As explained in this FAQ article, we know dynotag merchandise comes in IDENTICAL and UNIQUE variants.
There are situations where it makes sense for a person to have more than one dynotag sharing the same information!
Using the “Clone Tag” feature of dynotags, you can get one dynotag to effectively show the information in another dynotag in your collection.
The following diagram shows an example of a dynotag, designated as the “BASE TAG” and other tags designated as “CLONE TAG” which are simply sharing the information in the BASE TAG.
Note that the information is NOT copied from a BASE TAG to a CLONE TAG. Instead, the CLONE TAG effectively serves whatever information is in the “BASE TAG”. This enables the users to configure multiple dynotags to act as if they were the BASE TAG dynotag, even though they have different dynotag IDs.
When it comes to updating the information, simply updating the “BASE TAG” will automatically update the information in all the “CLONE TAG”s, whether there are one or a hundred clones.
Why the Clone Tag feature? Because there are cases where you want to have multiple dynotags to serve the same information. Typical cases include:
- You want multiple dynotags to share the same information
An example would be having the following four Emergency Contact Information products: Emergency Wristband, Wallet Card Kit, a Charm Tag and a Pendant Tag. These four products would be linked to four separate dynotags as they are activated – but they really need to show one set of information – else the owner has to maintain identical information in all four tags.
The solution is simple: Activate the first tag and add all the information you need into it. This will become your “BASE TAG”. Activate subsequent tags but as you edit them, change their “Tag Template” to “Clone Tag” and point them to your “BASE TAG”. - You lost a physical tag and got a replacement one.
The Dynotag Cloud Service (DCS) actually does not know how many physical tags exist for any given dynotag. The physical tags may be misplaced or lost – but the cloud component of the dynotag will live on – even if no physical tags are using it. When you get replacement tag(s) you can use the original dynotag as the “BASE TAG” and configure the replacement as a “CLONE TAG”. This way, you do not have re-enter the information from scratch.
Using the “Clone Tag” facility is easy – and you can implement it at any time, even with your existing tags. You can have more than one clone tag scheme going for different tags.
Example: Let’s say you have three dynotags in your collection – titled A, B and C – and you want to make B and C be clones of whatever information base tag A has.
Given that you are signed into your dynotag account and are on the “My Tags” page:
- Click the Tag ID button for tag B. This will take you to that tag’s “Manage” page.
- Click left menu item near top titled “Template” – then in the pop-up display, choose “Clone Tag“.
- Your tag Edit form is updated with the new template, which now displays a drop-down list selector labeled “Existing Tag to Forward to“. In that list your eligible base tags are displayed. Pick “tag A”, click “Save”.
Your tag “B” is now a clone of tag “A” and will behave as “A” was scanned or viewed when third parties view its content. When you update the contents of tag “A” changes will be in effect for all its clones also.
You can repeat the process for tag “C”. You can do this for as many tag as you want, there is no limit to how many tags can be a clone of a tag.
In order to make it simpler for you to keep track, we suggest you update the “Title” of the “BASE TAG” with description “Base Tag”. Example – Bob’s Emergency Contact Info pendant dynotag will be used as the “BASE TAG”, so update its title to “Bob’s Emergency Info Base Tag“. Similarly, update the title of a “Clone Tag” to indicate its status. For example, Bob’s Emergency Contact Info wristband tag may have the title “Clone: Bob’s Emergency Contact Info“. You can always view the tag details of a clone tag to see which base tag it is pointing to – and even update it as needed.
As always, you have complete flexibility and make a clone tag function as a stand-alone tag, simply by updating its chosen tag template.
A note for advanced users:
What if both “clone tag” B and its “base tag” A – are password protected tags?
When tag B is viewed, the password protection of “clone tag” B will supercede the base tag’s password – and only the clone tag’s password will be sought. When the base tag A is directly viewed by a third party, then the base tag A’s password will be sought.
After setting up a clone tag scheme, we suggest using another computer to experiment visiting the tag address involved and verify proper operation.