This guide will help you set up the administrator module for the first time, connect it to the Smartlaunch server and configure it for your center. Before you start the administrator, make sure that the Smartlaunch server is up and running.
Step 1: Starting the Administrator
Start the administrator by double-clicking the Smartlaunch administrator icon on the desktop, or select it from the program list in the start menu. If this is the first time you start the administrator, you will be welcomed by a startup guide that will help you connect to the server. But before connecting to the server, select your desired language from the list and click the Next button when you are done.
Image 1: Select language
In the second step of the guide, you will have to specify the IP address to the server. If the Smartlaunch server is located on the same machine as the administrator you are starting, you will find your IP address in the bottom of the window. If the Smartlaunch server is located on another computer you will have to find out the IP address of that computer. To do that, open up the Windows Start Menu, select Run, type cmd in the input field and press the OK button.
Image 2: open up a command window
This will open up a command window. To find out what your local IP address is type “ipconfig” (without the quotes) and press Enter.
Enter this IP address into the Server IP/Name input field of the administrator startup guide. Click the Next button when you are done to connect the administrator to the Smartlaunch server.
Image 4: Connect to the server
When the administrator has successfully connected to the server, press the Finish button and continue to the next step of logging in to the administrator and configuring it for your café.
Step 2: Logging in to the Administrator
To log in to the administrator module you need a valid username and password, Smartlaunch comes with an already created account for the administrator, the default username and password for that account is “admin”. After you have set up Smartlaunch and configured the client, you should change the password for this account to something more difficult. To edit user accounts and create new ones for your staff, open up the General Settings/Employees section on the Smartlaunch server. When creating new employee accounts, you can specify what that employee should have access to and not.
Image 5: Logging in to the administrator
Step 3: Configuring the Administrator
Smartlaunch comes with a lot of predefined settings, it is recommended that you go through these settings and adjust them to match your cafés preferences. To open up the preferences for the administrator module, click Utilities in the menu and select Preferences.
Image 6: Opening the preferences
General – Connection
Image 7: Connection settings
If you change the IP address of the server, you can change that here in the Connection section. You can also change the ID for this administrator module, this is necessary if you have more than one administrator module that wants to be connected to the server simultaneously, the number can be any number from 1 to 50. The final option is for an automatic update check; this is highly recommended but can be turned off temporarily by unchecking the checkbox.
General – Alerts
Image 8: Smartlaunch alerts
Smartlaunch can notify you when different events occur, these things are:
Stock limit reached
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will notify you when you run out of any product.
Un-authorized client disconnected
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will notify you when a client disconnects from the server in an unauthorized way. An un-authorized way is anything else than when the user logs out or when the administrator deactivates/logs in as admin/shuts down/logs out.
Logout idle Employee
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will logout the employee at the Administrator after the idle period which is specified in minutes.
General – Miscellaneous
Image 9: Miscellaneous options
Show tip of the day on startup
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will display a “tip of the day” every time you start the administrator, this can be very helpful for new users of Smartlaunch. Show time-bars in graphical overview screen If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will display a time-bar next to every computer in the graphical overview; this will help the employee to get a general idea of how much time all the customers have left without going into details for every customer.
Show time-bars in the graphical overview screen
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will display a time-bar next to every computer in the graphical overview; this will help the employee to get a general idea of how much time all the customers have left without going into details for every customer.
Default computer group
If you have divided the computers in your café into several computer groups, you can specify which one you want as the default by selecting it from the dropdown menu.
Administrator Language
You can easily change the language displayed in the administrator by selecting a new one from the dropdown menu and click the Apply button.
Default share on clients
If you have setup Windows on the clients to share a folder on the hard drive, you can specify the share name you have chosen.
Payments – Payment methods
Image 10: Payment methods
Select how you want to be able to charge your customers. If you choose to let the customers pay From their Account, they will be able to buy products using the money they have on their account. If for example, a customer has bought an hour for 6$, and later chooses to buy a chocolate bar for 1$ using money from his account, the amount of minutes 1$ is worth (10minutes) will be drawn from his account. This will not happen if the user has bought an offer (3 hours for 15$ for example), because if that would be possible he would get the products for a cheaper price.
