Membership ID vs Lookup ID - scanning barcodes

Riley Holland

Our institution is starting the process of launching a digital membership card program, and we're running into some issues. A constituent's Membership ID and Lookup ID don't match, but that makes sense since not every constituent becomes a member (therefore the numbers won't be in the same order).

However, we find that when the barcode is scanned, the ID sometimes pulls up multiple people, since the number can be one person's Membership ID, and another person's Lookup ID. For example, John Smith's Membership ID may be 8-10002600, but Lucy Jones has the same number listed as a Lookup ID. When scanning John's ID, it pulls up both him and Lucy.

Has anyone found a way around this, or does anyone have any advice on how to deal with this issue? It would be really unfortunate if someone's annual pass was mistakenly redeemed by a different member.

Lori Elder

@Riley Holland
I use the lookup ID of the primary member.

Riley Holland

@Lori Elder Do you use the Lookup ID on Membership Cards? When we tried this it still pulled other constituents, and we are running into an issue where Membership benefits are being used by non-members due to a misclick.

Lori Elder

@Riley Holland yes, it then pulls in the second adult on the account,

Riley Holland

@Lori Elder Thank you for the visual! We do the same thing with our cards.

Do you ever run into the issue I'm facing where two people are assigned the same number? When you “search” the Lookup ID by scanning the barcode, it also pulls up anyone who has that number as their Membership ID

Regina Holten

@Lori Elder
Is this because both are in the same household?

We never use the Member ID…at our ticket desk. I use it in the back office for reports. On the member card we ONLY used the primary member's constituent Lookup ID as their card's ‘member ID’. As long as that number is entered, or the name on the card, you'll usually see that person AND the household their in (showing, then the spouse/domestic partner).

I like this system, used even before we converted to Altru in 2017. Having ONE person that is the primary member with their Lookup ID as their member id works for us. Now, it might affect attendance notes, but so far, no, as the member cards, though only one number there are two names if the primary had a spouse/domestic partner. I understand that this is all dependent on what the org is comfortable doing. This simply seems to work for us.