Hotshots User Manual

CONTENTS

Welcome

What are ‘hotshots’, and why would I want them?

Back office setup

How do I set up my Hotshots?

How do I create hotshot categories?

How do I associate products with hotshot categories?

How do I assign a hotshot layout to a till?

Till

What do the hotshot categories look like on the till?

Do hotshots work on Emergency Till?

Do hotshots work on Seamless Till?

Welcome

This document has been designed to answer the questions that you may have about the system’s ‘hotshots’ options. 

It assumes that all readers have some experience of the Admin > Products & Categories screens and have already created some products on their system. 

What are ‘hotshots’, and why would I want them?

Users will find that when they open up their ‘till’, there is a Hotshot button at the top-right of the screen (highlighted in the screenshot below). 

When you log in to the till with your PIN number, 

• tap the HOTSHOTS button 

You’ll be presented with an empty grey panel at the left, looking something like this: 

You can add buttons in to that grey space, each button representing a different product.  Pressing one of those buttons would add that product to the sale.  It would look something like this: 

If you were to sell a product that came in different styles (e.g. size and/or colour) in this way, when you press their button, a second panel would appear prompting your till operator to choose the size and/or colour (as appropriate) before the product is added to the sale. 

For small, fast-selling items, it may be much more efficient to sell them in this way than it would to spend time sticking a barcode label to each individual unit of stock.   

Your hotshots need to be configured from back office mode.  Let’s look at how to do that next. 

Back office setup

How do I set up my Hotshots?

• Click on the Admin menu. 
• Within the Hotshot section, click on Hotshot Layouts.

The following screen will open:

From here, we’d best create a new ‘Hotshot layout’.

• Click the New link at the bottom of the page. 

When prompted; 

• enter a Name for this layout. 

• Enter some sort of name in that box (e.g. “Standard Layout”) 
• Click the Save button. 

Once it has saved successfully,  

• click Back to list. 

Back on the previous screen, you should see that your new layout’s name is appearing in a table: 

Should you wish to, you can create multiple layouts here.  Later, you’ll be able to apply different layouts to different tills.  Example: Till A could have different Hotshots to Till B, or different shops could have different hotshots. 

Note: Bear in mind that you can only use one hotshot layout per till at any one time.   

Example: If you want your café till to sell drinks, snacks and meals, do not create separate hotshot layouts for “drinks”, “snacks” and “meals”.  If you do that, you’ll only be able to put one of those three onto your café till at any one time. Instead, you should simply create one layout called ‘Café till’.  You will then be able to divide that one layout into different sections, or categories.  We’ll cover this next. 

How do I create hotshot categories?

• Click into the Admin menu.
• Within the Hotshot section,
• Click on Hotshot Layouts again (if you’re not already there), 
• Click on the Edit Categories link at the far right of the screen. 

You’ll find yourself looking at a screen like this: 

In the Name box (see above screenshot),  

• enter the name of the first category you want to create (e.g. “Drinks”)
• click the Add new sub-category button to its right. 

When the screen refreshes, you should find yourself inside your newly-created category: 

Note: the category name appears in a couple of places near the top. 

• Click the Primary link along the top, to come back out of this category.  When you click there, the screen should update: 

• Repeat the above processes to add as many categories as you wish to have. 

Note: Be careful to drop back to ‘primary’ level after creating each new one. If you forget this step, you’ll find at the end of it all that you’ve created a lot of subcategories, which isn’t quite right. 

It’s advisable to try and create no more than six categories, if possible, because the till screen only has room to display six at a time. You can however have more than six, but it won’t be quite so convenient to use. Users will have to tap the left and right arrows to scroll through them. 

Once you’ve finished creating your categories, there’s one last step which it is advisable to do; you can choose which of these categories is to be the “default” one – i.e. the one which your till operators will be using the most. 

• Click the edit link at the right of the screen for the category in question. 

An editing screen will open, and there should be a tickbox there labelled “Display as default category?”. 

