The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has launched a new electronic licensing system
designed to make purchasing and managing licenses more convenient for outdoor enthusiasts.
KDWA reporter Kristi Myre recently spoke with Minnesota DNR Wildlife Operations Manager Jamie Gangaware to learn more about this new system and what users can expect.
Gangaware explained, “The new system is going to look very different for users, especially our online users who have purchased licenses directly from our website previously. We have had a system in place for over 25 years, and so this is the first really big upgrade that we’ve had, and so we now have the ability for our users, our customers, anglers, and hunters across the state and well beyond to purchase on the internet; they can still purchase in person at our license agent, but we’ve added the ability to purchase from your pocket via a mobile app that’s available both on Android and Apple, and so the convenience is the bigger, is the biggest upgrade, as well as visually, and the ease of finding what you’re looking for.”
You touched on a few already, but are there some additional benefits to the new licensing system?
Gangaware says, “Yes, so with the change to the new system and going mobile, we made some changes in statute as well to follow that, so we’re no longer—users are no longer—our customers are no longer required to have paper licenses, but you can still have paper licenses. The requirement is that you must have your license on you when you are recreating, whether it’s angling or hunting or trapping, and so that can be in the form of a paper license that you either print yourself at home or you have printed at an agent, like you always have, so whether it’s the bait and tackle shop or the gas station or the Fleet Farm, or you know, whomever, but you can have it now on your mobile app on your phone, or you can still purchase online and have that email in your email inbox on your phone, and that still counts.
So that license paper license requirement has gone away, but the requirement to just have it on you and be able to present it while you’re doing that recreation is still there. So that is a huge benefit, right? So, it’s just one less thing that you have to think about. Did I leave it in that other jacket pocket? Is it in the truck? Did I leave it in the tackle box? You know, is it in that… you know, did I leave it in my friend’s boat? You know, it can be with you.
It’s because it’s on your phone. So that is a huge benefit. And also, the benefit too is if you forgot to make that purchase and you’re heading out of town, you can just flip your phone out and make that purchase, you know, in route if that’s what you choose to do.”
You know, this sounds really convenient, because truth is, we’re never too far away from our phones. So, since the launch, what kind of feedback has the DNR received so far?
Gangaware replied, “We’ve expected that we would have some hiccups along the way. This is a system that is replacing one that’s been in place, like I said, for about 25 years. We had about eight and a half million records in the old system, compared to about 2.2 million users in any given year, and so that’s a lot of just extra data, duplicate records, old data that was coming with us, but we were also going to clean it up. We did that during the week that we had; we called it our blackout period while we transitioned from the old system to the new system. During that time, we merged records, we cleaned them up, and we tried to match people to all these duplicate accounts and make one account. So, so far, we’re at about 88% of people who are customers who went to try to log in found themselves right away and had no issues. The other 12%, what we’re seeing is about 50/50 new customers coming in: we have a lot of out-of-state folks at resorts up north or going to the Boundary Waters, those sorts of things for like a non-resident 24-hour or seven-day licenses, and then the other 50% of those folks are, you know, truly the—when we did that customer merge, there was just bad data in there, and so we’re talking like 12 years ago, a birth date was mistyped or something like that.
So, those folks are calling and we’re getting them squared away as quick as we can. The feedback has been really good, even with those hiccups, and we’ve been really happy with that. We know that the agents have been learning the system. It is a very different system than what they’ve been used to out at our agent locations, out at both bait and tackle shops, out at the resorts, and at other outfitters. They’ve said, you know, it has been easier to use with finding customers; that, you know, most of the time it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, and they have to call, and we can quickly get that squared away, yeah. It’s been overall very positive.”
Is there anything else you would like the public to know about the new system?
Gangaware added, “Well, we’ve added the mobile app as an option, you know. You can still download the app for yourself and get your account synced up. If you’ve already purchased a 2026 license before the switch happened here in June, your licenses will come with you, right? So, you know, I’m in that group. I purchased my license, you know, just earlier this spring, and so when we did the transition, I logged into my account, and then poof, it was there, right in my mobile app, but I do want folks to know that they can do that. They can create an online account and get themselves synced up and find themselves, or if they’re a new user, they can do that. But they can still walk into their favorite agent; they can still walk into their favorite bait and tackle store or their favorite outfitter and have that one-on-one, that human interaction, that connection, and have that conversation, or that cup of coffee and talk about their day of fishing and make that purchase of their license right there at the counter. They don’t have to have it printed; they don’t even need an email. As long as they have their account on their mobile app, it will just sync right up to their mobile app so that they can have the best of both worlds; they can still keep that one-on-one, that human interaction that you know that we all love, but then still have it, that technology right in their pocket.
The agents have been selling these licenses for us for decades, right, and it’s such an incredible partnership that the DNR has, and we don’t want to lose that partnership, and that’s not what this was meant to do. It’s about the convenience.”
For more information, visit MnDNR.gov; on the homepage, you’ll see the option to buy a license, click on that, or download the Minnesota DNR licensing app, which is available for both Android and iPhone users.
[Click the soundbite to listen to the report.]