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Link Your QLD Blue Card Holders

Queensland is the one state where your organisation can be linked to a worker's Blue Card at Blue Card Services. Linking is what makes you a recorded employer of that card holder, and it is separate from verifying a card — verification reads the public validation page and needs no account at all.

Oho can do the linking for you. It signs in to the Blue Card Services Organisation Portal with your organisation's own login, finds each holder, and submits the child-related-work link on your behalf, a batch at a time.

What you'll end up with

Your Blue Card holders linked to your organisation in the Blue Card Services portal, with a per-holder record in Oho of which ones linked, which need a detail filled in, and which need a person to look at them.

Before you start​

  • A Blue Card Services Organisation Portal login for the organisation you're linking under. There is no shared or public login — each organisation signs in with its own account.
  • Access to the verification codes the portal sends when that account signs in. The portal issues two codes, one after the other, and each has to be entered within about four minutes, so be at your desk when you start a run.
  • The exact organisation name as it appears in the portal's organisation selector.
  • Blue Cards recorded in Oho against your workers, each with a card number, date of birth and surname. Holders missing any of the three can't be looked up.
  • Admin access in Oho — verification sources sit under Admin. If you don't see the menu item, ask your Oho administrator.

Step 1: Add the Blue Card source​

In the left menu under Admin, click Verification Sources, then Add source, and choose the Blue Card (QLD) registry. Add a verification source walks through the wizard in general; the two steps below are the ones specific to linking.

On the connection step:

  • Username — the portal username Oho signs in with, for example compliance@yourcompany.com.au.
  • Password — stored as an Oho Secret, encrypted, and never written into the source's configuration or its logs. When the portal password changes, create a fresh secret; it applies on the next run.
  • Applicant type — Paid, Student or Volunteer. Oho selects this when it registers interest for a newly-linked worker.
  • Employment type — the child-related-work category from the portal's own list, such as Churches, clubs and associations or Sport, active recreation, gyms and play facilities.

Applicant type and employment type are organisation-wide defaults. Oho applies the same pair to every holder in a run, so pick the category that fits the bulk of your workforce.

Step 3: Map the portal organisation to your Oho organisations​

  • Portal organisation name — type it exactly as the portal's organisation selector shows it, spacing included. One portal login can reach several organisations, so before linking anyone Oho checks that the organisation it landed in is the one you named. A mismatch stops the run rather than linking people under the wrong employer.
  • Oho Organisations — the organisations this portal organisation covers. You can pick several; one verification source covers one portal organisation.

This mapping is also what decides who appears in a run. Oho considers a Blue Card a candidate when the card is recorded against a worker in one of the Oho Organisations you select here. A card sitting under a different organisation won't be offered, however valid it is.

Finish the wizard and save the source.

Step 4: Run the linking​

Find the source in the Verification Sources list and click Link new workers on its row. The Linking Blue Card (QLD) window opens and shows every holder it can work on.

Click to start the run, then:

  1. Oho signs in to the portal.
  2. When the portal asks, the window shows a Verification code box. Enter the code, click Submit code, and do the same for the second code.
  3. The counter at the top fills in as holders link. You can close the window and leave the run going in the background — reopening it picks the run back up.

Each run links a limited number of holders — ten by default — and the window says so up front: "Each run links up to 10 holders, so this one covers 10 of the N still to link. Run it again to continue." When it finishes, the Link next 10 button starts the next batch. Work through as many batches as you need.

Step 5: Read the result​

Holders are grouped by what happened to them.

Linked​

Done. Your organisation is recorded against the card at Blue Card Services, and Oho holds the registry's own identifier for it.

Needs card details​

These holders were never tried. The portal searches on card number, date of birth and surname together, so a record missing any one of them can't be looked up at all — the group tells you which detail is missing. Re-running changes nothing; add the detail to the credential in Oho and the holder joins the next run.

Needs attention​

These were tried and didn't link.

  • Where the portal couldn't find the card, the holder needs a person to look. Usually the card details on file don't match the register — most often a renewed card, which gets a new issue number that Oho can't guess.
  • Where a run hit a temporary problem, Oho retries the holder on later runs. After a few consecutive failures it parks them for a day so one bad afternoon at the portal doesn't keep them in the queue forever, then tries again.

Nobody listed at all​

Two different messages, and they mean opposite things:

  • "Every Blue Card holder in this organisation is already linked" — there is nothing left to do.
  • "No Blue Card holders found for this organisation" — the run found no candidates in the first place. A holder only appears once their Blue Card is recorded against a worker in one of the Oho Organisations this source is mapped to, so check the mapping in Step 3 before concluding the workforce is linked.

If a run fails​

A failed linking run changes nothing. Oho records the attempt and nothing else: no verification result is written, no card's status changes, and no worker's compliance moves. Workers who were eligible before a failed run are still eligible after it.

Open the source's Run History to see what the run reported. A run that stops at sign-in — a wrong password, an expired one, or a verification code that wasn't entered in time — is the common case, and re-running after fixing the login is safe: holders already linked are skipped.

When to ask for help

Contact support if sign-in keeps failing with a login you've confirmed works in the portal yourself, if the portal organisation name matches exactly and the run still stops, or if a holder stays in Needs attention after you've corrected their card details.

Common questions​

Does linking verify the card? No. They're separate. Verification reads the public validation page and runs on its own schedule; linking signs in to the organisation portal and records you as an employer. A card can be verified without ever being linked.

Can I link applicants, not just workers? Yes, with the Include applicants setting on the source, which is off by default. Leave it off and only cards held by workers are offered.

Why only ten at a time? The cap keeps a run short and predictable, and keeps the blast radius small if the portal misbehaves part-way through. Running again picks up where the last one stopped.

What's next​