Support Providers Overview

Front line support for retail operations needs to be responsive and fast, and fit into various retail environments such ownwer operator, chain, foreign franchise subsidiary or corporate environments with inhouse or outsourced IT staff. Each of these has different requirements and needs from Fieldpine for support of the Point Of Sale and associated retail services.

We provide support with two main models of delivery:

1. Direct 0800 support. Staff in store can directly call Fieldpine if a support contract is in place. Available in selected countries only.
2. Level 2 & Level 3 for front line support providers. Staff in store call a support organisation first. This organisation processes calls and contacts Fieldpine for assistance as required.

To assist front line support providers we provide a number of tools and resources that you can integrate into your call handling process. You gain access or authoriation to use these tools from the retailer.

Support Resources

Self Help. Interactive real time help for users. When error messages are displayed the user is given the option of using self help tools to explain the current issue more and have access to relevant information and diagnostic tools. This is essentially a targeted form of Automated Support (see below), specifically for warning and error messages, that is very easy for staff to access.

Technical Debug. Interactive debug tools for remote use onto active lanes. Provides both the same information as Self Help and a more technical analysis toolset. Used by remote IT support staff. This is a simplified version of the full debuggers and also Automated Support.

Roadmaps. Publically available guides with tips and suggestions on how to solve problems. Roadmaps are intended for IT professionals that might be trying to isolate an issue and provide a series of suggestions of what/where to investigate.

Automated Support. An early stage support diagnosis tool. Intended for users to invoke themselves before calling support or as part of the support call process, it both analyses and suggests repairs. As part of the analysis phase the tool collects relevant information for the issue and transfers it to Fieldpine Support Servers.

Event Monitoring. If point of sale terminals detect issues while operating they attempt to send a monitoring event to Fieldpine Support Servers. Events messages range from quite high level (a phone was plugged into USB port) to very technical (error at line nnn in source code). Event messages are enabled by default for all retailers, support providers can gain access to an individual retailers events by requesting a login from the retailer as they control login records for their information.

High Level Reports. The retail system used at head office level includes a number of reports and tools to report and scan point of sale terminals and servers. These reports provide overview type information without getting too indepth and technical. They are not designed for live problem resolution.

Built in Debuggers. Fieldpine Systems often include built in diagnostic tools that can be queried over HTTP links directly into trading lanes. Support Providers with TCP connectivity to individual counters and servers can use these debugger APIs to monitor and scan all trading systems. The debug layer is primarily an API rather than a console tool that can be run, it is intended to provide information to other tools. Many of the tools listed above call these debuggers for information

Support Notebook. A collection of documents to aid with onboarding new technical staff, examples of faults and troubleshooting techniques and diary of recent support calls and resolutions.

Which tool when?

		Live support phone call	Background Diagnosis	Determining Problem scope/scale	Monitoring Status	Technical skill required
	Self Help	Yes, and before calling too	Yes	No	No	Little
	Technical Debug	Yes	Yes	No	No	Some
	Roadmaps	Yes	Yes	No	No	Some
	Automated Support	Yes	No	No	No	Minor
	Event Monitoring	Maybe	Maybe	Maybe	Yes	Some
	High Level Reports	No	Maybe	Yes	Yes	None
	Built in Debuggers	Maybe	Yes	Yes	Yes	High

Support Call Flow chart

http://lane-IP:8095/debug.htm