Because a transaction is always started by entering a vehicle, hotkeys are set up in the Vehicles tab of the Administration application.

1. Navigate to the Vehicles tab of the Administration application.
2. Click the 'Add' button
3. Enter a name for the hotkey. Abbreviations may be necessary to ensure the name fits on a key in the Ticketing application.
4. Check the box for 'Hotkey'

For hotkeys to work correctly the system needs to have all information defaulted. The only information that a hotkey will prompt for is, (if configured) the license plate, quantity and the cash tendering screen. At a minimum the Client and Product must be set.

Other configuration settings may determine other items that are mandatory. If a hotkey is created that does not address all configured required items it is considered invalid and will not create a valid transaction.

Note: Any mandatory fields that are set for your organisation will also need to be defined in the hotkey set up.  Mandatory fields are indicated in bold text.

It is not possible to create a hotkey for a contract. If specific pricing is needed then price categories can be used to ensure a specific price is used.  This is covered in a separate article.

A hotkey can be configured to prompt for a license plate to be captured against the transactions. Checking this option will cause the system to ask for a license plate, which will be saved against the transaction, and can subsequently can be reported on in the Mandalay CS reporting system. If the Alternate License Plate option is checked, the key will also show in green at the top of the Ticketing screen.  

Tip: This can also be used to set up generic vehicle keys to allow creation of transaction templates for vehicles that do not need to be stored in Mandalay CS. These keys don't have to be a hotkey, and if the hotkey option is unchecked, these keys will show only as green keys in the top section of ticketing.

Note: A vehicle record will not be created for alternate license plates captured during hotkey use.

A hotkey can either use a fixed quantity of the product, or can be set to use a variable quantity, which will prompt the operator to provide the quantity.

To set the hotkey as a variable quantity hotkey set the Hotkey Quantity to 0.

If your system is configured to calculate cartage then this can be included in the hotkey as long as the system can determine the correct quantity to use for the cartage based on the Cartage Raterate Type specified in the settings.  Information on each rate type is below:

Flat Rate
This rate type does not need any specific setup to work in a hotkey.

Per Kilometer
This rate type will need to have a nominal distance set, which the system will use to calculate the cartage charge for a hotkey set against this zone.

Per Tonne
This rate type will only work if the stock unit for the products in question is a weighed product (kg or tonnes) or, a non-weighed product with a nominal weight configured. The system will then use either the hotkey quantity, or the calculated nominal weight to work out the price per tonne.

Per Tonne/Per Km
This rate type needs to follow the requirements set out in both Per Kilometer and Per Tonne instructions above.

Note: If zone is a configured mandatory field then all hotkeys will need to include the cartage zone.

Some implementations of Mandalay CS require that every transaction has a source and destination location set against it. This is mostly in government regulatory reporting implementations where information about the locations can determine how a levy is applied.

For hotkeys there are 2 methods for setting the destination and source for a transactions:

1. Product Default Locations

In some states of Australia is is necessary for regulatory data be submitted to the state government for all transactions captured and, in much the same way that default locations can be configured through the product or vehicle favourites, regulatory data can also be set to default in a similar method.

This can get quite confusing and lead to invalid hotkeys that report incorrect regulatory data. So it is recommended that all regulatory data, and location data be set from the product only and that vehicle favourites be used only if necessary.  This method should be discussed with a Mandalay Technologies support team member before implementing.

In regulatory data reporting implementations, it is always necessary to identify the type of vehicle used in a transactions.  This means hotkeys should always be set up based on the type of vehicle to be used in the transaction. It is not possible to have one hotkey for multiple vehicle types.

If weight deeming is also to be used for calculating levies and or net weights then a loaded capacity will need to be configured against a default vehicle configuration. This loaded capacity represents the Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) for this type of vehicle hotkey and is used to look up the weight conversion table to estimate the net weight.

Once a hotkey is created it will appear in the bottom section of the Ticketing application screen. It is possible to change the position of the hotkeys to the top sections if more room is needed. This can be configured in Configuration Manager on the layout tab.

Once a hotkey transaction has been processed a message wail appear advising that the ticket is complete.

Note: It is not possible to use temporary accounts for hotkey transactions as temporary accounts must have a valid vehicle record.

A hotkey has its own ticket template which by default looks like the above example. Like all Mandalay CS ticket templates this one can be customised to suit your needs. See you System Administrator or a Mandalay support technician if you would like to look at customising your ticket templates.

If no ticket is needed for this transaction then unselect the 'Print Ticket' option for the hotkey and this will prevent tickets from printing.