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Offline Screen

At times, either deliberately or as part of their design, solutions can go offline i.e. lose their connection to the outside world. Whilst not always a significant problem, it is commonplace that Payter terminals require connectivity, not least to be able to authorize payments with cardholder's card issuers.

It is best practice to let customers and potential customers know as early as possible that there might be a problem. Setting an Offline Screen is a good way of being proactive.

How Does it Work?​

The Payter terminal knows whether it is on or offline. It is maintaining a connection to Payter's cloud services regularly, and will know relatively quickly when this connection is lost. When this occurs, and after a customisable Offline grace period, the terminal can display one or more background images that have been loaded onto the terminal.

As soon as the terminal regains connectivity, the regular screens will be shown in normal operation.

More than one offline screen can be shown. The period of time that a screen is shown, and the order each screen is shown in, is configurable.

Offline Screen Basics​

  • An offline screen should be a PNG image that measures 320 pixels wide by 480 pixels tall
  • An offline screen should explain the current status of the terminal
  • An offline screen can provide alternatives to the customer or offer a contact number.

Offline Screen Configuration​

Offline screens are added in the Basic Configuration UI - Screens tab in MyPayter when viewing a terminal.

  1. Ensure the asset you are going to use as an offline screen is already uploaded to your terminal 'Domain' Assets section. You can find more information on how to do this here: Assets - Uploading Assets
  2. Click +Add UI Asset and then select the Asset from the drop down in the first blank box on the right hand side.
  3. Scroll to the "Offline screen(s)" section
  4. Change the Asset Ref to the Asset you just added.
  5. Add a value in seconds to the Offline grace period setting.

This is the minimum number of steps to apply a single basic offline screen.

Detailed Offline Screen Configuration​

NameFormatDescription
TitleStringA text overlay that can be placed over a plain screen. Centered and at the top of the screen by default.
Sub TitleStringA text overlay that is placed over a plain screen and directly under the Title.
Asset RefDropdownAllows the asset to be selected that has been uploaded to MyPayter and assigned to the terminal.
Text Y OffsetIntegerThe number of Pixels from the top of the screen that the Title will be positioned. Screen is 480 pixels tall.
Show DurationStringWhen using more than one screen, this is a required field to indicate how long it should be shown before the next screen is displayed.
Offline grace periodIntegerThe number of seconds offline before the screen is shown. Values vary across customers, ranging from 10-60 seconds.