Blog Posts

Windows 7, 2008 Server, and Office 2010 End Of Life

Posted on December 10, 2019December 10, 2019 by ccsretail

Windows 7, 2008 Server, and Office 2010 End Of Life

When Windows 7 was released on October 22, 2009, Microsoft made the initial commitment to provide 10 years of product support. Currently, Microsoft has indicated that it will discontinue Windows 7 support on January 15, 2020. After this date, technical assistance and software updates standardly provided through Windows Update (Including Security Service Packs), will no longer be available for the product. Also, both Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Office 2010 share the same end of life date.

At this point, Microsoft strongly recommends that all Windows 7 users move to Windows 10 before this January 15, 2020 deadline.

For those users who DO NOT intend to update their computers, there are a number of things to consider as follows:

Security Issues – Hackers will be ready to take advantage of any security flaws that are currently and later found in Windows 7. So while any PC’s running the Windows 7 operating system will continue to work, you will be at risk for both hacking and malware infections that could be potentially catastrophic.

PCI Compliance – Because Windows 7 will no longer be supported, if you run a Point of Sale System that runs Credit Cards through the system, you will be required to update all of your systems to PCI compliant systems. Failure to do this could result in possible penalties and fines especially if your systems are compromised.

Windows Explorer – Being that Internet Explorer is part of the Windows 7 operation system, it will also be part of this end of life process. While Internet Explorer is still supported by many web sites, developers will likely also discontinue support for using this Internet browser. Many on-line retailers and banks have already started pushing users to run alternative browsers such as Chrome and Firefox. In some cases, you will see warnings from websites, and in other cases, the site may just hang or crash.

For those users who DO intend to update their computers, there are a number of things to consider as follows:

Hardware Issues – Is your current Hardware Windows 10 Compatible? – If your computers/registers are more than 5-6 years old, the hardware may not be supported in Windows 10. Some older printer models and peripheral devices may not have drivers available for Windows 10.

Software applications – Is your currently installed software application supported running on Windows 10? Will it have to be moved to newer equipment? As an example, your currently installed POS and/or accounting software application may need to be updated. Do you have any customizations and/or third party applications that will require retrofitting or re-programming?

Time Constraints v.s. Support Costs – Based on experience, I have found that Windows 7 to Windows 10 upgrades of existing PCs can take anywhere from 8-24 hours per machine. The wide time element is largely dependent on a number of factors such as Internet bandwidth (Download speeds, resources), CPU Clock speed, amount and type of RAM, and any additional update work required after the upgrade has completed.

This means that when these upgrades are done in place, you should expect to see some extended down-time, and extended support interaction… which could also result in subsequently higher overall costs,

Over the years registers and PCs have actually come down in price, so in some cases, it might actually be less expensive to replace a register or a PC, rather than trying to upgrade an old and obsolete ones.

Scheduling and Assistance – Who will need to be involved in doing the required work? If you don’t have your own in-house or on-site IT personnel, will there actually be someone available to assist with the required work that is involved?

Please contact CCS Retail Systems in order to schedule the above work.

– John

Preparing To Update Counterpoint

Posted on November 26, 2019December 10, 2019 by ccsretail

Preparing To Update Counterpoint

Depending on your current version of NCR Counterpoint, updating to the latest version may require updating the history tables as part of the update. Depending on how much history you have kept over the years, this process can take a while to complete. It also starts from the oldest and works its way to the newest so some history may not be there as a result until the process finishes. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to a few days or even weeks.

To prepare for this, it is recommended to purge your ticket history to only keep 3 years or so on file. I would recommend talking to your accountant as to how much they recommended you keep.

For example, I recently updated a customer with about 10 years of history. It took approximately 3 days for all the history to be updated. The time it takes also depends on other factors like Internet bandwidth, speed of the servers, as well as how “clean” the data is.

If you are planning to update your software soon, please look into purging your ticket history to help the process run a little quicker.

-Bryan

NCR Counterpoint Email Functions

Posted on October 17, 2019October 17, 2019 by ccsretail

NCR Counterpoint Email Functions

Email CCS Sales.

