Wireless Scanner Setup - Windows Mobile

This page describes the key functions of the scanner and how to set it up. Topic are:

• Description of the Motorola/Symbol MC50 and the buttons on it
• Downloading and Installing the AMS Ticket scanning program on the scanner
• Setup and mating of the scanner with your router and network
• Setup of the login information and communication parameters before scanning can occur

Theatre Manager supports the Symbol MC50 or similar wireless scanner for optimum tracking of people entering and leaving a venue. The device looks like the picture above.

It has some important buttons that you will need to know to operate the scanner:

• The most important is the silver 'scan' buttons. They are at both sides of the device at the top. You can use whichever one you want to achieve the scan as they are interchangeable.
• When using the Theatre Manager 'AMS Ticket' program, all functions are accessed by clicking on the touch sensitive screen using the stylus or your finger.
• There is an orange button at the bottom left of the keyboard. This is the numlock button. Pressing it once allows entry of a number. Pressing it twice turns on num-lock. Pressing it again, turns the keyboard back to alpha. It will be very handy when entering information to set up the device.

If the 'AMS ticket' program is not in the scanner, you will need to install it. You can determine if it is in the scanner by clicking on the 'start' menu at the top of the scanner and looking down the list for the 'Programs' menu item. When you pick that, you will see a list of applications in the device. Look for something that says 'AMS Tickets'.

In the screen at the left, you can see the 'AMS' logo with the name 'AMS Tickets' in the first row on the 3rd Column

If you cannot find this icon in the scanner, you will need to install it.
Notes:

• installation must be done on a PC because the connection cables that come with the device are USB and serial. If you have a credit card server, this is an ideal machine for this purpose.
• Installation only needs to be done once because the program gets placed into nonvolatile ram, so even if you run out of battery power, it will still be there.

Requisites:

• You will need the Windows Mobile software and the AMS Ticket program. You can download all you need from our web site (size is about 10 Mb).
• A PC computer with a USB connection.

If you have not already done so, download the installers for the AMS ticket program. Expand the zip file to a convenient location and have a look at the folder. You should see some folders and files that look like the image to the right.

If you plugged in the scanner to your USB port, please unplug it.

Double click on the ActiveSync 4.5 installer. This is the first step in getting the program installed. This will only need to occur once, regardless of the number of scanners that you need to install the program on.

You will see an installer window similar to the one to the left. Please follow the instructions to Install Active Sync 4.5.

Click the 'Next Button

'

After reading the terms, click to accept the licence terms and then click the 'Next' button.

Enter your user name and customer information and click 'Next'. It will probably default this information for you.

Click 'Next' again.

Click the 'Install' Button and wait till the installer is finished doing its work . This may take a couple of minutes, depending upon the speed of your machine.

If the scanner is its cradle and is connected, then you should see that the icon is 'green' which indicates the connection.

In either case, you can 'Double click' on the icon and open the active sync program and you will see a window like the one on the right.

If you have no connection, you may need to go to 'File->Connection Settings' after plugging in the device and USB cradle. This window has some settings that can be changed and should look like below. The default setting is to allow USB connections, but if yo are having issues, please check the settings are similar to below. The important thing is to get the 'Device Connected' message.

Once connected to active sync (the window does not have to be open), go back to the folder where the active sync 4.5 installer is.

You can now click on the install.bat file. This will move a copy of the hand held ticket scanner program onto the actual scanner. You will see a window as below that gives you a chance to continue with the install program or to quit. Click any key to install.

As the install progresses, you will see the result of some dos commands and a file copy. This step can take a while (perhaps 10 minutes) as it moves the data onto the hand held device. Do not unplug the hand held device while you are doing this.

While the sync is occurring, the scanner device will show that items are being transferred with a set of left/right arrows on the screen near the time. Note that there is no animation of the arrows while the transfer is happening.

at the end of the install, the DOS screen will disappear from your computer and the screen on your mobile device will ask you if you want to reset the computer with a dialog as below. While it says that 'all data and files will be removed', it really only means data that support the usage of TM or other programs. Click 'Yes'

After the restart of the device, you will need to follow through with the device initialization. This includes:

• tapping the screen to start the setup process
• clicking on some X in the screen to align the stylus
• Then, the TM application should start up with a screen like below

If the previous step was set up right and the scanner is mated to the network, you can click the start menu, programs and the click on the AMS Tickets application It may take a couple of seconds or so to start as the scan program is synchronizing time with a time server and making sure the clock on the program is set properly. When it does start, you will see the screen at the side. Now we can set up scanning for an event. This must be done in advance of each performance that you are scanning tickets for.

All that needs to be done is set up some parameters.

Click the 'Setup' button on the screen.

You will be asked for a system password to change the settings for the performance. Type '123' (this can be changed) and once the password is right, the next window will automatically appear.

When you open the preferences window using either of the two methods above, you have some fields that must be filled in. These are below (note you may want to press the orange button on the keyboard twice to turn it into num-lock on mode):

• IP address: this is the IP address of the web listener that will be responding to checkin and checkout requests.
  • For version 6: enter the physical address of the listener such as 192.168.0.2
  • For version 7: enter the address of the apache server/firewall such as tickets.yourdomain.com/tm_apache/159. the tickets.yourdomain.com is the same value you place in company preferences under the web settings. The '159' is the company preference number. In multi-outlet venues, this number will be different for each outlet.
• Port: this is the port number that the web listener 'listens on'
  • For version 6: enter the IP address the listener listens on, typically 5111
  • For version 7: leave blank for port 80, type 443 if you have set up SSL and allow access via secure sockets. It generally is not needed.
• User Initials: this is the upper case initials for the user doing the scanning. This person does not need to be able to log on to TM for any other reason. You might wish to create one or more generic ID's for this purpose (because the password in this screen is clear text)
• Password: the password used for these User Initials to log on to Theatre Manager. Note that the password is case sensitive. Unless you allow lower case passwords, you will generally enter this as upper case.
• Performance #: enter the performance number that you are scanning for.
  • If you enter a ticket number, then tickets for any other performance will be rejected. Use this method if you want absolute certainty that patrons are entering the correct venue
  • If you leave this blank, then any ticket for any event that day can be scanned. Use this only if you have a festival situation occurring and patrons could have purchased tickets to any one of a number of events to obtain entry to the area you are scanning for.
• Other Buttons:
  • Key Clicks: check this to that you receive audible feedback from typing numbers.
  • Set Time: forces the time on the Windows Mobile device to match the time on the Web Listener. Effectively this will be the same as the time on the database server. If you do not set this, it will occur automatically each time you start the ticket scanning program.
  • Wireless: opens the wireless setup information as per the top of this page.
  • Cancel: does not save the changes to the memory of the device
  • Save: saves the changes.

version 7 sample setup

Version 6 sample setup

There is one other preference that can be set before we begin scanning. This indicates whether we are scanning the person into the venue, or scanning them as they leave to indicate that the ticket was not used

You can access this option directly from the main screen where the scan & setup buttons are. Click the 'Scan' button and you will see a screen like the one on the left.

At the bottom is a 'checkout' button with a red arrow. This means the mode is currently 'check in' and you click this button to change the mode to 'checkout'. It will also change the arrow at the top from green (checkin mode) to red (checkout mode)

If there is a green arrow with 'check in' at the bottom, then the current mode is 'checkout' mode. Click the 'Checkin' button to change the mode to checkin.