Johns Blog

New Mobile Payment Options

Mobile in-store payments are expected to grow in the United States due to growing competition brewing between Google, Samsung, and Apple.

Google Pay and Apple Pay, which are gradually being rolled out into the U.S. market are expected to hit a 50% saturation level by the end of 2015. 

In Mid-April of 2015, Samsung will start shipping the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge smart phones which will have both the NFC technology and a new embedded magnetic copper ring that supports transmission  capability  that will be used by the new Samsung Pay service.  With the phone having both technologies, it’s estimated that users will be able make payment at up 90 percent of 12 million payment locations at stores throughout the U.S.

The new technology, provided by LoopPay will have support for Tokenization regardless of whether the  connection is being made via and NFC connection or a magnetic connection

Goggle plans to purchase new technology from SoftCard, another NFC based payment system, so that this  will allow Google Wallet to be pre-installed on all new Android phones sold by Verizon, AT&T
  and T-Mobile.

Additionally, retailers like Best Buy and WalMart will be offering a new service called MCX, which  doesn’t rely on NFC for it’s function.  However, some doubt that this will catch-on because of fees associated with the service.

The direction that all of this is going is that at many most retailers, you will likely no longer be  required to have credit Card to make a purchase.

If you would like more information on payment services that are currently available for Point of Sales, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Sales Department.

– John

NRO (NCR Retail Online) V1.8 was released in January of 2015.  The Full List of new features
and enhancements are:

New and Sale options are now available in layered navigation, allowing shoppers to filter  by New/Sale products.

• Options can be enabled under System / Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Layered Navigation (Specials Filter Enabled & New Filter Enabled).
• Ability to disallow purchase of specific items.
• Global default of “In-Store Exclusive” can be changed under System / Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Disable Purchase.
• Individual products can be disabled for purchase in the new Disable Purchase tab in the Product Editor (under Catalog / Manage Products).
• Option to allow Counterpoint A/R customers to pay via A/R Charge in NRO.
• Support for product schema and Google Rich Snippets.
• New option theme to display images with grouped product children on the product detail  page (System / Configuration > NCR Retail Online > Theme Settings > Product Options > Display Images for Grouped Products)
• Previously, up to 2 related items were uploaded for each product, from the substitute items defined for each product in Counterpoint.
• Now, you have a choice on whether to upload related items from Counterpoint, or maintain related items from within the NRO Admin Panel (System / Configuration > NCR Retail Online > NCR Importer Configuration).
• Layered navigation filters now take into account the stock status for configurable product options
• *Option to enforce a phone number mask for all shopper phone numbers (System / Configuration > Customers > Customer Configuration > Phone Number Options)
• You can now select whether ‘More View’ in the image gallery for configurable products appears above or below the attribute-specific image (System / Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Gallery Options > Location of “More Views” Block)
• New option to pre-select the first color displayed in the product image gallery for configurable products that vary by color (System / Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Configurable Item Options > Auto-select First Attribute)
• New categories uploaded from Counterpoint now have ‘Use Parent Category Settings’ set to Yes by default
• Image swapping for configurable products has been improved to account for special characters and varying case in attributes values
• Saint Marten and Curacao have been added to the list of countries
• Description is no longer a required product attribute
• Unknown region/states entered by shopper now download to Counterpoint as INT, to avoid import errors
• With the help of paid Professional Services, you can now upload product tax classes from Counterpoint tax categories, allowing you to support product-specific taxation rates
• With the help of paid Professional Services, you can now control the visibility of specific items  (for example, allow all products to appear in the catalog, but suppress clearance items from appearing  in search results).

If you would like more information regarding setting-up your own NRO store, please contact  the CCS Retail Systems Sales Department.

– John

Small Businesses and PCI DSS Compliancy

While most of you are aware of some of the worst data breaches that have occurred in recent  months, you may not be aware of just how serious a problem that this has become.

96% of systems are not PCI Compliant – While PCI DSS compliancy data statistics vary somewhat from  industry to industry, the 2013 – 2014 data indicates that between 90% – 96% of all data breaches  investigated by the Secret Service and forensic analysis units involved merchants who where not PCI DSS Compliant at the time of the data theft.

95% of all data theft hits small merchants – As an example, VISA, Inc. estimates that about 95% of  credit card data breaches that are reported to VISA and that are discovered by VISA,  are on it’s  smallest business customers.   This is despite the fact that PCI requirements apply to all  merchants who handle payment card data, regardless of their size.

