NRS Trust-E Nightmares

[OllieC]

Looking for some advice on what to do here or at the least, a shoulder to cry on (kidding!).

 

We've got a NRS Trust-E cashless payment system (V6). One server running the database and trust-e software in the catering office with 5 or 6 tills.

 

Civica tried to sting us with a ~£750/month over 5 year upgrade which was totally unnecessary (told me that our tills were W7 and EOL.. they're 8 POS and 10), then after insisting that they wouldn't include the parentpay TLS update as part of the standard support contract, I have made the decision to stop paying for support - I gave them the choice: we pay support if it includes the sync2 update, otherwise we only pay for sync2. Just from generally talking to them and viewing our "options" for upgrade, I dislike the way that they operate... marketing x64 Windows as a chargeable feature for example just reeks of moneygrabbing and is indicative of them being used to schools/trusts just signing anything that they're told to.

 

We're currently having various performance issues, tills freezing and hanging regularly on the tail end of transactions; it's really slowing down things for the kitchen staff.

 

From experience of resuscitating tills that have been stuck in offline mode etc, it comes as no surprise; it seems an absolute hodge-podge of a system, seemingly written in VB6. From my experience of it, I'm not impressed.

 

Has anyone experienced similar, or have any known fixes for performance issues? What are other people doing to get this thing working as it's supposed to? I've read snippets throughout the forums suggesting running trust-e as a remote app; is this practical? Am I likely to encounter issues with usb biometric and their silly TTL pin pads?

 

If I really really have to, I'll pay the support so as not to inconvenience the caterers but it goes against everything that I believe in my role as NM.

 

Cheers

Edited October 20, 2019 by OllieC

[rad]

Have you tried the database sync option?

 

I’m out of touch (left school that used NRS) but otherwise I’d be calling support

[robyholmes]

Do you use fingerprints? We had loads of issues with the bio database not working or being slow. You need to restart IIS on the server then rebuild the database file in the NRS software.

 

In the end, we moved to ID cards and it's a lot quicker. Not full proof as, as you've pointed out, they make things far more complex than they need to be.

[round2it]

Rebuild the biometric database via the truste software atleast 2 times a week

[Achandler]

Not that it helps but Civica and Northgate are basically Capita from another sector.

 

Buy up what was decent software, ruin it and the support for it and charge more.

[TMBS]

We're in the same situation! Our business manager is having to deal with their ridiculous pricing to replace the Win 7 tills and server. I didn't think the till connected to the Internet though so do they really need to be upgraded? I know it's not ideal but they don't connect to our network...

 

Awful company to deal with, they try and overcharge you for everything despite paying for their support. The wanted £200 from us to install the software on one PC and I had to fight to get the install pack from them and do it myself. Not surprised to hear they've been taken over from Capital - they seem to be taking over the world!

[mthomas08]

We upgraded our system (got a cheaper cost by threatening to go elsewhere which was a lot less £).

 

Consistently running slow, so they altered the sync update several times. At the moment we are struggling to contact them regarding one of our kit which seems to be failing often over the last 18 months (even after that got upgraded).

 

I'm happy to spend the money on a system that works and is reliable... when we get to this situation again of needing to upgrade.. my advice would be to go else where because this isn't good enough. They also support our biometric equipment on our printers which is now becoming hard to find replacements for...

 

Often tell our SBM that companies like this which has us bent over should be avoided. We have system printers tied to the bio and connects up to catering and Parent Pay. And very few companies seem to be willing to deal with linking it all together.

[OllieC]

Omg I hadn't been receiving notifications for this thread - glad it's not just me suffering. Thanks for the tips on rebuilding biometric database etc - I don't actually know if I have access to this area of TrustE; there's a level that only their support has access to I think.

 

They remoted in the other day and did some database repairs in MSSQL but this has done nothing to improve. I'm going to push to get an account manager to visit because it's just farcical; the clunkiness of the software, the pricing etc. The people I've dealt with in support on the phone seem like they are genuinely trying at least but that alone isn't enough to make me a happy customer.

 

Will certainly be looking in to different solutions if they can't do something to improve things quickly.

