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Bulk Activation Card Cannot be Activated Error

This article walks you through the steps to bulk activate a range of cards when some of the cards were previously activated

Updated over 2 months ago

When to use Bulk Activate

The bulk activate tool is useful for activating ranges of cards, but all cards must be in an inactive state. If you try to bulk activate a range of cards and there are active cards within the range, it will block the use of this tool and produce a "Card ________ cannot be activated” error: Learn more about the bulk activate tool: What is the Bulk Activate Tool?

Bulk Activation Error

Because of this, we recommend using cards in a sequential order (not picking the middle card out of the box, for example) to prevent this error. If you do run into this error, the steps below will walk you through how to get around that message and bulk activate the rest of your cards.



How to bulk activate a range of cards that has some active cards


You will need to use a Guest Analysis report with a custom filter to determine which card(s) is active. You will then bulk activate “around” this card.

1. In the PXS Merchant go to Report Center > Run Reports > Guest Analysis and click on Detail
2. Click "Create New Filter"
3. Enter in a name for your filter. i.e. Bulk Activation Fix Jan 2023
4. To the right, under Search Conditions, double-click on Sequential Cards.
5. Select the card template the range of cards is in.
6. Enter in the First Card #, the Last Card # and total number of cards in the range
7. Under Search Conditions, click on Profile and double-click on Account Status.
8. Select “Active,” “Exists,” and “Terminated” and click >

Bulk Activation Account Filter

9. Click “Get # of Matching Accounts” and this should be the total number of cards you are trying to activate.
10. Click Save & Continue
11. Choose which information you need (account status and card number, at a minimum)

Guest Analysis Report

12. Select an Output Type and tun the report
13. Download the report. The report will list all cards in the range and their status. Cards with an “active” status are not eligible to be bulk activated. Cards in an “exist” status in this report can be bulk activated

Using this report, choose new ranges to bulk activate. This will allow you to recover the full range of cards for use, instead of discarding the cards. There may be multiple active cards per range and you may need to make more than two breaks in the activation flow. For example:

Guest Analysis Results

  • In a range of 9, card 5 is active

  • Bulk activate cards 1-4, skip 5, and bulk activate cards 6-9 OR

  • In a range of 20, 2 cards are active

  • Bulk activate cards 1-3, skip 4, bulk activate 5-11, skip 12, and bulk activate 13-20

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