BY SHANNON CHISTER

POS Transaction Analyzers

A White Paper
describing the
POS Transaction
Analyzer and how
it works.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................3
Transaction Analysis...............................................................................................4
How does it work?................................................................................................4
How can Transaction Analyzers work specifically for POS?..............................5
What are the features and benefits of POSTA.....................................................5
Who is ESQ?...........................................................................................................8
Other ESQ solutions............................................................................................8

Customer
transactions are
the lifeline of all
retail businesses.

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Introduction

ustomer transactions are the lifeline

of all retail businesses. To ensure that
your business is working according
to plan, execution of your business
transactions is critical. Monitoring of these
transactions is paramount to the health of the
overall business. A successful business has a
core set of targeted statistical indicators that
are defined to ensure that each level of management can monitor their functional area of
responsibility in real-time and initiate corrective actions when needed.
One of the top reasons why businesses lose
customers today is due to transaction delays
and outright failures. Customers want to
be able to complete their transaction hassle
free. According to a retail Queuing Behaviour Survey study conducted by MasterCard
International, the research reveals that over
two-thirds of consumers abandon their
purchase all together if it means standing in
a long line, while 75% of these shoppers will
take their money elsewhere in the future. To
reduce these delays, you must be able to trace
your transaction data, analyze the statistical
data and isolate any problem areas quickly.
As Motti Tal, author of the research study
writes, Transactions are the most effective
early warning sensors indicating impending
outages before they occur, allowing time and
providing insight to address them. Another
thing to consider in customer transactions for
your business is, was the transaction processed
as cost efficiently as possible? Analyzing the
statistical data will help your business be
more profitable by saving and improving in
areas you may not be aware of.

tion to your business with on time delivery

providing transaction monitoring that will
dramatically increase visibility into your
customer transactions. It will help you reduce
lost revenue and lower business risk by ensuring the highest possible service levels for your
customers.

Real-time Business Activity

Management (BAMS)
POSTA provides real-time analysis of transaction data to ensure that IT and the business
operational personnel can monitor and maintain the highest possible service levels for your
customers. It can significantly impact the way
in which transactional data serves real business needs. This paper explains POS Transaction Analysis for capturing and presenting
this data providing real-time business and IT
status to help make decisions across all lines
of businesses.

Data
Analysis

Reports and
Queries

They key to reducing delays and improving

your business is by using the POS Transaction
Analyzer (POSTA). POSTA provides optimiza-

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POS
Transaction
Analyzer

POSTA can reduce costs and identify inefficiencies in your business that could be costing
your business millions of dollars a year. In
many instances the return on investment can
be recouped in less than a year.

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The Transaction
Analyzer
helps ensure
continuous, realtime management
of transactions
hosted on any
computing
platform.

Transaction Analysis
Key Features:

How does it work?

Determine instantly if transactions are executing as expected

Provides a breakdown of the types of transactions being processed
Reduce mean time to repair by quickly isolating problems in critical business transactions
Real-time decision support
Data mining and data analysis in real time
Visualization/Dashboards, Scorecard
Capacity planning for future growth
ETL for real time data gathering
Support for industry standard data access
methods (ODBC,JDBC,OLAP)

The Transaction Analyzer (TA) helps ensure

continuous, real-time management of transactions hosted on any computing platform. TAs
ETL agents that run on a variety of platforms
to gather details on transactions processed
and recorded in the Entry Journal (EJ) data
files. TA can present transaction details and
metrics in dynamic, customizable, web-based
(WEB2.0) views that are relevant to a diverse
community of business and technology managers.

Business Operations
Retailer Operations
IT Operations

POSTA
POSTA
Server

Transaction
Approve/Denied

Customer Interaction (POS/Kiosk)

Transaction

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Card
Issuer

Transaction
Processor/
Authorizer

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Transaction Analysis

How can Transaction Analyzers work

specifically for POS?
POSTA offers continuous, real-time management of POS transactions, including transactions per second, denial, reversal rates,
stand-in transaction rates, and interchange
response times. Live dashboard views of the
POSTA data provides instant snapshots of Key
Business Indicators (KBI).

Flexible WebBased Monitoring

Interactive Ad Hoc
Dashboards

Powerful Ad
Hoc Reports and
Queries

What are the Features and Benefits of

POSTA?
1. Flexible Web-Based Monitoring - Being a
web-based product, POSTA enhances the flexibility of monitoring transactions by providing platform and location independence to
the user. POSTA web interface displays the
transaction details and can be customized
based on your data.

2. Interactive Ad Hoc Dashboards - The
dashboard allows you to drag and drop your
data and start generating meaningful reports
on your system. Simply select your data
source, choose the elements and time frames
you wish to view, and select the visual representation (Chart, Grid, Graph, etc.) and your
power-user dashlettes are displayed.

