How to Create Digital Membership Cards with QR Codes
DISCLAIMER: I’m the author of the AnyMerge Mail add-on.
In the previous article, I introduced the AnyMerge Mail add-on I created for Google Spreadsheets. In today’s post, I’m going to show you how you can use the add-on to create digital membership cards with QR codes within five minutes and literally for free.
What is a Digital Membership Card?
By a digital membership card in this article, I mean an email message with a QR code. No that digital card where you need an extra application to be installed on your device. Everyone has an email client installed on a smartphone.
Why Digital Membership Cards?
Instead of making physical cards that your members will lose or forget to bring along go green and send cards directly from Gmail. Nowadays almost everyone carries a smartphone, right? In case someone accidentally deleted an email with a membership card you can re-send it again.
Creating Digital Membership Cards in 5 Minutes
It is super simple. Just install the add-on. Once you open the add-on, it will guide you in your first steps and it will configure a sample setup for you.
It will:
- create a sample membership cards sheet with data
- create a sample membership card Gmail draft with merge fields
- set up a mapping between the merge fields in the draft and columns in the sheet
- set up an output configuration
Gmail Mail Merge — Sample Sheet
Add-on will create a sample membership card sheet. We will be sending membership cards to the Simpsons family.
Gmail Mail Merge — Sample Email Template
Add-on creates a sample Gmail template. The template contains merge fields. Each merge field is enclosed in double curly brackets. In the picture below there are two merge fields visible — {{Name}} and {{QR}} and there are a few more below the membership card.
Gmail Mail Merge — Sample Mapping
Add-on sets up a sample mapping between the merge fields in the sample draft and the columns in the sample sheet. The mapping tells the add-on how to process each merge field — from which column to take values and how to merge them into the sample template. Add-on can merge data as text values, images, and QR codes. On top of that, the add-on can attach multiple Google Drive files as attachments.
In this case, the add-on maps the {{QR}} merge field to the Card ID column and configures the merge type as QR Code. Values from the Card ID column will be encoded into QR Codes and placed where the {{QR}} merge field is.
You can adjust the mapping when you go to Sheet Configuration -> Merge Fields.
Gmail Mail Merge — Create Membership Cards
Keep the default options on the main screen and hit the GENERATE button. The add-on will go row by row and for each row, it will create a personalized membership card. And that's it! Check out how the cards look like on your smartphone.
Conclusion
Streamline the card creation process with the AnyMerge Mail add-on. Create your own template and send cards with QR codes from Gmail. Use your existing tracking solution to scan the QR codes.
Whether you run a club, organize a sports event, a music event, or a conference, take advantage of digital cards with QR codes generated using the AnyMerge Mail add-on. It is for free.
Happy merging!