 

Interesting point on printers; when I started at the school (pre technical role), the printers all had NRS biometrics which *never* worked. Moved to keyfobs (staff) and exam numbers (students) with the new printing contract.

Edited November 25, 2019 by OllieC

[samlcfc16]

We've got the NRS system at my School. Canteen staff often radio so we have to come running down saying 'Tills are down!!!' like others have said often they freeze up and biometrics don't work. Usually we end up going into manager mode and re initialising both the tills and finger print scanner units. - Usually cures it!

 

All of our tills were wi-fi tills and they are crap! Stay away we have managed to finally hard wire them in so a tad faster! They are running xp embedded which NRS say it will cost us to upgrade them. Hoping to get a new system in soon we have looked at CRB Cunninghams and then NRS again - cunninghams was a lot more expensive!

 

Daily the reval controller doesn't work so often you have to reboot the software to that NRS have looked and 'fixed' this many a time and still does it!

 

We have nearly completed our move to Wndows 10 and I rang them up the other day said we have 5x pcs that require the truste software and said it is £125.00 a pop! We cant afford that! I said we have already paid last time for it and its the same PCs!... Managed to get the install files form them and figure it out myself in the end. - So now we can have it on as many pc's as we like! :-)

 

On reading the install notes it says when installing the truste setup.exe you may encounter two error messages - the advice in the read me file was just to ignore both of them which fills you full of hope!

[robyholmes]

We've got the NRS system at my School. Canteen staff often radio so we have to come running down saying 'Tills are down!!!' like others have said often they freeze up and biometrics don't work. Usually we end up going into manager mode and re initialising both the tills and finger print scanner units. - Usually cures it!

 

All of our tills were wi-fi tills and they are crap! Stay away we have managed to finally hard wire them in so a tad faster! They are running xp embedded which NRS say it will cost us to upgrade them. Hoping to get a new system in soon we have looked at CRB Cunninghams and then NRS again - cunninghams was a lot more expensive!

 

Daily the reval controller doesn't work so often you have to reboot the software to that NRS have looked and 'fixed' this many a time and still does it!

 

We have nearly completed our move to Wndows 10 and I rang them up the other day said we have 5x pcs that require the truste software and said it is £125.00 a pop! We cant afford that! I said we have already paid last time for it and its the same PCs!... Managed to get the install files form them and figure it out myself in the end. - So now we can have it on as many pc's as we like! :-)

 

On reading the install notes it says when installing the truste setup.exe you may encounter two error messages - the advice in the read me file was just to ignore both of them which fills you full of hope!

 

We had the same issues with fingerprints although the tills didn't tend to lockup, they just wouldn't find any finger prints until the server was restarted. As for the software, its very much cobbled together anyway and how to get it to work. Got an error during the installation, ignore it and copy the file manually afterwards. No wonder they charge so much for installation, its all the wasted time solving the errors with their own installer.

[Sean]

Hope you don't mind me necroing a 4 year old thread but it seemed like the best place to ask

 

Yes on our NRS Civica system the tills are fine, no problem but the finger readers on the 2 reval units keep falling off the network

 

I had naively thought that the reval finger-readers were fully integrated into the unit or an most an optional daughterboard but It turns out that they are separate network devices to the reval units themselves and seems like maybe they talk to each otehr via teh kitchen PC that started the revals in the morning in the first place?

 

When they lose connection there is an error message on the reval app on the kitchen PC about not finding the finger reader on a comm port(!) and the only way to get it back working again is for the kitchen manager to physically open up the reval and power cycle it - this happens at least once to at least one of our 2 revals most days!

 

I contacted Civica support, they sent someone out, he seemed nice enough at the time but they've taken his repost and said there's nothing wrong with their kit so it must be 'an IP conflict or something' and are maybe trying to say that we are liable to hundreds of pounds worth of call out fee! (Civica really do take every opportunity to overcharge ridiculously for every little thing - can confirm!)

 

So.. any ideas guys? anyone had anything similar? Pretty sure there is nothing else using remotely similar IP addresses to the ones it's using...