Some of the more common reasons that small businesses are not PCI DSS Compliant are:

• Business principals attitudes such as: "it can’t possibly happen to me", and/or, "I’ll worry about  if it does happen to me." – The main issue is that it if a breach does happen, the costs associated  with breach could easily be tens of  tens of thousands of dollars, and could bankrupt many merchants.  This could be exacerbated by loss of long term and loyal customers.
• Businesses with no IT staff or professional service firms that monitory compliancy or security.
• Unsecured computing environments – Open servers and unsecured intranet/Internet; no firewalls, or improperly secured; lack of operating system and application software security patches; no Anti-Virus or  Anti-Malware software, or software that is not current.
• Poor Staff Training – Staff using the servers or workstations/Register to surf the internet, download games and music from sharing sites. This includes staff not being aware of indications of actual breaches. 

If you would like to have your computing environment investigated for compliancy, please contact the  CCS Retail Systems Sales Department.

-John

NCR Counterpoint version 8.5 – Key Features

As of February, 2015, the following are some of the planned features  for the soon to be released  NCR Counterpoint Version 8.5:

• Multi-Currency Purchasing and Receiving.
• VAT (Value Added Tax) Support.
• Tax Included pricing.
• Currency Rounding (Penny Rounding).
• Multi-company POS Offline Ticket Entry.
• ECommerce Drop Ships.
• Zooms – Item and Customer Zoom Optimizations
• POS – Setting Signature Floor Limits for the Ingenico iSC250
• POS – Chase Paymentech Canadian Debit Support (via Tender Retail).
• POS –  Payment On Account Enhancements – Allows selecting multiple apply-to documents at Point of Sale.
• Customers – Allows multiple Credit Cards to be kept on file per customer.
• Moving Locks and Resources to the SQL Database.
• Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and SQL Server 2012 Certification.

If you would like more regular updates the release status of NCR Counterpoint 8.5, or  changes planned for NCR Counterpoint 8.5, please contact the CCS Retail Sales Department.

– John

New Features in NCR Retail Online v1.8

NRO (NCR Retail Online) V1.8 was released in January of 2015.  The most notable features include:

•New and Sale options are now available in layered navigation, allowing shoppers to filter  by New/Sale products.
•The ability to disallow purchase of specific items.
•An option to allow Counterpoint A/R customers to pay via A/R Charge in NRO.
•Support for product schemas and Google Rich Snippets.
•Previously, up to 2 related items were uploaded for each product, from the substitute items defined  for each product in Counterpoint. Now, you have a choice on whether to upload related items from  Counterpoint, or maintain related items from within the NRO Admin Panel.
•Allows the option to enforce a phone number mask for all shopper phone numbers

If you would like more information regarding setting-up your own NRO store, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Sales Department.

– John

Coming your way soon in PBS 12.04
 
These great new features and more, are just around the corner with PBS v.12.04!
 

• In Accounts Payable, when entering a cancellation voucher, and after having entered the  original voucher number, the program pulls the original voucher data from history so it  does not have to be entered manually.
• A new Add  button is now included with the vendor, customer or item look-up which  displays the matching graphical screen and a user can edit, add or even delete vendors,  customers or items on the fly.
• Accounts Receivable offers a new option to print the invoices applied to each open item customer’s payment.
• In Order Entry, a new collation option allows you to print the entire multi-page invoice as the 1st copy, the invoice pages again in their entirety for the second copy, etc.

More soon to be announced features are coming soon…

Please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department for more information on updating your passport software.

– John

Are Your Security Service Packs Up-To-Date?

Most of you are probably already aware of the fact that Microsoft routinely releases critical security service packs for it’s operating systems and application software.  However, you might not be aware that this is also an issue many other commonly used application software programs as well.

Failure to keep on top of this sort of thing could result in a major security issue such as the recent breaches where millions of customers have had their personal  data (including credit card information) stolen from various retailers.

Some examples of software that routinely see security service packs being released to protect against detected vulnerabilities are:

•  Internet Browsers.
• Third party security applications, such as Anti-Virus, and Anti-Malware software.
•  Internet Browsers.
•  Portable document creation and presentation tools.
•  Disk clean-up utilities.
•  POS Systems – usually this involves security changes such as new data encryption standards, new password restrictions, etc.

However, many of these software programs DO NOT automatically download or apply these security service packs.  The manufacturer’s may require that you separately download and install certain service packs.  Some updates may also require that non-optional post installation routines be run before the changes are operational.

