ACME Offline Mode

If your connection to ACME goes down goes down at the Point of Sales (POS), ACME’s Offline Mode allows you to keep selling tickets to your guests without any disruption to your critical business operations.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Common causes of Offline Mode

  1. Vantiv (WorldPay) has some sort of service disruption somewhere in their network
  2. Magensa’s decryption servers are unreachable so ACME cannot decrypt cards to process them
  3. Disruptions in the site’s local network or internet service provider are causing communication issues between the point of sale and ACME
  4. Some technical issue on ACME’s end is causing communication issues or time outs


Offline Mode Capabilities

Supported Actions

  • Ticket sales
  • Inventory item sales

  • Immediate Payment processing 

    • Cash and Checks

  • Queued CC Payment Processing via Vantiv/Ingenico Devices (assuming connectivity to device)

  • Ticket and Receipt Printing (assuming connectivity to device)

  • Login using offline PIN

  • Membership Discounts

    • Note: Members will unable to be searched for while offline, but member discount tickets are still available

Note: For offline printing and card reader transactions, the iPad musts still be able to reach the peripherals on your local network. ACME cannot be responsible for any declined or fraudulent credit card transactions while queing in  offline. Please process at your own risk. 

Not Supported Actions

  • Order management (including refunds)
  • Membership lookup and management

  • Entitlements, Sales Rules, and Capacity Management

  • Ticket check-ins

  • Discounts and coupons

  • Disconnected peripherals 


Going offline

Offline Mode with Logged in Users

  1. If Offline Mode is activated, proceed as normal. Logged in users will see the Offline Mode symbol near the top of the screen. A pop-up message will also notify the user that they “cannot connect to ACME servers” which indicates that they are in offline mode.
  2. The software will prompt users to Cancel/Retry/Queue CC transactions until connectivity is restored. Please note: Our software assumes all credit cards are valid when transacting offline. Some cads may in fact be invalid or declined by the payment processor when service is restored. Any loss of revenue from declined or invalid cards is the sole responsibility of the venue. 

  3. When the app regains normal connectivity, the app will immediately send the locally stored transactions saved during offline mode to the cloud to be processed.


Offline Mode with Logged out Users

  1. Login with the Offline User credentials (user: offline, password set in B2B Admin>POS) Note that in order for the offline PIN to work as expected, a normal login needs to occur at least once earlier that day on that same sales terminal. This allows the Sales application to verify the current PIN as it is programmed in Back Office. The PIN is then saved as a temporary file for the rest of the day. 

  2. The software will prompt users to Cancel/Retry/Queue CC transactions until connectivity is restored.

  3. When the app re-gains normal connectivity, it is important that the user logs out of offline mode and logs in with their normal credentials. Failing to take this step may lead to errors while transacting.

  4. After a user logs in normally, the app will immediately send the locally stored transactions saved during offline mode to the cloud to be processed.


Printing while offline

Bluetooth Epson, Zebra, or BOCA printers

Bluetooth equipped printers will connect and print receipts and/or tickets normally during offline mode. Bluetooth Epson and Zebra printers can print both receipts and tickets. Bluetooth BOCA printers can print tickets only.


Ethernet Epson and BOCA Printers

You can use a Local Network connection to maintain a terminal/printer ethernet connection in some cases, depending on the network structure and what is offline. Note that if the router connecting the various devices goes down, ACME Sales will be unable to reach these network connected devices.


Forcing an offline mode in event of a critical service disruption 

In the event that your network is online, but there is a critical service disruption you may want to trigger Manual Offline Mode until normal service is resorted, like in the case of a WorldPay outage. Learn more about Manual Offline Mode.


What happens when you are back online?

  1. Each device will store transactions locally via the app until connectivity is restored, and will automatically send its cache of transactions when it regains connectivity.

  2. Successfully processed transactions will have an order created, which will then be visible across the platform.

  3. Failed transactions will not create an order until they are run successfully.

  4. All offline transactions will appear in B2B (Orders>Offline Transactions.

  5. Any failed transactions can be re-tried from that menu or permanently archived.

  6. We recommend re-trying one transaction at a time, and hitting the browser’s refresh button a few seconds after the re-try to show an updated status of Pass or Fail.


Please see the Offline Transactions - Quick Guide for reminders of how to tell if you are in offline mode, what to do when you go offline, and what to do when you regain connectivity.