Meet the Device Experience team: How can we help you better manage your devices?

[Tom]

Happy New Year, Sellers!

On Tuesday, January 18th, our Device Experience team hosted a Q&A focused on sellers' needs with device monitoring. Topics covered related to: Square Card Readers, Square Stand, Square Register, Square Terminal, printers, scales, scanners, and cash drawers.

We've got exciting plans this year that will help you monitor device connectivity, battery status, and logins from a single hub within the online Square Dashboard. We can't share out specific details on our product roadmaps, though we will certainly make sure all of the feedback that came through on this thread is incorporated into the decision making process.

[KatieHollister]

Issue: iPads using square POS not syncing open tickets quickly -- a lag time: We are a winery. In our tasting room we use several iPads with Square POS to check out customers. Our staff create Tickets (open tabs) on the iPads for customers who want to keep an open tab during their visit. Customers will often order something at one of the tasting bars and then quickly move to another tasting bar for a different item and want to close their tab at the second tasting bar. When a customer wants to close their ticket and pay, any of the staff can assist the customer using the nearest iPad. There often seems to be a lag between the iPads syncing the tickets -- for the same ticket, different charges appear on different iPads resulting in incorrect charges and confusion. How can we be sure the open tickets are syncing across all of the iPads in real time, especially during very busy times when we need to close customers tickets quickly, please? Thank you!

[Frontagers]

One question that we have is Why can't square register perform close of day?

Another question up until a few months ago our daily report throughout the day showed all of our transactions including the ones not closed yet. It doesn't do that anymore. You have to now goto transactions and select all in the drop down box. Why did this change?

[AnjaliA]

Hi @Frontagers Which POS app are you using? 

RE the Transaction applet change, we made this update to address seller feedback about distinguishing open and closed sales better. We can explore selecting all by default.

[Frontagers]

Square for restaurants

[ryanwanner]

@TomI think overall monitoring of all the devices is definitely something that is missing from the Square ecosystem, but I worry about it being Dashboard based.

In the F&B industry, things happen fast. If a device fails, I'm not sure we'd have the time to run to a computer in the office. Real-time alerts about devices on the POS/Restaurants app may be a better place (by permission level), or could the Dashboard app itself be used instead of logging in on a computer?

[AnjaliA]

Hi @ryanwanner We recently launched device status alters on iOS and Android devices (coming soon on Register and Terminal). You can see status bar alerts for device alters like reader or printer disconnected, printer out of paper etc. However, this is restricted to status of all the devices (readers, printers etc) connected to that particular POS device. Does this satisfy your use case or are you asking for an app to manage all of your devices (across locations) from one place?

[ryanwanner]

@AnjaliAYes I'm very aware about the new hardware status screens on POS-- I helped beta test it! 🙂

I'm just going off of what Tom said in the original post about expanding the monitoring to cover more of the devices with connectivity and status. I think the more information available the better as long as it's parsed in a way that's easy to view and digest the info. If I lose connectivity on my terminal, I definitely would like to know about it before it turns into a "Why isn't this thing working??" from a staff member in the middle of a rush.

My main concern is having to go back to a computer to see it. In my opinion, the already-available Dashboard App would be a good spot to have an overall status page for everything discussed.

[AnjaliA]

@ryanwanner Firstly, Thank you for being a beta tester. We get a ton of value from feedback we receive. Really appreciative of your time.

Thanks for clarifying and Dashboard app does make sense for this for folks who need easy access on their mobile devices.

[tealife]

Been waiting for sticky label printing for years! We're glad it's finally here but what a waste of paper. A single item with 3 modifiers takes up 3.5" of paper on the compact label setting. These rolls are expensive at 10-12$ per roll. Can we get a compact layout so we can use the smaller 58mm setting? All the approved printers are compatible with this size paper but if you attempt to use the smaller paper it gets cut off. 

Above all else, the use is supposed to be for drink labels but it's so large it takes up most of the cup. That's wasteful and also looks pretty ugly on the cup compared to solutions on other POS systems.

[AnjaliA]

Hi @tealife, We recently launched support for 40mm and 58mm label sizes on iOS devices. Coming soon on Android device and Square Register

[CurbsideCafe]

I have two things that I am interested in….

Some of my staff that have been with me over a long time have memorized my passcode for permissions on the platform.  I know they type it in without me ok’ing things.  I would like a way to take back my ability to have to ok things.  Some things I have to ok are a little much, but on the whole I would like to have to be made aware instead of the staff being able to memorize my code.

I also would love to be able to use Cash App in the Restaurant POS.

Oh, and one more thing…..  It would be very helpful if you could activate the same scheduling / features on the restaurant website design as the retail.  We prefer the way our menu looks in the retail layout; however, our scheduling for pickup times is wonky.  I wish you could activate the same features the restaurant page has with the retail design.

Thanks….

[MALqueerhair]

Is there a way to make the logging out/logging in process faster? We have a small suite salon with 2 booth renters. We have 1 register but it would be awesome to allow more than 1 stylist to use it.

[AnjaliA · Accepted solution]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you again for taking the time to weigh in with your questions and feedback! The experiences you shared will help us as we continue to iterate going forward. As we close out this thread, we wanted to do a recap on the themes that came up frequently:

• Device Monitoring and Management - Sellers want to view information like device ID, connectivity status, software version history, upcoming hardware launches, and information on outdated hardware. They would also like to configure network settings and update app versions remotely. There was also feedback on making these features available on mobile in addition to the online Square Dashboard on desktop.
  
  
• Peripheral Support - Sellers asked for new peripheral support such as external keyboard, mouse, stylus pen, as well as additional cost effective printer brands and support for desktop printers from Point of Sale. Sellers who are set up with Square for Restaurants asked for integration with temperature monitoring systems in their kitchen.
  
  
• Remarkable Device Experience - Sellers asked for multiple device support on card readers, network enabled communications, and recommending wifi boosters when internet connection is consistently poor.
  
  
• Hardware Feature Enhancement - Ability to extend screen timeout and ability to insert card face up and down on Register, iPad pro support on Stand, and a line busting app on Square Terminal.

We did receive a variety of questions and feedback on Square for Retail, Appointments, and Square for Restaurants apps — as well as feature requests for inventory and order management. If you asked for a feature that does not exist today or identified issues, we passed along your feedback internally to the respective product teams. We take seller feedback very seriously and are assessing feasibility and priority.

For those of you who are having device issues including battery issues, please contact the Customer Success team.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences and we'll continue to make improvements based on your business needs. For the latest updates, subscribe to Product Updates and you'll receive notifications of our newest features.