Creating PMS Room Cards

The Aloha application software can process Property Management Systems (PMS) room cards with one of two methods.

The first method is a magnetic stripe card encoded with a straight number. The Aloha application software sends this number to the PMS and the PMS must parse the room number from the information. For example, if the card for room number 1234 is encoded with 0045001234000, the Aloha application software sends 0045001234000 to the PMS and the PMS must determine that this represents room 1234. If the room cards have one or more common prefixes, you should consider adding these prefixes to the tender configuration in the Aloha application software to decrease mistakes, but you are not required to do so.

The Aloha application software uses a second method if the room card is programmed with standard magnetic stripe fields as described in the Magnetic Stripe Information section of this document. In this case, the Aloha application software only sends the information from the Account Number field to the PMS. As in method one, it is up to the PMS to parse the room number from the information sent by the Aloha application software.

MSR Types and Limitations

The Aloha application software supports the following types of Magnetic-Stripe-Readers (MSRs): keyboard-wedge, OPOS (refer to document ID 6044), and IBM POSS (used with the IBM 4695 POS terminal, refer to document ID 6002).

If you are using a keyboard-wedge or IBM POSS MSR, the Aloha application software reads magnetic stripe cards with only track one populated, only track two populated, or both track one and track two populated.  If you are using an OPOS MSR with Aloha application software versions 5.036 and lower or versions 5.200 through 5.208, then the Aloha application software cannot read magnetic stripe cards with only track one populated.  Furthermore, Aloha application software versions 5.036 and lower or versions 5.200 through 5.208 cannot read magnetic stripe cards with only track two populated unless you enable the 'Track Two Only' MSR setting within the Aloha application software.  If you enable 'Track Two Only', the Aloha application software ignores any information on track one.  If you are using an OPOS MSR with the Aloha application software versions 5.037 through 5.0x or 5.209 and higher, the Aloha application software reads magnetic stripe cards with only track one populated, only track two populated, or both track one and track two populated (do not enable the 'Track Two Only' MSR setting).

The following table lists the limitations applied to each type of MSR:

Magnetic Stripe Information

The Aloha application software uses the following sentinels and field separators with keyboard-wedge MSRs:

You should only have a single carriage return at the very end of the read.  Do not include a carriage return after each track.  The Aloha application software will interpret each track as a separate card read if you include a carriage return after each track.

Since a keyboard can mimic a keyboard-wedge MSR, you can test system functionality by typing the sentinels on your keyboard.  For example, to assign employee 400 a MSR password of '999', log in as employee 400, touch 'Change Password' from the Functions/Employee screen, type '%999?', and press the enter key.  Repeat it to verify the password and, in the future, sign on to the system from the floating logo by typing '%999?' and pressing enter.

The Aloha application software recognizes the following format on magnetic stripes (regardless of the MSR type):

When reading magnetic stripe cards, Aloha versions 5.0x and lower favor information from track one over track two.  Aloha versions 5.2x and favor information from track two over track one in order to ensure compatibility with debit cards.

In some cases, track two is not as reliable as track one, so Aloha versions 5.2x and higher might not successfully read track two on a consistent basis, which can result in employee logins not functioning properly.  If you experience consistency problems when logging into the Aloha POS system with magnetic stripe cards and you are using Aloha versions 5.2.7.242 through 5.2.7.x, 5.3.12 through 5.3.x, or 5.4.x.x and higher (this is not available in 5.2.8 or early versions of 5.3), then you can assign to the LogonWithMagCardTrack1NumberOnly variable in the ALOHA.INI to a value of TRUE (for example, LogonWithMagCardTrack1NumberOnly=TRUE).  This variable instructs Aloha to revert to favoring track one for employee logins, but not for tenders or other magnetic stripe card input.  If this does not correct the problem, then remove this variable from the ALOHA.INI.

It is typically acceptable to truncate track information if you do not require the information held in the fields.  For example, track two does not require fields two through four in order for the Aloha application software to read the account number from track two, although the start and end sentinels are still required.  On the other hand, if you are only eliminating certain fields but still require other fields that follow, you must keep the field separators between blank fields.

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