Zonal - Using Aztec Terminals in Standalone Mode
Our customers are strongly advised to have an emergency process for manual activities in place should they experience outages, as there will need to be clear guidance to staff on how to proceed in these situations to minimise impact on the business. Use the below processes for operating terminals in Standalone Mode alongside operational processes such as getting orders to the Kitchen or Dispense bars
IN THE FIRST INSTANCE CONTACT IT SUPPORT ON THE TELEPHONE TO AUTHORISE THIS PROCESS & INFORM THE OPS MANAGER
Should your Aztec Terminals ever lose connection to the server - you will be presented with a message to signify this:
The first message gives a countdown timer to allow the user time to check cabling and network infrastructure - should the server come back online in this time, the terminal will connect and allow users to continue trading. Should the server not come online, the terminal will reboot and present a slightly different message:
This message will remain present, and the terminal will periodically reboot to re-establish connection to the server. At this point the user has the option of putting the terminal into 'Standalone Mode'. Upon pressing the 'Standalone Mode' button the user is presented with the following message:
It is important to understand that operating a terminal in Standalone Mode means that it will trade entirely independently to all other terminals in the business inclusive of all remote printing capabilities (IE Kitchen Printers will NOT work). Accounts created on this terminal will not be available on other terminals as per 'follow me' functionality meaning the risk of having duplicate accounts is introduced should more than one terminal be put in this mode. It is recommended that only one terminal per trading area ever have Standalone Mode enabled to prevent problems with customer accounts.
Upon pressing ‘Yes’ to continue - the user is presented with the Approval screen:
An authorised user must then approve the action of putting the terminal into Standalone Mode with either their Dallas key or PIN.
Should site users not have permissions to enable Standalone Mode, the code 1901 should be used to enable the functionality.
Upon successful approval the following message is displayed:
During trading in Standalone Mode, the terminal will flash confirmation of this intermittently with the Date / Time. It is important to note that there is a limited amount of space on a terminal for storing transactions during periods of being offline - users should seek to rectify POS Server connectivity urgently:
Once communication with the POS Server has been re-established, the terminal will prompt the user to leave Standalone Mode:
If the user confirms they would like to leave Standalone Mode they will be prompted to reconcile all accounts that have been processed on the terminal during this time:
Upon accepting a start to reconciling system accounts, the user is presented with a screen similar in nature to the 'Recall Account' screen:
The user must select the accounts listed on the right hand side - details of the account are then given on the left hand side and the user should select either 'Keep Account' or 'Delete Account'.
Upon completion of Reconciliation - the system confirms the terminal is now ready to restart into full Communications mode and regular service can resume: