Redeeming Tickets with the e-RegisterNow Java Gate Program

The Java Gate Program is a program offered by e-RegisterNow for the scanning and redemption of tickets.

In order to start the Gate Program click on the Gate.bat file. This will open two windows, a white program window and a black window which you can ignore. Note** Although you can ignore the black window you cannot close it as that will shutdown the whole program.

There are two modes that you can run the Gate Program in, Live and standalone. Live is used when you have an internet connection and have a connection with the e-RegisterNow server. This allows the server to update which tickets have been redeemed, purchased, and refunded on any other machine in real time. Standalone mode is essentially an offline mode. As long as all of your data has been synced to the program at one point before you start scanning, the program will work just the same but will only update the server when it has an internet connection again.

If you are working in Live mode and you lose your internet connection the program will automatically switch from Live to standalone mode and when you get your internet connection back it will again automatically switch to Live mode. Any updates which occurred while in standalone mode will be automatically sent to the server. This is all done seamlessly without interruption to redemption.

Now that the Gate Program is open, the first step is to enter in your events ignition key. This key just identifies which event it will be scanning for and is assigned by e-RegisterNow and links all of your events together. It also is a way to make sure that only your events tickets are accepted as valid. The next step is to perform a server connectivity test. This is simply done by clicking on the “ServerTest” button. It will then tell you “Valid Connection” if you have a connection to the server or “Failed Connection” if you don’t have a connection with the server.

If you have a valid connection you can now click on the Sync button. This button synchronizes the program with the server so that the program knows how many tickets are associated with your event and which ones have been redeemed. This only needs to be done once so let’s say that the event venue does not have an internet connection, you can sync the data the night before and run the Gate Program in standalone mode. In the bottom left box you can see if you are connected to the e-RegisterNow server, the last time and date it was synchronized, how many tickets are associated with the event, the last time it was backed up, the gate name, and how many tickets this specific computer has redeemed.

Next click on Edit; Gate Options. You then give the computer a unique gate name and number. Make sure you check off the “Reset Redeemed Counter” button as well just in case there was some testing. If you have multiple computers scanning it makes a record of when and where a ticket was scanned which helps to identify what time and at which gate it was scanned.

You are now able to redeem tickets and there are a few options on how to do so.

Use a barcode scanner to scan the barcodes
Type in the barcode and click redeem
Search for the customers registration and click on “Valid” in the Ticket Details section
If you are searching for a ticket there are four different fields to help you narrow your search which are:

Reference Number
Purchaser Name
Phone Number
Email
Using phone number is not recommended as that question may not have been asked in during the registration. Using the reference number or email are the most recommended search approaches because every transaction will be associated with them.

After clicking on the search button the results will be displayed in the Ticket Summary section. In this section you can see the purchaser’s name, the phone number that they may have input, and the number of tickets that they purchased. Click on the row that matches your search. You can now see each individual ticket in the Ticket Details section. This will show you the ticket code the type of ticket and the status of the ticket. You are also able to redeem tickets right away by clicking on the “Valid” button.

Scanning one ticket from a group or typing in the ticket code will also bring up all tickets associated with that transaction in the Ticket Details box. You again can just click on “Valid” to redeem all tickets of a group quickly.

When redeeming a ticket you will hear one of two sounds. A ringy positive sound or a buzzing sound. If you hear the positive sound and see the word OK on the screen that means that the ticket was successfully redeemed. If you hear the buzzing sound it could mean a few different things and it will say on the screen what is wrong. The possibilities for these include “NO GATE NAME” which means you have not set a gate up in Gate Options, “DUPLICATE” which means that the ticket has already been redeemed, and “INVALID” which means that it is not a ticket associated with your event, has been refunded, or has not been purchased yet. If the ticket comes up as “INVALID” make sure to scan the ticket a second time to ensure that the ticket was scanned properly or if the ticket was just purchased the program might not of updated quick enough to the newest data yet.

There are three extra buttons at the bottom of the program screen. These are empty, backup, and restore. The empty button dumps/erases all of the localized data of the event that is stored on the computer. This is useful if you are renting the laptop and need to clear your data off of the system. The backup button makes a backup of the localized data of the event so that you can move it before you empty the data. Finally the restore button allows you to revert to a backup. The buttons however are only necessary if you are operating in Standalone mode because all of the data is automatically uploaded to the e-RegisterNow server if you are in Live mode.