3. Powerful Ad Hoc Reports and Queries

- POSTA provides an easy to use reports &
Queries builder to assist in keeping the POS
network running at maximum efficiency and
to improve the performance of your POS
Network and Devices. It also allows customers to evaluate their POS environment status
and performance, and discover the causes of
problems and SLA compliance failures.

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Transaction Analysis
4. Easy System Administration POSTA allows you to keep your data safe by building
the security levels that you prefer. This allows
the regular review of permissions granted to
individually owned accounts and accounts
used by automated processes.

What can POSTA do for

Retailers?
POSTA can greatly benefit retailers by
providing the statistical data for:
Cashier Matrix
Register / Lane optimization
Fee structures
Monitor and report on SLAs for
Interchanges
Provide sales by hour, district and
region
Transactions by Register Type (i.e.,
Self Checkout or Lane)

5. Real-Time Transaction Management

POSTA processes transaction logs in real-time
to provide statistics such as approved and
denied transactions. The operations staff can
then take appropriate recovery actions when
the abnormal conditions occur. This ensures
continuous management of your POS network.

POSTA processes
transaction logs
in real-time to
provide statistics
such as approved
and denied
transactions.

6. Ability to Create Thresholds - A threshold

can be created to define acceptable operational rules for specific transactions based on Key
Performance Indicators.
7. Detailed Transaction Monitoring Data
that is captured can be utilized and reported
on to help you learn what opportunities you
may have to help improve your business.
8. Ready-to-Go Views - POSTA is equipped
with a pre-defined ready-to-go view. You will
be able to view the transaction information of
all the entities right after you log in to POSTA
Web Interface.
9. User-Defined Views - POSTA provides you
with the ability to create User-Defined Views
depending on your business specific requirements. POSTA gives you the preference of
creating new views or renaming, modifying
and deleting existing views.

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Transaction Analysis
10. Import Custom Entities & Owner Financial Institution IDs (FIIDs) - POSTA provides
the ability to import your business specific
entities and owner FIIDs to its environment.
This feature can be used in scenarios where
the names of certain entities/owner FIIDs have
been modified or new ones have been added.
11. Mechanism to Send Alert on Failed
Conditions - POSTA is equipped with the
ability to configure thresholds for the POS
environment. You can specify the attributes
like Severity, Polling Interval and Monitoring
Status. Automated alert capabilities provide
instant notifications to be sent to the internal
database, to the NT Event Log, or EMS events
on the NonStop Host/Switch in case of a
violation.

What can POSTA do for

Processors?
POSTA can greatly benefit processors
by providing the statistical data for:
Monitoring other interchanges and
their transaction rates
Ensure traffic is meeting the Service
Level Agreement

You can
immediately see
when and where a
problem occurs on
your POS network,
identify the root
cause and take
steps to rectify the
problem.

12. Pin Point Impact of Outage - POSTA

provides the opportunity of tracking the effect
of outages on your business in real-time as
and when they occur. You can immediately
see when and where a problem occurs on
your POS network, identify the root cause and
take steps to rectify the problem before it affects your customers. This helps you to deliver
across-the-board extreme customer service.

Written by author Shannon Chister, former

Business Analyst, Home Depot Corporation.

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Who is ESQ?
ESQ Business Services and its affiliated
organizations have been providing premier IT
management solutions to fortune 500 customers since 1984. We provide end-to-end
solutions for your retail businesses such as:
Operational Business Intelligence, ATM Network Management, Transaction Management,
System Integration, Performance & System
Management and Real-Time Business Activity Management (BAM). Our products and
services guarantee higher returns in a highly
cost effective manner by synergizing IT and
business strategies. With its unique approach
to Transactional Business Intelligence, ESQ is
one of the leading solutions providers worldwide. If you would like to know more about
our customers and solutions, please visit us
online at www.esq.com.

Other ESQ Solutions

Our products and

services guarantee
higher returns
in a highly cost
effective manner.

2009, ESQ Business Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SST OPERATIONSBRIDGE (SSTOB): A

comprehensive solution to manage your ATM/
KIOSK/POS Register peripherals and network. One of the most advanced concepts in
management combined with Real-Time Busi-

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ness Activity Management (BAM) makes this

very unique solution a must have for retailers
and financial institutions. Fully integrated
with world leading CRM systems, it provides
in-depth knowledge into your transactional
network.
ATM Transaction Analyzer (ATMTA): If you
are serious about retaining a satisfied customer then this is a must have solution that helps
you track performance of your ATM transactions. ATMTA provides up to the minute status
of your complete ATM transactional world
with in-depth statistical analysis of your transactions. Keep track of your authorizers and
their performance. Up to the minute means
you will know when an authorizer is falling
behind in processing your transactions or in
some cases is not authorizing transactions at
all. Keep track of your host connections to
meet your SLAs.

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