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Self Help Diagnostics


The POSGreen application can optionally include a "help" button for the user when various error and warning messages are displayed. When a user is confronted by a warning message they frequently will contact a help desk for assistance. By providing a "help" button, users can click this button and receive context specific help. It isn't simply a longer explanation of the message, it can also trigger automated assistance and offer message specific guidance.

The intent of this self help is to give users access to the tools and information they need without extensive training. Not all users will select "help", but for those that do they may be able to self solve. The advantages for support desks is lower fault calls for repeative issues, and for users potentially faster resolution.

To enable or disable this self help feature, go to settings, Support & Diags, Self Help

Example

You scan an item at the checkout and receive a warning.

Unrecognised barcode warning

Most checkout staff will now sell the item using search, which is great, but they can also press "help" to learn more if they wish. When they press help, an external web page opens that displays more information. The POS is not affected in any way as this assistance is external, and they can dismiss the message at any time and continue to sell.

Unrecognised barcode warning Assistance

The help displayed starts by explaining the message slightly more, not so needed in this example but useful for more obscure messages. For messages of the type "You cannot do X because of Y", this explanation might include more precise details of "Y"

Relevant self help - the "do it now" button in the example.

In some cases, help will silently run related diagnostics - for example, for unknown barcodes the central servers are queried in the background to see if they know of this barcode, and depending on the versions may even include the message, "This barcode has failed at least N times in the last 24 hours nationwide"

Technical Notes

This self help works by opening a browser on the users computer and then using built in pos diagnostic and debug tools to accurately determine what is currently happening. A number of scripts are dynamically fetched from fieldpine.com webites depending on what message is being displayed. The help page is able to determine how the user got to display the message, it does not simply look at the message text.

You can enter site specific information and tests for individual messages

Self help information is intended to be clear to all users and not overly technical. However if power users scroll down they will get access to more technical information, but these help pages will not display information we deem too sensitive or should be handled by help desks.

Security. Self help can be accessed remotely, as it is a web page and the POS contains a mini web server for support purposes. This requires access to the IP address of the computer. The tools use CORS to retrieve information from the POS, however the default configuration of the POS is only to block CORS requests from Internet address ranges that aren't part of your store network.

Depending on the message, version of software and other factors, diagnostic information may be collected and reported to Fieldpine support directly, without the users knowledge. This information is used solely for product improvement. A typical example is where an unexpected message suddenly starts appearing at a small number of sites, in this case the Fieldpine servers may run additional diagnostics while the user is reading the help page. The information collected can lead to faster problem isolation.

If you have site specific customisations and warning messages, you can include flow markers in your code to help the diagnostic tools. (Technical details)

Self help may include cross retailer information if helpful to the user. "Fieldpine are investigating this issue which has started to occur after a recent Windows update"