• Tick the Display as default category? Box
• Click Save at the bottom left. 

By doing this, you’re ensuring that when your till staff open up the hotshot buttons, the till will display the products in this category by default.  (In other words: You’ll be saving them a button press. 

Next, let’s look at how you can decide which products should appear in each of these hotshot categories. 

How do I associate products with hotshot categories?

If you’re not already there,  

• Click on the Admin menu
• Within the Products and Categories section, click on Product and Categories. 

Once you’ve found them, tick the boxes to the left of the products’ names, like in the screenshot below: 

Note: you can only do this in one category at a time. 

Once they’re ticked, 

• scroll to the bottom and look for the move or copy to hotshot categories option. 

• Select this option by clicking the circle at the left.  
• Next, in the dropdown box to its right, choose the hotshot layout you created earlier (“Bar layout” in the above 
• Click the Submit button.  

You’ll then be asked to choose which of the hotshot categories within that layout previously you wish these products to appear in: 

• Tick the relevant category (or categories, if you want them to appear in more than one) by clicking on them ▪ 
• Click Save. 
• Repeat that for all the products you want to have a hotshot button for. 

If you want to check what products you currently have assigned to your hotshot categories,  

• Click back on Admin
• In the Hotshot menu, click on Hotshot Layouts
• Click Edit categories
• Click into the Product Name of the category.  You will then see which products are assigned to it in the bottom half of the screen: 

Note: the option near the bottom to ‘Unassign selected products’.  If you have assigned the wrong products, you can use that to remove them. 

You can assign as many products to a hotshot category as you like.  However, it’s advisable that you try to assign no more than 32 products to each category.  That’s as many products as can fit on one single ‘page’ of hotshots.  (You can go over that, but it will mean that your till staff may have to browse through multiple pages of hotshots to find the products they’re after.) 

Note: If you were to rename a product or change its price, any such changes would automatically update in the hotshots too.  

Next, you’ll need to decide which of your tills are going to use this layout. 

How do I assign a hotshot layout to a till?

• Click on the Admin Menu. 
• Within the Points of Sale section, click on Tills.

It should open up a screen which lists all of your system’s points of sale: 

• Click the Edit link at the right of the screen for one of those tills.   

A screen of options will then appear: 

In the Hotshot Layout field,  

• choose which layout you want this particular till to use in the drop down list.
• Tick the Load on login box.   

If you tick this, then on the till, as soon as a till operator signs in, the Hotshots will open up automatically.  So, if you expect your staff will need to use the Hotshots more often than any other ways of adding item to basket (e.g. scanning barcodes or performing name searches), it might be wise to tick this. 

• Click Save at the bottom when you’re done.  
• Click Back to list and repeat this process for all your other tills. 

Till:

What do the hotshot categories look like on the till?

On the till, when you bring up the hotshots, you’ll get an effect like this: 

Each of the red buttons at the top (Beers, Wines, etc) represents one of the hotshot categories.  Clicking on one of those buttons will go into that category. Up to 32 of the products and subcategories contained within will then be displayed in the main panel. 

• Tap the product you want, and it will go straight into the shopping basket:  

If an product comes in several styles (e.g. sizes or colours), an asterisk (*) will appear below its name.   

• Tap it, and further buttons will appear, like so:  

Tapping one of those buttons would add the relevant item to the basket. 

When you’re done with the hotshots,  

• click the big green OK button at the bottom to confirm.   

You’ll be taken back to ‘normal’ till mode.  

Note: Do not tap the Hotshots button again.  If you tap OK, then click the little OK prompt that appears, you will cancel everything that you have added back out of the basket. 

Do hotshots work on Emergency Till?

Yes, hotshots do work on Emergency Till. 

If they don’t seem to be working properly, please contact our Helpdesk on 0844 855 1600 or email [e-mail]  

Do hotshots work on Seamless Till?

Yes, hotshots do work on Seamless Till. 

If they don’t seem to be working properly, please contact our Helpdesk on 0844 855 1600 or email [e-mail]