A vendor driven change to end-user credit transaction PIN pads required Dymon Storage to update their credit transaction software, Line of Business integration module, merchant banking authentication and physical handsets with zero downtime realized to storage facilities.

Objective:

The POS Upgrade object was to replace the PIN pads, upgrade and reconfigure each unit and complete a site within 45 minutes.  Pre-testing verified requirements, installation testing a transaction of $0.01 verified the installation, and post-implementation reporting verified the back-end allocations.

Extensive pre-migration testing showed that software changes could be applied to the processing system after EOD batch processing at 1 am, with LOB software updates able to be performed after that.  Updating the physical PIN pads required an on-site presence to physically connect and secure the PIN pads, software and security updates to the POS terminal and simultaneous reconfiguration of each POS settings within the LOB application, merchant bank authentication portal, and transaction software.  Development staff and staff accountant were seconded to the IT project to provide an additional on-site presence to facilitate the changes in a timely manner as downtime was expected to be zero.  Due to the security nature of POS administration, we were unable to leverage store staff or regular staff to support this change.

Secondary challenges required extreme due diligence for the configuration process as the changes required allocation of terminals, terminal code usage, and transaction processing to be correctly allocated to a merchant account for either the physical site’s business, consolidated operating business or web-based business transactions.  Any error would require a new PIN pad to be requested from the vendor and downtime.