These security issues also apply to local workstations, and POS registers, not just your application servers. Often many of the updates require that either servers and or workstations restarted.

If you would like to have CCS review your current server and/or workstation environments, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department.

Why should I use SmartAlerts?

“SmartAlerts” is a unique service for use with NCR Counterpoint 8.3.7  or higher, that analyzes various parts of your CounterPoint data and activity.  Alerts can be custom configured, and easily sent via SMS text or email when  SmartAlerts discovers some action or activity that falls
under your pre-set guidelines.

This service provides timely, actionable alerts to help identify and reduce  fraud, improve operations, and enhance customer service. There are over twenty types of alerts in three general categories…

Operational Alerts – Monitors conditions related to your store’s day-to-dayoperations.  Some examples are:

• The amount of cash in a Drawer reaching a certain level.
• Overages and Shortages indicated at drawer or store closing.
• Failed Credit Card Settlements.
• Flash Sales Reports.
• No Sales Activity.
• High Sales Volume.
• Low inventory levels of groups or specific items.

Fraud Prevention – Watches for potential fraud activities that may be happening in real time.  Some examples are:

• Excessive numbers Price Override transactions.
• Excessive Return transactions.
• Refunds and Sales made before the normal store opening time, or after the normal store closing time.
• Excessive Voided tickets.
• Excessive or large discounts being applied to sales.

Customer Service  – allows you to take immediate actions to increase customer loyalty.  some examples are:

• Pending Orders that need action items.
• Sales over a pre-defined amount, such as a customer making an extremely large purchase that you wnat to thank them for.
• No sales staff being signed-in to the software at the normal appointed store opening time.

For more information on this new service, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Sales Department.

What’s the difference between an update and an upgrade?

Software Updates

Software updates are  typically smaller and more minor or intermediate updates.  Normally these are “install in-place” updates, and are the least invasive and time consuming type of  update.  Usually this type of update targets specific software issues, such as: 

• Corrections for known critical software issues. – something that prevents the software from functioning as designed.
• Minor software design changes to enhance the use of a particular area of the software.
• Mandated Credit Card processor software changes. – This could involve security related enhancements.
• Payroll and Accounts Payable updates related to W-2 and 1099 Printing

Software Upgrades

Software upgrades typically revolve around major software changes that may involve any or all of the following:

• Major design change to the software that could require un-installing part or all of the existing software, and installing the new software in a new folder.  This could also  involve updating client software installed on existing workstations.
• Adding new database tables or files, and require updating your existing custom software reports to reflect those changes.
• A Complete restructuring of your database.  This could involve a lot of processing time to complete the work involved and some extended down time.

Firmware updates

Hardware manufacturers periodically release firmware updates that do various things such as correcting known device issues, and providing support for newly released software features.

As an example, if you currently have existing Ingenico ISC 250 Pin Pads in use now,  it will most likely require a firmware update for the device to be considered ready to meet the need Chip/Pin requirements that Visa and MasterCard have officially set. The deadline for retailers to adopt to EMV (chip and PIN) credit card technology is be October 2015, for any all stores will be expected to accept these kinds of cards.

This means that minimally, these units will need to have their firmware flashed (i.e. updated) prior to that date.

If you would like to schedule a review of you software for updates, or upgrades,  and hardware for needed firmware updates, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department.

– John

Data Mining Passport

There are some options related to how data can be mined from Passport. However, specifically  what you can  or cannot do is dependent on what flavor of Passport you have and what tools you have.

Passport currently has (2) two supported versions as:

Passport "Vision" – This is the standard classic version that most longtime Passport users are familiar with.   The underlying data structure involves various ISAM (Indexed Sequential Access Method) data files. 

The standard file structure only allows for pre-programmed and custom programmed interfaces to the data. While Passport does have some standard export utilities, these tools only allow for exporting of data  to Fixed ASCII file formats, meaning that the data exported will have limited use and flexibility without further value added data manipulation.  There is an additional tool available called Data Extend that adds a  ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) link between  the Passport COBOL programs and other third party tools and software.    This product is available as a both a single user and  multi-user network version.

Passport SQL – While this version has a similar front-end look to that of the Vision product, the underlying database uses the MS SQL software.  Because the database is in a SQL format, it can be accessed by any application that can use an ODBC link to the data.

Examples of some common tools that can use ODBC are:

• MS Excel using MS Query
• MS Access
• Crystal Report Writer

If you would like more information on either the Passport SQL software version, and/or the Data Extend product, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Sales Department.  For support contact CCS at support@ccscentral.com.

– John