Overview of change in Facility Core Product 3.7
Theme: Improving hardware integration.
Highlights
- Improved image capture performance
- Multi deck weighbridge support, for up to 7 decks.
- Hardware status monitors and improved manual control for weighbridge operators.
- Improved support for dual direction weighbridges with boom gates
- Easily control the number of tickets printing for a cash sale.
- Updated application deployment process
- Automated First Weigh - automatically process unknown vehicles using LPR. (Separately subscribed feature)
- Actual License vs License plate changes in Admin and Ticketing
Data Integrity and Security
Actual License Plate Changes
3.6 allowed two reference values to be applied to a vehicle. The License Plate and Actual License Plate are used where a vehicle may need to have an alias for the operator to use but for regulatory reasons the actual license plate is required to be captured. In 3.6 the Actual License plate was not recorded against a transaction so transaction reports would generally show the alias instead of the plate. Where as for some regulatory reports and the naus Regulatory system the actual license plate would be reported if it existed.
The below example shows a vehicle with an alias of TC56546 but an actual license plate of AHJ565. TC56546 might be a fleet number that the weighbridge operator uses to identify the vehicle but it has a license plate of AHJ565.
With this new version of CS, the system will now record the actual license plate against the transaction. This will mean any reports that you currently run that present the transactions license plate will start to show the actual license plate value not the top field value license plate for any transaction recorded in 3.7. Transactions record prior to the upgrade will continue to show the License plate value.
As Mandalay progresses towards a connected waste industry and facility data begins to be shared with customers and carriers, it is important that the data captured is accurate and reflects real world data. With this is mind 3.7 will now make the actual license plate mandatory and it will be restricted to only alphanumeric characters and a maximum of 9 characters. If you have been using this field for anything other than recording a license plate you will need to adjust you process to allow for this change.
The upgrade process will generate an actual plate entry for all vehicles they do not currently have one. It will be based on the license plate field but will be stripped of any non alphanumeric characters including spaces and then truncated to 9 characters. Existing actual license plates will also be cleaned up as part of the process, however some will be ignored if the system feels the data may be important. The system will not cleanse existing actual license plates that include lower case characters or special characters other than - and spaces.
An example of a new actual license plate being created would be if the License Plate value is ABC-523 then the actual license plate will be set to ABC523.
An example of an actual license plate cleanse would be if the existing actual license plate was ABC-523 then the system would change it to ABC523. The intention is to only cleanse an actual license plate that appears to look close to a license plate. Note: Mandalay will contact any customers that look like they have been using the Actual License plate field for something other than a valid license plate.
An example of an existing license plate that wouldn't get cleansed would be if a name was used that included lower case characters. e.g. John Smith
When a new vehicle is created through Administration or Ticketing the Actual License plate will be automatically be populated with a copy of the value from the License plate field. This value will be cleansed of any non alphanumeric characters including spaces and truncated to 9 characters. e.g ABC 123 would appear in the actual plate as ABC123 (Note: 9 characters is the maximum plate length in WA)
The actual license plate is only required for regular vehicle records. For hotkey, generic and attachments vehicle records the actual license plate will be hidden and the label for the License Plate field changed, to better reflect the purpose of the value entered.
Mandalay will continue to evolve vehicle management and you may find additional changes in this area in future version of the Facility Product and the naus Platform to support this evolution.
User Full Name
As part of our continuous improvement of security within the Facility Product suite, the users Full Name will be required. This will improving reporting where auditing would require the exact name of the user that performed an action within the system. All existing user records that do not have a full name will be updated to have the user name populated into the Full Name to ensure consistency post upgrade.
Instant Image Capture
The image capture process has been improved to remove the delay in capturing images. The system will continuously capture images from the camera every few seconds, in the background, so there is no need for the system to communicate with the cameras when a transaction is completed. This will remove the delay experienced in previous versions of the Ticketing system. The currently stored image can be viewed using the new hardware status monitor (see details below)
Multi Deck Weighbridge Support
The multi deck weighbridge support in Ticketing has been increased from 2 decks to a maximum of 7 decks.
This feature will allow the operator to view each individual deck weight and the sum of all the decks. It will also be possible for the operator to select specific decks or groups of decks to be used for the weight capture process.
With some minor modifications to the docket template the weights from each deck can be printed.
Hardware Status and Device Control
To improve the operators interaction with the system and to assist with trouble shooting possible hardware issues the Ticketing interface will now show the status of image capture cameras, EID readers and boom gates/traffic lights. If all devices of the specific type are not functional the operator will see the relevant type with a red background. If only one device out of a group of devices is not functional (one camera is not working but there are two cameras) then the back ground will be orange. If everything is fine then the background will be green.
