User Manual Activation Management

 CONTENTS

What is ‘activation’?

Can I restrict who can active Cybertill?

How to set users as Activation Approval Managers

Activating the system if you are an Activation Approval Manager

Activating the system if you are NOT an Activation Approval Manager

Activation Approval Managers: How to Authorise and Deny activation requests

Temporarily blocking access to selected machines 

What is ‘activation’? 

Your RetailStore/ CharityStore system runs entirely over the internet, and so can be accessed from any PC in the world that has an internet connection. However, when you access Cybertill from a till or PC for the very first time, it won’t immediately know which till the one you’re using is supposed to be, or even what company that till / PC belongs to! So, when accessing Cybertill for the very first time from any machine, it forces you to ‘activate’ it. By doing this, you tell 

Cybertill what company you work for and, if it’s a till, which till it is. When you complete the ‘activation’ process, the Cybertill system will save a very small file containing those details to your machine. This file is known as a ‘cookie. Many programs and websites use cookies to save useful information, and in all probability, your machines already have lots of cookies on them. 

The next time you attempt to access RetailStore/ CharityStore, the first thing it will do is examine that cookie. From that, it will be able to find out what till or PC you’re using, so there’ll be no need to activate again and it will take you straight to the login screen.  

If any tills or PCs that previously went straight into the login screen display the ‘activation’ screen instead, that means something has happened to your cookie; it has either been deleted or corrupted somehow. Potential causes of this include users accidentally or deliberately deleting all cookies, security software over-zealously ‘cleaning’ your machine, and Windows Updates. In such cases, you’ll need to activate the machine again. 

Can I restrict who can active Cybertill?

Yes - the system is flexible here. You could choose to give every user the ability to activate their tills or PCs whenever necessary. Or, you could restrict that power to a certain user or users, so that (for example) part-time employees can only request to activate a till, and that only a few manager-level users can accept or deny their request. This will allow you complete control over which tills and PCs get activated, and by whom. 

How to set users as Activation Approval Managers

In order to set a user as an Activation Approval Manager, you will need to edit their user account.  ▪ Click into the Admin Menu 

• Scroll to the User Management section and click on User Management 

You will be presented with a list of all of the user accounts for your company. It should look something like this:  

• Search for the user account that you wish to make an Activation Approval Manager, then click on the Edit link at the right of the screen.  

You’ll be taken into the editing screen.  

• Scroll down to the bottom, and you should see a tickbox marked Can approve activations near the end of the page. 

• Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen.  

Note: If you don’t see the above option then you’re not an Activation Approval Manager yourself.  Ask your manager to tick this box for your account.  

You should see a ‘success’ message displayed at the top of the screen. 

Activating the system if you are an Activation Approval Manager

If you are an Activation Approval Manager, here is how you would go about activating a till or PC. 

The first screen you will see upon trying to access RetailStore/CharityStore is the ‘licence number’ screen: 

Here, simply enter your licence number and click Next. (If you do not know your licence number, then speak to your manager. 

Next, you’ll be presented with this screen, depending if you’re a RetailStore or CharityStore customer. 

• Enter your User Name and Password here (the same ones you use when logging into RetailStore/CharityStore normally) 
• Click Next. 

Either one of the below screen will be displayed. 

The machine you’re trying to activate: Is it a till? 

If not (i.e. if this is just a PC and you won’t be using it as a point of sale),  

• leave this box to the default ‘No, this is not a till’.  

If it is a till,  

• click into this box and choose the relevant till from the list.  
• Click Next 

Note: you will only ever be offered to select tills from your default branch (i.e. the one you normally work in). If you want to set your machine as a till in another branch, you will need to change your default branch in Admin > Users. Be very careful that you choose the correct till here. If you choose the wrong till by accident, then you’ll run into problems: 

1. Any sales you perform whilst your machine is set as ‘the wrong till’ will be permanently saved in your history as having been made through that ‘wrong till’. 
2. Only one till unit or PC can be set as ‘Till X’ at any one time. So, should you accidentally set your home PC as being 

‘Till X’, the real ‘Till X’ will stop functioning! Should this happen, delete your cookies and reactivate again from scratch. 