If you choose to have the option Pay Later enabled and select it as a payment method when time is added to a user’s account, the accounts will be able to go into a negative cash balance, and you will have to keep track of the customers paying for their time before leaving. You will of course get a notice when the customer logs out.
Payments – Drag ‘n drop
Image 11: Drag ‘n drop
If Drag ‘n drop shortcuts are enabled, you will be able to click and drag offers, products, and more from the menu on the right side of the administrator to the customer’s accounts. To create your own time and money drag ‘n drops, click the Customize button, new products and offers can only be created on the server.
Payments – Miscellaneous
Image 12: Drag ‘n drop
Cash rounding
Cash rounding is used when dealing with amounts below one. If you want to round these numbers change the number to 0.25 in this field. For example, if a customer buys something for 3.56$, the admin will round it to 3.50$.
Users – Creating users
Image 13: Creating users
Account is open by default
If this option is enabled, a newly created account will be open for usage even though no time has yet been added. Disable this option if you want to prevent your customers from logging in to their new accounts before depositing money.
Automatically write user-id
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will fill in an automatically generated number into the Username input field when creating a new user. This can be used to prevent customers from choosing to complicated usernames, which will simplify it for the employee.
Default, user group,
From the dropdown list, you can choose which user group is the most common for your café, and set it to be the default for all new users unless you manually change it when creating a user.
Default guest user group
Same as with the Default user group, you can choose which user group the guests should be logged in as. This can be useful if you have different types of guests that come to your café when you want to charge differently.
Users – Guest users
Image 14: Guest users
Show guests
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will display guest user accounts in the User Accounts section of the administrator.
Advanced guest login
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will use the same login window for guests as it does for other user groups. If you do not use advanced guest login, the client will simply be logged in when selecting login guest, it will not ask for a deposit of either money or for how long it should be logged in. When using the advanced login feature for guests, you will also be able to choose if the guest user should be logged in under a different user group than the default Guest group.
Use names for guests
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will ask you to name the guest during his session instead of assigning it the default guest account name.
Users – Logout handling
Image 15: Logout handling
Play sound on logout
If this option is enabled, every time a user logs out a sound will be played on the administrator machine. The default sound is the Windows logoff sound, if you want to change the logout sound, enter the path to that sound file in the input field.
Show box, when a user logs out
If this option is enabled, a box will come up in the bottom right corner of your screen every time a user logs out, listing the customer’s username and the computer he or she was sitting at. You can choose to include or exclude more information by checking the boxes below.
Display the following user groups
Select which user groups that should trigger the logout box to appear by clicking the checkbox next to the name of the user group.
Point of Sale – General
Image 16: General point of sale options
POS Printer
A Point of Sale Printer print receipts when a sale is made.
Report Printer
The Report Printer is used when printing daily shift reports or any kind of statistics you want using the administrators export wizards. A Report Printer can be a normal printer connected to the computer, or through the Local Area Network.
Print receipt by default
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will print receipts by default upon every transaction.
Print receipt at quick logon
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will print receipts when using the quick login feature in Smartlaunch. The quick login feature is when you right-click any computer in your café in the graphical overview and select a preset amount of time from the Quick Login menu.
Magnetic card readers
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will be able to use any Magnetic card reader you have connected to your computer to enable you, customers, to be charged for their time using their credit card.
When payment received
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will open the cash drawer after every transaction if your POS Printer supports it.
Cut paper
If this option is enabled, Smartlaunch will cut the receipt paper after every printout if your POS Printer supports it.
Point of Sale – Receipt Text
In this section you can add your own text to the receipts, simply write the text you want above and below the cash printout in the textboxes. The maximum number of characters per-textbox is 200 to avoid the receipt becoming too long.
Point of Sale – Receipt layout
Image 18: Receipt layout
In this section, you can customize your receipts to use different fonts and font sizes, plus you can change the logotype to your own. If you want to change the font on the receipt, press the Edit button next to the text you want to change. Remember that your receipt printer has to support the changes you make. Finally, to change the logotype, press the Edit button below the logo and point to the image file with your logo, the file has to be in GIF format.
