Creating gift card stressing me out!

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Papa-Enrico
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Creating gift card stressing me out!

Post by Papa-Enrico »

Hi Scott. Happy New Year.
I made my own gift cards with Magnetic strips on them, (printed on business cards, then laminated with magnetic stripe already on them, then I Wrote the codes through a writer). I tried over and over with the instructions on Document, but when I swipe, it always says it is not activated. I have the % and ? and ; and = on 2nd line. My sequent numbers start at 103. Is there any chance you can post a video on how to put magnetic cards into POS Pizza? Maybe YouTube?
Thanks
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Scott
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Re: Creating gift card stressing me out!

Post by Scott »

Hello,
  1. Test your reader by swiping one of the cards into Notepad (Open Notepad app in Windows, swipe a card while it's open). You should only see 1 line of text. If you see more than 1, then you need to use the utility that adjusts your reader and remove CRLF as track delimiters. Make it a question mark (?) instead. Re-test until your track data all shows on a single line.
  2. Create database entries for each of your cards by either adding them one at a time, or using the bulk tool.
  3. Verify that the cards are in the database by looking under gift card setup and clicking the "Manage Cards" button. You should see each of your cards in this list. They will be "not activated".
  4. Make sure that you have "internal" gift card processing selected on Global Config, and that you have at least one card denomination set or the open option.
  5. Create a new order and purchase a gift card on that order.
  6. Activate the card.
  7. Check the card balance with the GC Info option.
If you have a problem, let me know at which step above the problem occurs, so that I can better help you isolate the issue or give me a call during normal business hours.


Scott
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Scott
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Re: Creating gift card stressing me out!

Post by Scott »

Card Tracks:
%Unique_Track_1_Data_goes_here(unique to each card)?;Track2 data here?

Track should be on a single line as shown above.
Track 1 should begin with "%" then after it can contain any data that you want. Make sure that data is unique to that 1 card, so putting something like; XYZ Pizza CardNum 402218 would work. The numbered portion can then change with each new card.

Track 2 & 3 don't matter

You write the %, but don't write the ? into your tracks. That is a delimit character inserted by the reader when it scans the card. The reader must be configured to delimit tracks with the ? character not a line feed which will cause multiple lines.


Scott
Papa-Enrico
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Re: Creating gift card stressing me out!

Post by Papa-Enrico »

Hi
I tried to put cards into POS and they wouldn't read. I then opened Note Pad and swiped the card and the first track from the card didn't show up, but the 2nd track did. I took a card home and swiped it on my reader/writer and it showed everything just fine. What could it be?
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Scott
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Re: Creating gift card stressing me out!

Post by Scott »

Papa-Enrico wrote:Hi
I tried to put cards into POS and they wouldn't read. I then opened Note Pad and swiped the card and the first track from the card didn't show up, but the 2nd track did. I took a card home and swiped it on my reader/writer and it showed everything just fine. What could it be?
It sounds like your reader is not properly configured. You should be able to get a configuration utility to update your reader and configure it. You want to set it to keyboard wedge mode (not HID), and then set the delimit character as a question mark (?). That should be about all that needs to be done.


Scott
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