Cold Card Activation allows you to have WashMax Market cards that are assigned to a marketing program, but not yet functioning. This allows you to have the cards sitting on a display where customers can grab them, but stolen cards will not work. A store clerk must activate the card upon purchase.
Cold Card Activation is driven by a program on the Site Server called Cold Card Activator (CCA). It sits in the tray (a blue card with ice and a check mark) until a card is swiped. The application comes pre-installed on recent Site Server images, and may be added to an existing device. A mag-card reader for the Site Server must be purchased along with a license for the application.
When a card is swiped the input display pops up over the normal Code-a-Wash or EPG display:
The clerk enters information via the touch-screen.
Each of these three input fields may be configured as not shown, shown but not required, or shown and required. They can all be turned off, allowing swiped cards to be activated without any input at all. Here's the settings screen:
If a card is swiped but the back-end WashMax Onsite service, which handles the actual processing, is not connected it shows:
Other failures also show with this red screen. Any error screen can be closed or will go away on its own after several seconds.
Cards are active and available for immediate use on the first bay of the site where activated. Other sites/bays will take a few minutes.
Two WashMax Flex Program Reports are available for card activation. (Sample screen below.) Also, the Key details screen shows when the card was activated, and any other available detail (clerk ID, initial value, initial usage count).
By requiring the clerk to enter their ID at activation, and using the WashMax reports, clerks can be rewarded for signing up customers.
Any number of different marketing programs can be activated. You create the programs on WashMax and pre-assign groups of cards to each program. When the card is swiped for activation, it already "knows" which program it belongs to. Different card art-work or packaging can be used to distinguish the cards on display.