Encoding cardholder information on MIFARE DESFire cards - Security Center 5.11

To accelerate cardholder creation and prevent typos when copying a cardholder onto another system, you can encode cardholder information on a MIFARE DESFire card. When assigning the card to a new cardholder on the other system using a STid reader, the cardholder fields are automatically populated by the values encoded on the card.

1. From the Config Tool homepage, open the MIFARE DESFire configuration task.
2. From the MIFARE DESFire configuration list, and then click Add an item ().
3. In the Badge configuration section, enter a Configuration name.
4. Select the Card encoding check box.
5. Add a custom string file to the application:
   1. At the bottom of the File selection section, click Add an item ().
   2. (Optional) In the File details section, enter a File ID and Name for the custom string file.
   3. Select a value from the Communication settings list, and then configure a Read key and a Write key, or a Read-write key.
   4. From the Type list, select Custom string.
   5. In the File details section, select Custom string from the Type list.
6. Add at least one custom string to the custom string file to define what cardholder information to encode:
   1. In the Custom string section, select UTF-16 or ASCII from the Encoding list, and then click Add an item ().
   2. In the Custom string management dialog box, configure the following:
      Example:

      

      Content

      Click Add an item () and select the cardholder information that you want to store on the card.

      Remaining space

      The number of characters remaining in the file over the total number of characters permitted.

      Length

      Enter the maximum number of characters that you want the content to take up in the file.

      Fill with null character

      When the option is on, if the value of the content does not use the maximum number of characters defined in the Length, the null character is used to fill the remaining space.

      When the option is off, the Fill field is displayed, and you can enter different characters to use instead of the null character.

      Offset

      Where the custom string starts in the file.

      Text alignment

      Whether to align the text to the left or to the right.

   3. Click OK.
      The custom string is added to the custom string file in the File selection section.
7. Add more custom strings to the custom string file, as required.
8. Click Save.
9. Encode the cardholder information and MIFARE DESFire credential on the card:
   NOTE: Ensure that the MIFARE DESFire configuration task is not open on the Test USB reader page. This prevents you from using the STid reader in the Cardholder management task.
   1. Open the Cardholder management task, and select the cardholder from which you want to retrieve the cardholder information.
   2. Click Add a credential > Automatic entry.
   3. In the Automatic entry dialog box, select STid USB reader, and ensure that the Encode before enrollment option is on.
   4. From the Configurations list, select the MIFARE DESFire configuration that was configured with the custom string file.
   5. Badge the card.