 1) ALMADA Terminal and Server
2) ALMADA Reports
3) ALMADA Smart Cards 1) ALMADA Terminal and Server Overview:
ALMADA Terminal is the heart of the loyalty operation. It compactly contains an embedded web server, journal database with built-in software applications that operates independently without the need of an extra PC. Operation is carried out using a keypad for input and a built-in smart card reader to transfer information to and from the Member Card. Transaction records stored in the Terminal can be collected by ALMADA Server software through TCP/IP network.
Main Functions
Issuing new Member Cards
New Member Cards are issued by first presenting a Master Card supplied by the factory to assign a Company Code and a range of unique Card ID’s. The Company Code is used to identify a particular operator. Member Cards will not be able to operate on Terminals if the Company Code of the Member Card is different from that of the Terminals.
Issuing staff cards
Staff Card is basically a conversion of Brand New Card (Newly formatted card) to Staff Card. Staff Card login is required for the Terminal to accept the Member Card operation such as addition and deduction of bonus points. Staff Card logout is recommended when the staff is not attending the Terminal. Staff login and logout action are recorded as transaction in the Terminal, and they provide trails for auditing purpose.
Doing Card Transactions
ALMADA Terminal provides generic transaction types for performing calculations of stored values, such as, Purchase, Reload, Bonus Point Addition and Redemption. The behavior of all transactions types are consistent with the combinations of card status, system setting and system status, like, decryption keys, expiry settings, decimal mode, bonus rate, blacklist, card sector usage, card value limits. Without the need of redeveloping the sophisticated algorithm behind, any one who are new to smart card systems can make use of them and quickly deploy a loyalty system.
Sending Transactions back to ALMADA Server
After finishing a transaction, such as adding bonus points, redemptions, staff login, the transaction record is stored in the Terminal’s transaction queue. There are 5,000 buffer in the transaction queue. The records in the transaction queue are sent to server as soon as the network connection is ready. The terminal stops accepting transaction when the queue is full.
Advanced Card Handling
ALMADA Terminal provides advanced card handling function which allows card expiry date extension (Card Renew), Lost card replacement and Corrupted card repair at Terminals of any branches. It saves up the establishment of central call center for card control purpose.
Receipt Reprint and Auto Reprint
When printer is connected, a receipt is printed whenever any transaction is made. Press the button A if you wish to reprint the receipt of the last transaction. If auto reprint is on, two receipts will be print for every transaction.
Connects to POS System (Cash Machines)
ALMADA System unifies the smart card system with the POS system. All the transaction types in ALMADA Terminal are accessible by POS through RS-232 serial port. Coming with a ready made Windows based API, all the generic transaction set and advanced card handling functions can be accessed with ease. In addition, with the help of read member card and read staff card functions, POS can command the most suitable transaction based on the POS side member profile.
POS application provided as sample code for the API 2) ALMADA Reports Overview
ALMADA Reports (Sample Code) is distributed for free with ALMADA Server Software CD. It is provided for system developer to get an idea how the data in ALMADA System be used to provide web based reports. it leverages latest Microsoft ASP. Net and Reporting Service Technology to offer web based reporting functionality. Role capability can be defined and let people with different responsibility see the most relevant reports tailored for them.ALMADA Reports (Sample Code) is bundled with ALMADA Server package. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft Reporting Services is required. If Microsoft SQL Server is not expected to be used in the ALMADA System, the report application bundled with ALMADA Server can be used for generating report without any further development.
Available Reports
User and Role Administration
Administrator can create, delete and disable user. They can also add, remove and change user’s roles. By default, ALMADA Report defines the role as follows:
Reports for Administrator
- Add User Account
- Remove Account
- Manage Account
- Manage Role
- Manage Pages
- Change User’s Password
- Report on Blacklist
- Report on Card Request
- Report on Database Size
- Report on Issue Card
- Report on Member Status
- Report on Terminal Status
Administrators can see the status of all Terminal through the web
Reports for Financial Controller
- Total cash from member retained
- Cash paid by member in advance in any particular month
- Cash Clearing by Branch
- Sum of the bonus of all member cards retained
- Bonus point monthly balance in any particular month
- Summary of balance prepaid and bonus by branch which can be used for clearing
How much cash retained can be checked
Reports for Marketing Manager
- Average days from last visit by Accumulated spending
- Purchase frequency by Accumulated spending
- Customers reload range per transaction
- Sales by Branch
- Daily Sales
- Hourly Sales
- Monthly Sales
- Weekly Sales
- Yearly Sales
- Number of transaction by month
- Number of transaction whose amount is within a specified range
- Transaction Detail
- Member Detail
Marketing manager can make analysis on the customer's buying behavior
Reports for Branch Manager
- Branch sales by month
- Replace card detail
- Repair card detail
- Renew card detail
- Replace count of branch
- Cash collected by Terminal
- Terminal Status
Reports for Branch Operator
- Cash collected
- Transaction completed
- Expiry date and final card balance.
Reports for Member
- Card Balance
- Transaction history
- Renew, repair and replace status
Member can check the card balance through the web
Create Your Own Reports
You can always create your own report by writing reports on Microsoft Reporting Services .rdl format. You can utilize all the charts and tables provided.
3) ALMADA Smart Cards ALMADA System supports the world most popular MIFARE® family ISO14443A contactless 1K Classic smart card and MIFARE® Ultralight 512 bits contactless smart card.
