Bulk Enrol Access Cards and Move Card Lists Between Sites

By P-Soft Expert Team October 24, 2026 10 min read

To bulk enrol access cards cleanly, prepare and check your roster outside the software first, then add the whole range of new cards in one step, register each person with all of their cards and tags on a single form, and assign a group at the same time. To reuse that roster at another building or site, export the card list to a file and import it there; Nooradio does this without creating duplicate records. Bulk enrolment, groups and file import/export are part of the Pro and Elite plans.

Every access control rollout has a moment that nobody enjoys: getting dozens or hundreds of people and cards into the system before opening day. A new office floor, a second warehouse, a night shift being added at a plant, a contractor crew arriving for a long project. Rushed enrolment rarely fails on day one. It fails three months later, when a card turns out to belong to two people, when someone sits in the wrong group and is locked out on a Saturday, or when the same manager exists twice at two sites under two spellings. This guide is about that enrolment phase and how to make it fast, tidy and repeatable in card-based access control software.

Why one-by-one card enrolment breaks down at scale

Typing in five new starters is harmless. Typing in two hundred is a different job, and the same three mistakes appear almost every time:

Mistyped card numbers. Swap two digits and the card in someone’s pocket no longer matches the card in the software.
Inconsistent names. “Robert Klein”, “Bob Klein” and “R. Klein” become three people when you later search the history.
Group assigned later. The person is entered now and grouped “when there is time”, so the right schedule does not apply to them in between.

All three come from doing the work live, without a reference list. The fix is to separate preparing the data from entering it.

Preparing your access card roster before you import anything

Build a working roster, for example in a spreadsheet, and treat it as the single source of truth until it has been signed off. This is your own checking tool, not the software’s import format. Columns that pay off:

Roster column	Purpose	What to check
Full name	Identify each person once	One naming convention for everyone
Card number(s)	Link credentials to the person	No number appears twice
Vehicle tag, if any	Car park access under the same record	Same row as the person’s card
Group	Decides permitted hours and doors	Picked from a fixed list of groups
Status	Active or inactive from day one	Spare cards marked inactive

A quick win: sort the sheet by card number so any repeats sit next to each other, and ask a second person to read it through before entry. Fresh eyes catch what the author no longer sees.

Adding a range of access cards in one go

Cards usually arrive in boxes with consecutive numbers. In Nooradio you do not need to create them individually; a whole range is added in one action. The sensible order is to load the range first and then assign cards to people. That way the cards nobody has received yet are already known to the system and can sit in reserve for replacements.

One rule for that reserve: keep spare cards inactive until they are handed to someone. An active, unassigned card that walks out of a drawer opens doors, and nobody can say whose name the movement will appear under.

One person, several cards and tags, one record

Plenty of people carry more than one credential: a card for the pedestrian door and a tag for the car park barrier, or one card for the workshop and another for the office. Creating a separate record per card splits that person’s history into pieces. Nooradio keeps a person and all of their cards and tags on a single form, so the history stays under one name and switching off one credential leaves the others working.

Groups at enrolment time: the basis for access schedules

A group is more than a label. Permitted access hours are defined per group, covering weekdays and holidays, so placing each person in the right group during bulk enrolment means the correct rules apply from their first swipe. Settle the list of groups before you load people, and keep it short; a dozen well-defined groups beat fifty overlapping ones. We cover group design in detail in our guide to access schedules and user groups.

Duplicate access cards: where they come from and how to resolve them

A duplicate card is a card number that is already registered, or is about to be registered a second time. Common causes:

A card collected from a leaver is reissued to a new starter without checking the old record.
Two departments merge their lists after each used part of the same box of cards.
Someone already enrolled under a slightly different name is entered again.

Nooradio warns you when a card being registered is already defined. Treat the warning as a stop sign: find out who actually holds the card right now before carrying on. If it came back from a former holder, detach it from that record first, so earlier movements stay with the previous person and new ones are logged under the new holder.

Moving card lists between buildings and sites by file

Picture a company with a head office in town and a distribution warehouse on an industrial estate, each running its own Nooradio on a PC at that site. A handful of managers and engineers need access at both. Instead of keying them in again, you export the card list from the first site to a file and import it at the second. The import does not create duplicate records: anyone who already exists at the destination keeps a single record.

A practical sequence for the transfer:

Export from the source site. Take the file from the software itself, so its layout is ready for import elsewhere.
Trim the list. Remove people who should not have access at the destination.
Back up the destination. Take a backup before importing, so a mistake is easy to roll back.
Import and regroup. Groups and permitted hours can differ between sites; map the imported people to the destination’s groups.
Check card status. Cards that are inactive at the source should be reviewed at the destination too.

Each site is currently managed on its own. Remote management through a browser and from several PCs is on Nooradio’s coming-soon list.

Transfers and leavers: deactivate, do not delete

Bulk enrolment has a mirror image: people moving between buildings or leaving the company. Deleting the record is tempting and wipes the access history with it. In Nooradio any card can be switched off instantly while the person’s data stays in place, and switched back on if they return. A lost card is a separate situation with its own routine, described in our article on what to do when an access card is lost.

Example (hypothetical): opening a second building

A fictional engineering firm leases a second building for its support team. The office manager compiles a working roster for the team, matched to the numbers on a new box of cards. She loads the box as a range into the second building’s Nooradio, creates three groups (staff, supervisors, facilities) and enrols everyone with their cards. Four directors who work in both buildings come across in a file exported from the first site. During entry the software flags one card as a duplicate; it turns out to have been logged as a spare months earlier. The day before opening, she tests the doors with a card from each group and one card that was never registered.

Common mistakes in bulk card enrolment

Mistake	Consequence	Prevention
Entering straight from emails and notes	Typos and inconsistent names	A checked working roster
Leaving spare cards active	An unassigned card opens doors	Inactive until handed over
A separate record per card	Fragmented reports	All credentials on one form
Clicking past the duplicate warning	Movements logged under the wrong name	Confirm the current holder first
Importing without a backup	Hard to undo an error	Back up the destination first

Coming from spreadsheets or an older system?

If your people and card numbers already sit in Excel or in previous software, you do not have to retype them. The P-Soft team migrates existing data from spreadsheets or a legacy system into Nooradio; how much is included is set by your plan and contract. Clean the roster anyway: messy data stays messy after a migration.

Which Nooradio plan includes bulk enrolment?

Capability	Start	Pro	Elite
People and cards, instant enable/disable	✓	✓	✓
Bulk card ranges and card groups	—	✓	✓
Card list import/export by file	—	✓	✓
Permitted hours per group	—	✓	✓
Scheduled automatic backups	—	✓	✓

Controller capacity grows with the plan as well: Start covers two door controllers, Pro eight, and Elite has no cap. Nooradio works with smart cards and tags only.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I enrol a hundred access cards at once?

Yes. On the Pro and Elite plans you add a whole range of cards in one step instead of one by one.

What happens if I register the same card twice?

Nooradio shows a duplicate-card warning so you can confirm who holds the card before continuing.

Does importing a card list at another site create duplicate people?

No. People who already exist at the destination keep a single record after the import.

Can I manage several sites from one PC?

Not yet. Each site is managed on its local PC; browser-based remote management from several PCs is coming soon.

Should I delete people who leave or transfer?

No. Deactivate their cards so the access history is kept and the card can be re-enabled if needed.

Planning a rollout for a new building or site? See how Nooradio handles enrolment and card transfers on our access control software page and request a walkthrough with your own scenario.