry points, and track real-time student permissions. This guide covers the complete setup process from initial data integration to final student deployment. By following these steps, school operators will establish a secure, verified identity network across campus.

Permission Level Required: Owner

⚠️ Before you begin: You must obtain a clean student information roster and an organized folder of student portrait photos from your official campus photographer. Ensure that you possess administrative access to your school's local Student Information System (SIS).

In this guide:

Rostering your Students and Staff

Rostering populates your Minga environment with verified user profiles connected directly to school-issued email accounts.

Option A: Set up Automatic Rostering (Recommended)

Automatic rostering allows Minga to pull data from your SIS each night so that student, teacher, staff, and class information stays up to date without manual intervention from you or your IT team.

Minga currently supports automated rostering via OneRoster API or SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) with MingaSync.

For in-depth instructions on setting up rostering with MingaSync, refer to this handy article: Sync SIS Rosters with MingaSync

Option B: Manually Import User Data

Choose this path if you need to deploy IDs immediately while IT personnel configure automated data pipelines.

For a step-by-step walkthrough on manually adding users to Minga, check out this resource: Manually Add Users to Minga

Customizing your Digital ID Settings

Make your digital IDs stand out and reflect your school's spirit by customizing their settings.

Step-by-step Guide to Customizing Digital IDs

  1. Click on ID from the primary application navigation menu.

  2. Click the Settings tab located within the upper dashboard view.

  3. Click the ID Background Color box and choose your specific school color profile.

  4. Click the ID Font Color box and pick a contrasting color to ensure text remains highly readable.

  5. Upload your official graphic file into the School Profile slot.

  6. Adjust tracking options by engaging the following control toggles:

    • Custom Background Colors Per Grade: Alters background themes based on student grade classification.

    • Barcode type on ID: Set this to CODE128 to match standard optical scanners used on campus.

    • Show Role on ID / Show Grade on ID: Displays explicit user attributes publicly on the badge canvas.

    • Students Can Upload Temporary Photos: Leave this toggled OFF to prevent students from changing their own profile pictures [

  7. Expand the Suicide Hotline Page Settings drawer to input localized phone numbers and crisis text options.

For deeper insight into customizing your digital IDs, refer to our articles Customize Your Digital IDs, and Choose the Right Barcode Scanner for Digital IDs.

Designating your ID Managers

Managing photos, tracking dynamic credentials, and adjusting student statuses requires manual oversight. You can delegate these administrative tasks to selected campus personnel without granting them full system owner privileges.

Step-by-step Guide to Adding ID Managers

  1. Navigate to the bottom of the ID Settings configuration screen.

  2. Click the Add button located directly inside the ID Managers section block.

  3. Select specific staff names from your roster list or upload an isolated manager directory.

    • ID Managers can upload ID photos, authorize temporary camera photos, create, manage, and assign stickers, and deactivate an ID.

    • ID Managers do not have access to the ID Settings tab.

Uploading Student and Staff Photos

Your Digital IDs need a photo for each user to prevent card-sharing and maintain security integrity across campus checkpoints.

Option A: Bulk Upload Student Photos (Recommended)

Use this option when processing large photo batches delivered directly by your professional school photographer.

Step-by-step Guide to Bulk Uploading Photos

  1. Verify that all photo files are saved in either JPG or PNG file formats.

  2. Rename every single image file so that its filename matches the student's exact school ID number.

    • Example: A student with ID card number 422309 must have an image file named exactly 422309.jpg or 422309.png.

  3. Open the ID feature in Minga.

  4. Click the Upload photos button on the ID Dashboard.

  5. Select Direct upload method.

  6. Drag your photo files or zip file with filenames matching user ID numbers directly into the upload area OR select Browse files to select your files from your device.

Option B: Uploading Temporary Photos

If you don't yet have photos from your photographer for a particular student, Owners and ID Managers can choose to upload a temporary photo for individuals.

Step-by-step Guide to Uploading Temporary Photos

  1. Navigate to the ID Dashboard.
    • Click ID on the main menu navigation to bring up the ID Dashboard.

  2. Find the user you want to update.
    • Search for the user using the search field.
    • Filter the list using Role or Grade if you need to narrow results.

  3. OR, select the No Photo button at the top of the dashboard.
    • Tap the button to see who has No Photo in Minga.

  4. Hover over the No Photo Available icon and click or tap the three dots.

    • Select Upload Photo.

  5. Select the Camera icon to upload or drag and drop a photo (web version).
    • Select a photo to upload from your files or drag and drop a file directly

    • On the mobile app, select the Camera icon to open your device camera.

