General - Hardware Set Up Best Practices

Please refer to a full list of best practices that your IT department should adhere to when setting up each individual station.

Power

Surge protector: it is very important that you have one and it must come with a breaker as well.
Power requirements depend on the printer and POS screens

Physical environment

Avoid constant sun and glare on the POS screen as this can impact their longevity
We also recommend that the POS station itself is not contained by any concrete walls or metal walls in order to ensure you get the best bluetooth connection inside the store.
We recommend that the POS station itself has good wifi in this area

Network Connection

Recommendation on router setup: reserve three static IP addresses per station (one for the printer, one for the credit card terminal and one for the tablet). A wired ethernet connection to the POS tablet is preferred to ensure internet stability and speed.
Good network cables that aren’t easily breakable are required, any cat 5 or cat 6 network cable works well.
Dedicate a minimum of two network cables for the POS but ideally three. If you only have two network cables then you will require an ethernet switch.
A dedicated network for the POS.

Configuration

Cables should be tied up and tucked away
USB hub should be powered and mounted to the wall to prevent anyone touching it
Important to discourage touching of the set up as loose wires can be a common problem.

POS Connection Architecture

The POS is a cloud based software program which communicates with various peripherals (printers and credit card terminals) through the network. In order for these to communicate they must all be on the same network and there must be no firewall or security settings which prevent multiple devices on the same network from communicating. If any of the devices are on different networks they will not communicate.
A scanner is essentially a keyboard, it works by being plugged into the tablet. If the scanner is not working it's likely because it isn't plugged in properly or the hub it's connected to isn't plugged in properly.
A Lucova USB works by being plugged into the tablet, it allows students to check in via bluetooth