Mifare® Standard 1K
MIFARE® family ISO14443A contactless smart card ICs operating in the 13.56 MHz frequency range with read/write capability. MIFARE® Classic with 1 Kbytes EEPROM and MIFARE® Ultralight with 512 bits EEPROM.- RF contactless operates at 13.56 MHz
- Standard Philips Mifare Card
- 1K bytes,15 sectors, 48 bytes each
- R/W is protected by encryption key. 48 bit triple DES.
- Raw data is scrambled by 64 bit DES.
- High Security, suitable for payment and bonus point applications.
- Free sectors can be reserved for multiple loyalty or for any other purposes.
Mifare® Ultralight 512 bit
- 512 bits. 48 bytes of which is available.
- Raw data is scrambled by 64 bit DES.
- Raw data is equivalent to that of the first sector in Mifare Classics.
- Suitable for loyalty applications.
ALMADA Master Card
Purposes:
- To ensure unique card ID allocation of Member Card ID's
- To ensure the Terminal of different end users can only read their own cards
- To define maximum prepaid value for member cards
- To define sector usage for member cards and staff cards
- To define whether Integer Mode or Decimal Currency is be used
To ensure unique allocation of Member Card ID's
Each Master Card carries a range of card ID (4 bytes). The number of unique values in the range is the quota that the Master Card has. Lucky Technology Ltd. ensures that the range of each of the ID in the quota is unique among all master card issued. Therefore, every member card issued by ALMADA Terminals in the world has unique card ID.
For example, a Master Card can assign a range of Member ID from 1000004550 to 1000004650 with the quota of 100. With this Master Card, new Member Card can be issued from any Terminal. Each master card can carry up to 25500 quotas logically. Lost Master Card will not be replaced.
Card ID is normally used as a unique identification of each Member or staff, but some companies may prefer to use their existing member ID nomenclature. In this case customer ID can be set for this purpose. Please read the chapter Set Customer ID for more detail.
To ensure the Terminal of different end users can only read their own cards
Each master card carries a company code and two sets of keys for accessing and decrypting the data in Mifare cards. Terminal won't response to the card with different company code or keys. Therefore it ensures that the cards of different ALMADA systems won't mix up with each others'. CAUTION: Demo master card can only be used for testing only. It and its quota must not be used for real deployment. Otherwise, the demo card used in different companies can be used in each others' Terminals.
To define maximum prepaid value for member cards
Each master card carries the maximum prepaid which can be stored in member cards. It limits the maximum possible loss of a member in case of losing cards.
The maximum possible value for maximum prepaid is as follows:
Decimal Currency Mode: 83,886.07
Integer Currency Mode: 8,388,607
To define sector usage for member cards and staff cards
For each Mifare 1K classic card used in ALMADA Systems, sector 0 is used for storing serial number and other card factory information. Sector 1 is mandated to be used for storing ALMADA Specific sector definition. Location of main sector, location and number of redemption sector(s) (item for storing redemption items or shopping items) can be customized. The unused sector will still be using the key FFFFFF. For the definition of card sector please check out the chapter Smart Card Format. Normally one main sector and 3 redemption sectors are defined for each master card.
To define whether Integer Mode or Decimal Mode should be used
There are some currencies which does not need decimal place during monetary transactions. For example: Japanese Yen. Master Card can set up the system to be decimal mode or integer mode.
In decimal currency mode, the maximum possible prepaid value in member card is 83,886.07. The accumulated spending in member card is 21,474,836.47.
In integer currency mode, the maximum possible prepaid value in member card is 8,388,607. The accumulated spending in member card is 2,147,483,647.
ALMADA Terminal does not response to cards with different value mode even the key and company code are matching.
ALMADA Member Card
Unique Company Key Loading
Each member card is protected by two unique key belongs to that company. The key is previously loaded from ALMADA Master Card to ALMADA Terminal. The key is loaded to the Member Card during card formatting. As a result, Member card can be operated by the ALMADA Devices of the same companies.
Flexible Sector Definition
For each Mifare 1K classic card used in ALMADA Systems, sector 0 is used for storing serial number and other card factory information. Sector 1 is mandated to be used for storing ALMADA Specific sector definition. Location of main sector, location and number of redemption sector(s) (item for storing redemption items or shopping items) can be customized. The unused sector will still be using the key FFFFFF. For the definition of card sector please check out the chapter Smart Card Format.
Instant Profiling
ALMADA Member card has 12 bit to store member profile. The profile can be customized by ALMADA Display. ALMADA Display can always show the customer the most desired gift or products based on their profile.
Multiple redemption sectors
Number and location of redemption sectors can be customized. As the sector definition is stored in ALMADA Master Card. It has to be defined when ALMADA Master Card is ordered. The main sector can store one bonus item. Each redemption sector can store up to three items.
ALMADA Staff Card
Facilitate Staff Auditing
Staff card login is required to operate the ALMADA Terminal. Staff ID is logged in all subsequence transactions. It facilitates staff card auditing.
Reconfirm less frequently used staff card transaction
Advanced staff card functions, for example, undo transactions require the staff card to be presented again to prevent staff from carelessly misusing those functions.
Limit Staff activity at a particular branch
Staff Card also protects the Terminal from being used by staff from different branches. The staff card can only be used on the Terminals of the same branch. The branch code can be defined or changed by Create Staff Card function.
Limits Maximum Transaction Values
Staff Card carries the maximum transaction limit that the staff can handle. It can be defined or changed by created staff card function.
Easy to create
Staff Card is created by Create Staff Card function. It can be created from a brand new card or an old staff card. Once a brand new card becomes a staff card, it cannot be changed into a member card or vice versa.
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