  6. Capture and confirm the photo
    • Take the photo.
    • Tap Use Photo to confirm the image you captured.
    • Photos captured this way are NOT saved to the device's camera roll.

  7. Select the photo option and tap Save
    • Confirm the correct photo selection is chosen on the screen.
    • Tap Save to apply the temporary photo to the user.

  8. Confirm the user status shows Temp Photo on the ID Dashboard.
    • Return to the user record and verify the status changes to Temp Photo.

For a deeper look at uploading ID photos, check out these resources:

Configuring Digital ID Stickers

Digital stickers act as highly visible indicators stamped directly onto ID cards to call out lunch privileges, open periods, club memberships, or behavioral restrictions.

Step-by-step Guide to Creating ID Stickers

  1. Select ID from the main menu, then select the Stickers tab option.

  2. Click the blue Create Sticker action button.

  3. Click Choose an image to select a preset graphic icon, or upload a custom emblem design directly from your drive.

  4. Enter a recognizable label within the Name text field.

  5. Set your Sticker Priority level by entering a number:

    • Enter 0 to assign the highest priority slot. This ensures the sticker is pinned first in the visual display order on IDs.

  6. Click Save to create the sticker.

  7. To add the sticker to users' IDs, click Add under the Members column.

  8. Find users by uploading a custom group list, searching for names, or filtering by Group, Grade, or Role.

  9. Select users by clicking on the box next to their name, and then select Add at the bottom of the screen.

For an interactive walkthrough on creating stickers and adding them to student IDs, refer to this article: Creating Stickers for Permissions & Privileges.

Reviewing and Distributing ID Cards

Before launching across your campus, you will want to review your ID cards to ensure the information is accurate. It is also a good practice to let students know what to expect with their new, digital IDs.

ID Dashboard

Your ID Manager dashboard will always show you how many students do not have a photo and which ones have temporary photos. To pull a list of all students who have temporary photos or have no photos, just click on the dashboard icon and then Export List.

Step-by-step Guide to Using the ID Dashboard

  1. Navigate to the ID application dashboard.

  2. Audit your master student metrics displayed across the top metrics bar:

    • Verify total numbers for Active users.

    • Track missing assets using the No Photo counter metric.

    • Monitor temporary credentials using the Temp Photo total box.

  3. Click the Export List icon link to pull a spreadsheet of users who need a photo update.

  4. Search for specific individuals by typing into the Search by Name or ID text bar.

  5. Test your administrative control paths using these primary actions:

    • Update Photo: Click on any student profile picture thumbnail to upload a replacement photo asset.

    • Deactivate ID: Click the blue Active status toggle on a user row if you need to lock out a student or revoke their access to campus facilities.

Sending IDs to Your Students

Now that your IDs are set up, you can let your students know how to access their Digital IDs.

Check out our email templates in this resource, Introduce Students to Minga with Welcome Email Templates, for ready-to-use communication.

Troubleshooting

Issue: A student ID displays an inactive status and a blocking message on their mobile screen

Solution: If a student ID displays an inactive status message on their screen, an ID Manager or system Owner has manually engaged the locking toggle on that account record.

An inactive card locks the user interface, displays an explicit security warning, and breaks barcode utility at entry kiosks. To restore full campus access, an authorized administrator must open the ID Dashboard tab, search for the student's name, locate their specific data row, and click the status toggle button to flip it back to Active.

Issue: Bulk uploaded photo files are failing to map to student IDs automatically.

Solution: If bulk uploaded photo files fail to map to user profiles, your image filenames do not exactly match the system directory numbers recorded on your master member roster. Check your photo folders to ensure that no letters, extra spaces, or special characters exist in the filenames. Every graphic asset must be named using only the student's exact numerical ID string followed by a standard extension suffix. For example, filename variations like student_422309.jpg or 422309 .jpg will fail to process; you must format the filename cleanly as 422309.jpg.

FAQs

How do staff members and students log into the app to see their cards?

Staff members and students log into the platform by opening a web browser to navigate to https://app.minga.io or by downloading the official mobile app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. On the central account login screen, users must click their integrated school email connection path using either Google or Microsoft Single Sign-On (SSO). This directory setup allows immediate card access without requiring users to create or remember unique app passwords.

What happens if a student tries to upload a joke picture as their ID photo?

If a student tries to upload a joke picture, the platform will block the attempt because the Students Can Upload Temporary Photos permission toggle is turned off by default within your system configuration dashboard. This structural safety block ensures that only authorized platform Owners and designated ID Managers can modify portrait pictures or capture live camera images.

Resources

Related Articles
How to Launch Minga Successfully at Your School
How to Monitor and Verify Digital ID Cards
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