Overview - Brief Description of Feature

This feature provides a mechanism to track system and application progress information throughout the flow of a transaction.  The information is kept in NVRAM and is retrievable during terminal application startup.  If terminal sales was not in a fully closed state, an event is logged indicating an unexpected restart and the system and application progress indication information is logged in the event.

Problem - What Problem Does the Feature Solve?

During normal store function terminals are unexpectedly rebooted.  The cause of these unexpected terminal reboots is often unknown to anyone other than the associate at the terminal.

Solution - Short Description of How the Feature Works

The following are highlights of how this feature works:

• Tracks application progress through a transaction using system monitoring and optional application progress indication.
• Api's are provided for application to indicate progress.
• System and application progress indication is saved in 10 bytes of NVRAM .
• Progress indication constants are 2 bytes each.  Separate buckets are kept for system and application.
• During startup, an algorithm is used to determine if restart was likely unexpected.  If so, event is written to 4690 application event log including the 10 bytes saved in NVRAM.
• Information can be centrally collected and reports/graphs can be generated to show restart trends following software and hardware upgrades.