The “What’s New” section has been added to our website to share information about enhancements that have been made to our WIC Direct software, hardware, and network.  After each software release, we will provide a summary of changes in that release.  Among the changes in release 3_0_1, February 10, 2010, are enhancements to the WIC Direct POS software that will: improve software functionality for our users; improve network performance and file processing speed; and, provide fixes for problems such as reducing APL and database problems that were caused by network interruptions.

• When an “Insufficient Funds” message is returned on the POS device, the transaction ends but the cashier is not logged off the unit. In the past when the host returned an insufficient funds message, the WIC application was logged off.
• Improvements were made to the APL import process. Enhancements were made to prevent APL issues during transmission of messages.
• Retailers are now able to print a status report on the success or failure of the APL download and ARF upload. Retailers needed a way to see if the APL was being downloaded successfully each night to avoid in-lane processing issues caused by an out-of-date APL file.
• Corrected an issue where APL download times were moving forward by three minutes each day. The scheduled time of an APL download /ARF upload was automatically being increased by three minutes each day.
• Improvements were made to Auto Reconciliation Files’ data generation.   ARF files that are generated by the XAC device had random data generation issues.
• Improved APL download processing. Enhancements were made to the download process to decrease nightly download issues.
• Corrected the problem where balance inquiry terminals could not bypass network startup errors. Users were receiving an “SSL Open” error on balance inquiry terminals after a reboot or network failure.
• Added cashier number to WIC receipts. This enhancement modifies WIC transaction receipts to print the cashier number on the receipt. Retailers can now identify the cashier who performed a transaction in situations such as a customer inquiry, etc.
• The category/subcategory is now printed on receipts when “N/A” is printed on the receipt. This occurs when there is no APL entry for an item in the system. When there is no entry in the APL for a specific category/subcategory and that category/subcategory is prescribed for a participant, the WIC benefits receipt displays “N/A”. The category/subcategory has been added to this print line to easily identify which benefit is affected.
• Unused entries have been removed from administrative menus. The following items were removed from the Misc Menu: “Statistic” and “Cancel”. The following items were removed from the DBMGR Menu: “Shrink DB” and “Cancel”. “Clear” can be used to exit a function.
• The transaction amount for voided purchases is now printed on merchant receipts. Prior to this change, the voided amount was only displayed on the POS device, not on the receipt.
• Cashiers can now logon in training mode when no network connection is available. In the past, a network connection was needed when using training mode. Since training mode transactions are never forwarded to the host, there is no need for a network connection. Note: The POS screen may still show “Param/Network error”, however, the cashier will be able to logon and the message will only show prior to the initial training sign-on.

• ‘Balance inquiry only’ terminals will retain their configuration setting of ‘Balance Only’.
• Two issues which caused balance inquiry terminals to recover to a cashier login screen were corrected.
• Added a configurable delay to address variability of network initialization.
• This enhancement will eliminate unnecessary ‘Param/Network error’ messages that were sometimes displayed during POS startup or after a reboot. This value will be set by a field technician during the upgrade process.
• Prevent transaction balance from being discounted to a 0.00 amount.
• Prior to this enhancement, it was possible to enter a discount amount that equaled the transaction balance. The POS software has been changed to disallow this action. If a 0.00 discount amount is attempted, the POS transaction terminal will sound an audible tone and post a message ‘Discount Invalid Amount’.
• Correct an issue where ‘Discount Invalid Amount’ was being returned at the POS device even though the amount of the discount was valid.
• This was a rare case discovered in our test lab that could occur if multiple discounts were performed in a particular order. This problem was fixed as part of the discount enhancement noted above.
• Enhancements to training mode.
• Terminals that are training mode will now receive the same daily APL updates as live terminals.
  This modification improves the functionality of the training mode feature.
• Do not include default APL and price files as part of an installation package.
• This change affects installers. The change removes unnecessary files from installation packages and has no impact to the end-user.
• Correct issue of benefit quantities not being calculated correctly if altered using the ‘change’ key.
• It was discovered that altering benefit quantities using the ‘change’ key on the POS device was not being handled correctly. This caused transactions that were sent to the host to be denied with an “INSUFFICIENT FUNDS” message instead of preventing the transaction from being sent initially. This has been corrected in this version of POS software. With this fix, the scenario described here will result in an immediate warning message and prohibit the benefit quantity from being altered if the change exceeds the available benefit amount.
• Improve auto-reconciliation file creation.
• Occasionally, auto-reconciliation files that were sent to the host for processing were found to have incomplete or corrupt data in the file. Some enhancements were made to the file creation and transmission process in the XAC code to make this process more persistent.
• Improve APL import processing.
• Changes were made to the process that imports the APL files, reducing APL and database problems caused by interruptions. One of changes made in this release was to clean up old or unprocessed files before attempting to import a new file. The underlying database was changed to a more reliable type to reduce overall database corruptions caused by exceptional conditions. Additional work must be done in this area to make this process more resilient. Further enhancements will be made in future releases.
• Do not require a reboot of the XAC device to reinitialize the PINpad after a PINpad failure.
• Prior to this release, a reboot of the POS transaction terminal was required in order to reinitialize the PINpad device after a PINpad issue had been corrected.
  A fix has been implemented for this problem. If a PINpad communication failure occurs during a transaction and is then corrected, the user will not have to reboot the unit to make the PINpad operational again.
  
  ***Note that the design of the XAC device in regard to refreshing messages on the logon screen remains the same. This means that an error message that displays on the log-on screen may in fact be ‘old’ or no longer current. Bearing that in mind, if an error message is posted on the logon screen, users should always try to sign on and then off again to refresh the screen. This will clear any ‘stale’ messages from the logon screen.
• Fix the behavior of the CLEAR key on the application logon screen.
• The CLEAR key will now clear data from the PASS: input box if data exists and CLEAR is pressed.
  Prior to this fix, entering password data in the password input box followed by the CLEAR key would result in no change at the POS transaction terminal.
  This could mislead users into thinking that the POS device was stuck on the password entry screen.
  This fix will be carried forward beyond the logon application screen in upcoming releases because the same problem was found to exist in many other places within the application.
• Add a ‘CURRENT’ selection choice to all “Totals” reports.
• This enhancement addresses the issue in which store totals were printing 1-day behind or were not available until after the store cutoff time that is defined in the POS device. When any of the Reports selections are chosen, the user interface will now contain a scrollable list of eight choices, the first being ‘CURRENT’ and the next seven being 7 days prior. Pressing the ß or à keys on the POS device scrolls forward or backwards through the choices.
  If “CURRENT” is selected, the report will produce totals consisting of all transactions in the current period. The printed output will also display “Period End: Current” to indicate that the transaction period has not yet closed for the day.
  If a date selection is chosen, the totals printed will represent the transactions performed within that period, Period Start to Period End, again, based on the cutoff time parameter that is set in the POS device.