Innovatrics proprietary template format is ICS format. All user records (or user templates) are stored in ICS format in the IDKit or ExpressID AFIS database. You can export user records in ICS template format using IDKit (refer to IDKit documentation).

ICS template has its internal version encoded in first bytes of template in text form as “ICRSNN” (NN is the version).

Previous versions of IDKit (<2.60) were generating ICS templates with internal version ICRS21. The latest version is ICRS23 (since IDKit 2.60). Templates are backward compatible. It means that older version templates can be imported using newer IDKit versions. Implicit forward compatibility, e.g. implicit conversion templates from newer to older versions does not work. However, in IDKit < 7.2.0 you can use export functionality to export new version template in older format (More info on this in documentation: C++ API Reference -> Functions -> User Record -> Import/Export, see CFG_ICS_TEMPLATE_VERSION parameter). Keep in mind that this is not possible in IDKit >= 7.2.0.

Older templates are automatically updated during user templates load from database to Template Cache (Documentation -> Notes -> Template Cache) when IDKit connects to the database (IEngine_Connect) or when ExpressID AFIS is starting.

This process does not alter database itself so templates are updated every time during load process. Please note that templates created and saved (IEngine_RegisterUser) in database using new version will register new version templates, so the database won’t be backward compatible.

In case you have saved fingerprint images, it would be the best to create a new database from those to gain the best performance and accuracy.

Note: If you need two computers to interact, it is important to keep the receiving end at a newer release than the sending end. In client-server setup, this means upgrading server first, clients later.