Did you know you could email receipts directly from Point of Sale? What about emailing PO’s to vendors? NCR Counterpoint can be set up to allow you to email reports as well.

Emailing does require a little setup and configuration and works with most email hosts. It is secure and seamless.

If you are interested in testing or setting up this functionality, Contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department for a review of your system.

-Bryan

Holiday Season Spam and Phishing Emails

Posted on October 17, 2019October 17, 2019 by ccsretail

As we start to move into the holiday season, it is a good time to remind your employees to be aware of spam and phishing emails. Both of these increase greatly at this time. Many people are, of course, ordering more from on-line retailers, and shipping more packages themselves. The bad guys know this, too, and know that people may be more susceptible to those false package delivery notices, and fake invoices, that they receive in their email inbox.

Additionally, more customers and more products moving through the stores will, of course, mean that your employees are busier. Therefore, they may not take as much time to evaluate any emails that are received and be more likely to open malicious emails and attachments or click on those deceptive links.

If this is the busiest time of the year for you, then you know that it would also be the worst time of the year to get hit with something as potentially damaging as malware or ransomware. So, before the holiday season hits hard, it may be a good time to remind your employees to be extra vigilant.

Reviewing your systems to ensure that the latest system updates are in place, that your anti-virus is up-to-date, and that your systems are as secure as you can make them, is also a good idea. As always, we are available to help you and can review your system if you would like.

Dave

Retail Theft Is On The Rise

Posted on October 7, 2019October 7, 2019 by ccsretail

Retail Theft Is On The Rise

In the USA, for 2018, the summary breakdown for retail theft was in the following areas.

Shoplifting loses is now a staggering $50.6 billion dollars a year.
Return fraud is an estimated $15 billion a year.
Gift card fraud is an estimated $5 billion a year.

The NFR (National Retail Federation) 2018 survey of over 500 Major retailers returned some significant numbers, and 2019 is expected to have an even higher increase. Some notable highlights are:

Survey respondents indicated that 91.6% had been victims of ORC (Organized Retail Crime) during the year.

Areas where the most fraud is occurring:

In-Store Only Sales: 42.9%
Online Only Sales: 30.2%
Multi-channel Sales( i.e. buy online, pickup in-store): 22.2%

In 2018, ORC represented $777,877 for every $1 billion in retail sales.

Thefts coalesced into the following areas:

Ease of Theft/resale ability: Ease of the ability to steal products and ease of being able to resell it via multiple channels, including online and social media.
Gift Cards: Ease of theft and internal policies that make using or reselling the Gift Cards easier.
Laws: Raised thresholds for what classifies and felony theft, and stores being unwilling to prosecute offenders.
Lowered defenses: Inability to do anything due to staff shortages, or internal “do nothing” policies, and lowered supply chain security.
Product: Brand names and/or high demand products that can easily be resold. – Here’s a list of some of the most common items stolen:

Designer clothes
Laundry detergent
Infant formula
Razors
Designer handbags
Denim pants
High-end Liquor
Deodorant
Teeth whitening strips
Cell phones
TV’s
Tools (Power Tools and Kits, hand tools)
Toys
Video Games and accessories
Lumber
Portable Generators
Lawnmowers
Power lawn/yard equipment
Plumbing parts and accessories

Most retailers are planning to increase spending to combat crime in the following areas:

Estimates for 2019:

Burglar Alarms: 92.1%
Digital Video Recorders: 84.%
Armored Car Deposit Pickups: 68.3%
POS data mining: 65.1%
Live customer visible CCTV: 61.9%

Some retailers have opted to simply let the thieves go, documenting the theft, and then later filing insurance claims for the losses.

The major issue with these non-responsive methods is that it only further emboldens the thieves.

The bottom line here is that ultimately the retail consumer pays for all of this in the form of increased prices.

