EVENT NOTIFICATION

• US 20150178664A1
• Filed: 12/19/2013
• Published: 06/25/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NCR Atleos Corp.
• Original Assignee: NCR Corporation (NCR Voyix Corporation)
• Inventors: Neilan, Michael James
• Granted Patent: US 10,380,517 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 19/209 Monitoring, auditing or diagnose of functioning of ATMs
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 9/026 for alarm, monitoring and auditing in vending machines or means for indication, e.g. when empty

Abstract

A method of providing a service operation event notification is described. The method comprises: receiving at a management application an indication of a service event at a media terminal, where the indication includes (i) a service event type and (ii) a service event time; and updating the management application to record the type of event and a time associated with that event. The service event type may be an “engineer arrived” event, an “engineer left” event, or a replenishment scheduled event.

Claims

1. A method of providing a service operation event notification, the method comprising:

receiving at a management application an indication of a service event at a media terminal, where the indication includes (i) a service event type and (ii) a service event time; and

updating the management application to record the type of event and a time associated with that event.

2. A method according to claim 1, wherein the service event comprises an event relating to a person being present at the media terminal.

3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the type of service event comprises a scheduled media replenishment event at a media terminal and the time associated with that event comprises a time at which replenishment is scheduled to occur.

4. A method according to claim 1, wherein the method includes indicating to a user of the management application the type of event and the time associated with that event.

5. A method according to claim 4, wherein indicating to a user of the management application the type of event and a time associated with that event is implemented by displaying a visual representation of (i) a media terminal, and (ii) the event type and time associated with that media terminal.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein receiving at a management application an indication of a service event includes receiving the indication from the media terminal across a network.

7. A method according to claim 1, wherein receiving at a management application an indication of a service event includes receiving the indication from media replenishment software.

8. A media terminal comprising:

a system application operable to provide diagnostic and servicing functions; and

a management agent executing on the terminal and being operable to;

(i) detect when the system application is accessed;

(ii) generate a service event in response to the system application being accessed, where the service event includes an event type and a time when the event occurred; and

(iii) transmit the service event to a remote management application.

9. A media terminal according to claim 8, wherein the management agent is operable to detect when the system application is accessed by detecting launching of the system application.

10. A media terminal according to claim 8, wherein the management agent is operable to detect when the system application is accessed by parsing a log file and deducing from the log file when the system application was accessed.

11. A media terminal according to claim 8, wherein the management agent is further operable to:

detect when access to the system application ceases;

generate a service event in response to the system application no longer being accessed, where the service event comprises a service engineer leaving event and a time when the event occurred; and

transmit the service event to a remote management application.

12. A media terminal according to claim 8, wherein the media terminal comprises an automated teller machine.

13. A management application operable to:

(i) receive service events from a media terminal;

(ii) receive replenishment information from a media replenishment application; and

(iii) present a graphical user interface to a user where the graphical user interface includes a representation of the media terminal and any replenishment information relevant to that media terminal, including a time when the next replenishment operation is scheduled for that terminal.

14. A management application according to claim 13, wherein the graphical user interface further includes a representation of currency to be provided as part of a replenishment operation associated with that media terminal, including the amount of currency and denomination for each currency cassette within that media terminal.

15. A management application according to claim 13, wherein the service events include an event type and an event time.

16. A management application according to claim 13, wherein the graphical user interface allows a user to select a media terminal and presents service events to the user, including an arrival time of a service engineer at that media terminal, a time when the service engineer left the media terminal, and the total amount of time spent by service engineers at that media terminal over a selected time period.