If the operator notices an issue with a device group they can click on the status indicators to present a new device control form. This form replaces the previous boom gate control form. From here the operator can:
- See the functional and operational state of each device.
- See the image currently available through a camera.
- Manually control the boom gates and traffic lights.
Number of dockets to print
The cash tender screen has now been enhanced to add new preset buttons to control the number of dockets to print, including the option to not print a docket. The Ok button has been replaced with the Print(x) button which indicates the default number of dockets to print and is located in the same location as the Ok button to ensure operators muscle memory doesn't cause any issues with the adjustments to the user interface.
Note: This is only available to cash sales.
Directional Boom Gate Control for Dual Direction Weighbridges
There is now improved support for dual direction weighbridges where boom gates are installed at either end. The system will now open the boom gate relevant to the tag reader or terminal that the transaction was processed at. Where an operator is involved the system will determine the correct boom gate to open based the direction of the primary product used in the transaction.
Updates to the Ticketing UI
Decreasing the size of the bezel around the buttons in Ticketing now allows for more space to show information like the actual license plate and the code of master data item like the client account number.
Note: Where the code is shown the operator will be able to search based on the code and description
Transaction capture status is now presented over the IN and OUT buttons when processing. This presents information to the operator about the stage of the transaction capture and will also prevent the IN or OUT buttons from being selected before the transactions has been captured.
Docket enhancements
Multi use vouchers will only display once in the payments section and more room is provided for the printing of the voucher code.
The version of the Ticketing application is available to be printed on the docket. Both the version that is printing the docket and the version that captured the docket can be shown. (The ticket capture version is only available for tickets captured in version 3.7 or above)
The unit price on the docket can now be printed including tax with these new template fields.
EUPT = Charged Unit Price excluding EPA Fee, including Tax (unitary price bands)
CUEPAT = Charged Unit Price including EPA Fee, including Tax (unitary price bands)
Till Check report enhancements
The till shift ID and the name of the computer the till check report is for will now show on the till check report. The till shift ID can used in reporting to allow reporting on each till shift.
PC EFTPOS
PC EFTPOS specific payment types can now be limited to only being used when PC EFTPOS is available. The operator would need to select another payment method if PC EFTPOS was not available
Failed refunds when canceling ticketing will now allow the operator to retry.
Administration
When preforming a replacement of a transaction that has previously been exported for invoicing, it will be possible to suppress the replacement ticket from being exported. This is helpful when needing to make adjustments to a transaction for regulatory reporting reasons.
The vehicles Actual License Plate value can now be captured against the transaction. Previously if you used fleet numbers and also had the actual license plate the fleet number was stored on the transaction. If you activate this new option the actual license plate will be recorded. This also helpful for customers that use dallas tags at DCSs and have to create multiple vehicle records for one truck. Any reports will now just report all the transactions against the actual license plate rather than the fleet truck or vehicle tag name. Contact Mandalay support if you would like to use this new feature.
The tenancy name is now shown at the bottom of Administration when launched from the naus platform. It will also indicate if its a UAT tenancy by showing the text in red.
Individual vehicles can be excluded from automated LPR processing. This is helpful if you want to use LPR automation on a weighbridge but still want some vehicle to use tags.
The Full Name is now mandatory for new user records and as part of the upgrade process any users without a Full Name will have the username value set as the Full Name. This is to support new cloud based products that are designed to present the users full name. (See above for more details)
Actual License plate is now mandatory and validated for vehicle records that are not hotkeys, generic vehicle or attachments.
Regulatory Reporting
The vehicle type defined through state government legislation can now be defined against vehicle configurations, removing the need to define it against the vehicle. If the vehicle configuration selected for a vehicle doesn't have a vehicle type then the vehicle type defined for the vehicle will be used.
Under the hood
As part of the development of 3.7 a number of improvements have been made to the system that users would not specifically see. These improvements cover areas relating to data integrity and system deployment.
- A transaction in the facility system is made up of a number of different records of information. This version of the system introduces a concept called the Manifest that documents each component that makes up a valid transactions. All naus back end services will be adjusted to look for this manifest to ensure a transaction is only passed onto internal and external service if all the data in the manifest is available.
- The application is now installed using MSI installers. This will help with customers that have secured environments that may have previously detected the Mandalay installer as a virus.
- Docket templates have now moved to a new folder. They will now be found in C:\ProgramData\Mandalay\MandalayCS\Ticket Templates.