For more information go to:

https://nrf.com/research/national-retail-security-survey-2019

– John

Preparing for the Unexpected

Posted on October 4, 2019October 4, 2019 by ccsretail

Preparing for the Unexpected

One day last week, after I returned home from work, I sat down on the couch, took off my shoes, turned on my favorite news program on TV, and expected to relax for a while before dinner. Alas! That did not happen. A power outage occurred suddenly, leaving everything in blackness. “Not a problem”, I thought. I have plenty of big candles in the kitchen cupboard.

I groped my way to the kitchen, found the candles, and then started looking for matches. I looked everywhere (in the dark) and couldn’t find a single match anywhere. After bumbling about for the next several minutes, I finally found a flashlight that had workable batteries and sat down to wait it out. I waited a looooong time with a hungry stomach because I also needed a match to light the Sterno under my fondue pot to warm some soup.

Why am I telling you this story? It’s to emphasize that the time to think about possible unexpected issues is to think about “what if’s” before you are caught off guard as I was.

When the weather starts getting wintry again, power outages can happen. The Internet can go down, and computers can crash. When it comes time to reconstruct, without sufficient backup, this process becomes extremely difficult, time-consuming, and expensive.

We’re here to help you with your backup solutions. If you have questions, call us today at 425-672-4806 or email us. You’ll be glad you did!

Marlene

Logging Support Requests with CCS

Posted on September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 by ccsretail

Logging Support Requests with CCS.

At CCS, we always to try to respond to support requests in a timely manner. In order to do this, we need your assistance as follows:

How to contact CCS.

Phone Number: 800-672-4806/425-672-4806

mail Address: support

During normal business hours, the phone will be answered by a dispatcher. However, if the support call volume is unusually high at the time of your call,

It may go directly to voicemail.

Information needed for CCS to properly respond to any support requests are:

Name – First name (Minimum), and last name.

Company – The name of the company that we have on record

Location/Store – The physical location/store that the user is calling from, and/or the location/store that is having the issue.

Contact Phone Number – Store Phone number, cell phone number

Contact email address – If you are not immediately available, include the best time and day for CCS to re-contact you.

The nature and severity of the issue.

What you did before contacting CCS.

Who else in your organization did you attempt to contact first, before calling CCS?

Here are some examples of support requests:

Voicemail Message:

Poor Example:

“Hi, this is Mary, we are having a problem…” click!

In this particular case, the call came in from an unlisted, back-office number that no one monitors. When that number was called, no one answered, and the number didn’t go to any king of the voicemail system. So at this point, we had no idea which company this was, what location is involved or any other details.

Best Example:

“Hi, this is Mary Smith from Bob’s Widgets, Lynnwood Washington location. The store number is: 425-672-1234. If no one answers or if it goes to voicemail, please call me on my cell phone: 360-123-4567.

I just tried to log into the software when coming back from my lunch break, and I’m getting the following error message when I try to log into the Touch screen Ticket Entry:

“Invalid Login”

I kept trying different passwords, and nothing worked. I can’t ring up customers, please help!

I’m unable to get hold of a manager to help out.

We close the store at 6:00 PM tonight, but I’ll be here until 6:30 PM.”

In the above example, the contact information is clearly stated, and so is the nature of the support issue. Also, information as to what other attempt attempts were made to resolve the issue before contacting CCS. This allows CCS to quickly respond to both the call and to address the specific issue.

Email message sent to CCS:

Poor Example:

“We are having a problem… “

The source email is for a personal email associated with a user’s personal cell phone: mary1234

In this case, the person who sent the message is not monitoring their email, so when a reply is sent requesting more information, CCS gets no reply.

Best Example:

lynnwood

msmith

accounting

I just tried to log into the software when coming back from my lunch break, and I’m getting the following error message when I try to log into the Touch screen Ticket Entry:

“Invalid Login”

I kept trying different passwords, and nothing worked. I can’t ring up customers, please help!

Here’s a picture of the error taken with my cell phone.

Also, I called and texted our manager, but she’s on vacation in Maui and isn’t responding. Also, I couldn’t reach our Assistant Manager, by phone this afternoon, but she’s supposed to be in tomorrow morning at 8:30 AM.