(In the case of problem b, you’ll need to do the same thing on the ‘real’ Till X too.) 

You’ll now be taken to the regular RetailStore/ CharityStore login screen. From here, you can log into the system as normal. 

Activating the system if you are NOT an Activation Approval Manager

If you are do have Activation Approval Manager rights, the process is much the same, albeit with one key difference. 

Upon choosing a till (or not, as the case may be) and clicking Next… 

Instead of being told you’re ‘set up to approve activations’ and being allowed straight to the login page, you’ll see a screen that looks like this: 

You have just put out a request that your machine be activated. Asper the on-screen message, you now have to wait for one of your Activation Approval Managers to authorise your request before you can continue. (Should any of your Activation Approval Managers have recorded their email or telephone number within Cybertill, it will be displayed on the screen here.)  

Also, all of the Activation Approval Managers on your database will receive a message in Cybertill’s internal messaging system to notify them of your activation request. 

Once an Activation Approval Manager authorises your request, close down this window (if you haven’t already done so), then open up a fresh Cybertill window. You should be presented with the standard login screen and can continue as normal. 

Activation Approval Managers: How to Authorise and Deny activation requests

If you are an Activation Approval Manager, you can authorise or decline any activation requests from the Activation Management screen.  

The link to this screen can be found about three quarters of the way down the Admin menu: 

Once you’re in that page,  

• scroll down past the ‘filters’ box and you should see a panel looking something like this:  

This list will contain a separate row for every till and PC currently registered against your business’s Cybertill system. It lists both authorized ‘Active’ machines and ‘Pending approval’ machines – i.e. machines that need your approval before your company’s data can be accessed. You can see which is which by checking the “Status” column to the right.) 

Here’s a breakdown of what all the columns here mean:  

UAC	This is just a unique ID number that Cybertill has randomly generated for this activation request. (This is for Cybertill’s reference only; users should not concern themselves with this number.)
Till	You should be able to see which of these rows represents your tills here. If there is nothing in this column, the user is requesting to activate their machine without any till functions (i.e. as a back office PC).
Mobile Device	If this machine is a mobile device e.g. Ipad
Location	For any active tills, this column displays the name of its location. (For PCs, this column will be empty; PCs are not registered against specific branches in the way that tills are.)
Tel	For all tills, this column displays the telephone number of the location the till is based in. (For PCs, this column will be empty, for the same reason as above.)
Last Used	The date and time the machine was last used
Current User	For already-activated machines, this column displays the name of the user who is currently signed in to that machine (if anyone is currently signed in, that is).  Note that if a user does not “log out” of a machine before they turn the machine off, their name may appear here. (In other words: If the machine is not currently in use, you might see the name of the last person to use it here.)
Current IP Address	This tells you the IP address of each machine. (This may be of use to users skilled in PC networking.)
Requested By User	This is the name of the user who has tried to access the machine
Approved On	This is the date and time of the approval – if blank this has not yet been approved
Status	The current status of this machine.

Note: all activations that are pending approval, you have a few options in the Actions column to the right: 

To authorise an activation request,  

• click the Approve option at the right. You should see the request be shown as ‘Active’ from that moment forth.  Similarly, to refuse an activation request,  
• click the Delete link.  

Note: Once you ‘Delete’ a user’s activation request, the next time they attempt to access Cybertill, they’ll be thrown back to the ‘Enter your licence number’ screen and will have to start from scratch. 

Temporarily blocking access to selected machines

Note that for all ‘Active’ machines, you get a Block option at the right of the screen. 

• Click this to mark a machine as ‘blocked’.  

Staff will not be able to access Cybertill on blocked machines.  

After you’ve blocked a machine, you’ll get a new option to Unblock at the right.  

• Click that to open the machine up for usage again.