PCounter & Magstrip Cards

[MatthewL]

Does anyone use PCounter on a Sharp MFP with a USB card reader to enable reading of magnetic striped cards?

 

Got a few issues but no one else I know uses it like we do, they all use proximity cards!

[howartp]

Does anyone use PCounter on a Sharp MFP with a USB card reader to enable reading of magnetic striped cards?

 

Got a few issues but no one else I know uses it like we do, they all use proximity cards!

 

Hi Matthew,

 

Unfortunately we use proximity cards as well, but what issues are you seeing? I've been through various issues both myself and with tech support when trialling and setting up PCounter on the machines (and moving to new servers post-install) so I'm probably more up on it than most average network managers using PCounter/Sharp.

 

Peter

[MatthewL]

We are having problem where a card is registered on the system but when the user swipes card it says it is not associated with the user account so has to put their login details in again and this happens each time rather than just the one when registering the card.

 

Also when the photocopier is turned off fully and back on it doesn't accept the card at first, I have to login to the system settings as admin and log off for it to connect.

 

Any ideas? Who is your supplier for your setup if you do not mind me asking?

[howartp]

Hi Matthew,

 

Our supplier is Danwood, although PCounter support comes direct from Altman. (Danwood supports the hardware/maintenance etc)

 

Regarding turning the device off and on, I've not seen this issue - our card readers start working immediately once the device has booted up etc. What does it say/do/not to when it doesn't accept the card - is it something to do with accounting server isn't contactable? (If so, a restart of the Apache Tomcat service might help)

 

We don't actually use self-registration by staff, we imported all their card numbers into AD beforehand, then we also have a USB card reader on my PC with Please wait... software which we use to register any new staff (or those who have left their cards at home and are issued temporary cards).

 

Whenever we add Client Codes to a user, or change their card no in AD, we have a script on the desktop of the primary PCounter server which restarts the PCounter services (inc Spooler) and Apache Tomcat (aka DACCS) service, as the copiers won't accept the new card ID until you restart Apache, so it's as easy to have the script which does them all.

 

Does this help at all?

 

Peter

[imiddleton25]

we have same setup and have had same issues pcounter came from altman technologies.

[MatthewL]

We get our hardware from United Carlton and they have been great, I have been dealing with Altman and they have asked me to send some cards to do some testing which I will do this week but I am now on leave till the new year.

 

When it doesn't accept the card it just says invalid ID, it can see the accounting server so not too sure what else to do.

 

I have had to have self registration on due to the number of staff that can come and go in the building, its to support our agile working as we could potentially have upto 1000 users and we never know which of them will be likely to use it. I am tempted to just import all the numbers in and take it from there but there is obviously an issue which we need to sort!

 

We do not use the client codes but I will have a look as restarting Apache and see if that helps, like I say I am away till after the new year so will provide more when I can, just needed to try and find somone else out there who uses it in a similar way!

[howartp]

We had some (very good) quotes from United Carlton but they didn't comply with the terms of the quotation/tender process and so ruled themselves out.

 

Have you checked AD recently to see whether it is correctly populating the card ID into whichever field you've told it to us, and/or whether something might be removing that ID at a later point?

 

Peter

[MatthewL]

None of the information goes into AD as far as I am aware, just goes into the PCounter software unless I am missing something.