We close the store at 6:00 PM tonight, but I’ll be here until 6:30 PM.”

Again, in the above example, the contact information is clearly stated, and so is the nature of the support issue, and includes an image of or print screen of the error. Also, information as to what other attempt attempts were made to resolve the issue before contacting CCS.

John

Keeping Customers Returning

Posted on September 10, 2019September 10, 2019 by ccsretail

Keeping Customers Returning

Have you ever thought about why you return to the same retail stores again and again? Most of us do not stop to analyze this, but should! The reasons why you shop at your favorite stores are the same reasons customers come to your place of business.

Here are some of my reasons:

Good parking facilities
Friendly, helpful employees who can answer my questions about products
Clean atmosphere (floors, counters, windows, restrooms)
Good management of unsupervised children in the store
Adequate inventory to provide choices
Good prices, clearly marked on easily seen labels
Efficiency at checkout – no long lines
Adequate staffing to prevent long lines
Monitors, so I can see prices as they are scanned
Receipts that I can read and understand
Good return policy, with clear information on receipt
Ease of using my preferred debit/credit cards
Loyalty benefits

Want your customers to come back? Make sure you consider the above and make changes accordingly. We at CCS can’t help you with all of these factors, (we don’t do windows, parking lots, or supervision of children) but we can help you with many of them.

Do you need assistance with inventory, labels, receipts, use of debit/credit cards, loyalty points, scanners, monitors, registers, or training employees on the use of your Counterpoint software? We can provide excellent service on all of these things and much more. Call us at 425-672-4806 or email us. We can help you help your customers!

Marlene

Purging History to Update Faster

Posted on September 10, 2019September 10, 2019 by ccsretail

Preparing To Update From CPSQL 8.5.3 and lower.

If you are planning to update your NCR Counterpoint System and are running version 8.5.3 or lower and have a lot of sales history, purging some of that history will make the update take less time.

I get asked quite a bit on how long an update will take. For most systems that keep up to date, it can be anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. But, if you have skipped a couple of updates, this can turn into 3 to 4 hours to complete to the whole process.

The reason for this is that during the upgrade, your history files go through a conversion process to add/remove changed fields. Although the main system itself will be useable after the initial update, the history will not be there right away.

Depending on how much history you keep on file will determine how long the rest of the update will take. If you rely on sales history to do validated returns, or to help make decisions about purchasing or running reports, this will unavailable until the conversion process is complete.

So, when you decide to upgrade your system, take a look at how much sales history you have on file and purge (there are utilities that make this easy) whatever is not necessary. As a reference, most companies keep about 3 years’ worth of history, but you should check with your accounting team for how much may be required.

-Bryan

Security Concerns of Phishing Attacks

Posted on September 10, 2019September 10, 2019 by ccsretail

Security Concerns of Phishing Attacks

I am re-visiting the security concerns of phishing attacks in this posting. These remain the largest vector for delivering malicious software, such as ransomware attacks. The reason that it remains the preferred method of attack in many cases is that it works: People are still opening those phishing emails, and clicking on those links.

Training employees to recognize phishing emails should be an ongoing process for all companies. By periodically reminding them of the dangers, and what to look for, it keeps the idea fresher in their minds, and hopefully, they will be more on the alert for these dangerous attacks. Also, as those conducting such attacks are getting evolving, also, and getting more sophisticated. These attacks are increasingly using more targeted approaches, and are less obvious that they are not legitimate.

Many use such things as having links to websites that are only a letter, or so, off from the legitimate site. If the legitimate site is a “.com”, for example, the nefarious site may be a “.co”. Or, if the site is something like “mybank.com”, then the fake site might be “mybank-info.com”.

By making data security an ongoing process, your employees will not only have it kept fresh in their minds, but they can also be trained on how to spot the increasingly sophisticated attack emails. The more likely that they are to think about it before opening an email, or clicking on a link, as well as being better able to spot emails that just are not quite right, the safer your data is. The bad guys are not taking it easy, so that means that the rest of us have to constantly keep our guard up.

Dave.