Introduction
The HP Retail Peripheral Agent is a versatile service designed to remotely gather information about retail peripherals attached to retail terminals, such as barcode scanners and receipt printers. It supports all 36 UPOS device classes and mediates between the common information model (CIM) Object Manager and managed point-of-sale (POS) units.
Data collected by the HP Retail Peripheral Agent is stored locally in an encrypted format that is accessible to manageability applications for analysis. Integrated with the HP Insights Agent application, it offers an enhanced retail experience by providing preventive strategies and monitoring capabilities.
Key features
Some of the key features include:
Preventive Strategy: Users can manually set analytical thresholds for each retail peripheral to monitor usage levels. This proactive approach enables timely equipment replacement before failure based on predefined thresholds.
Monitor and Alert Options: The agent includes additional monitoring features to detect known device signals in retail environments, such as USB Cash drawer device drops or handheld scanner disconnections. It also monitors USB thumb drive insertions or removals and can report incidents via email (SMTP port# 587, alternative SMTP port# 465, default mail server from: [email protected]).
Prerequisites
HP Retail Peripheral Agent requires the following:
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 IoT
PC manufactured by Hewlett Packard
Framework: Microsoft .NET Framework v4.6
UPOS Drivers: CCO v1.14 and peripherals’ OPOS drivers stack support
Access the URL - https://workforceexperience.hp.com/software to install download the HP Insights Window Agents.
General knowledge of HP Retail Peripherals and UPOS v1.14 specification:
HP POS Configuration guide: https://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c05837004.pdf
UPOS v1.14 specification: https://www.omg.org/retail/unified-pos.htm
Installation and Setup
To install the HP Retail Peripheral Agent, perform the following steps:
Run the HP Retail Peripheral Agent Softpaq installer.
Follow the GUI to complete the installation process.
Accept the license agreement
In the Remove Installation File dialog box, select the option "Unpack the files used to perform the installation to a temporary location, and automatically remove these files after the setup is completed. Select this option if you are not planning to run the setup again later."
The field Save files in folder, shows the location where the install package gets installed.
Click Next, the installation will complete and self-close.
To install silently, use HP Image Assistant or run with a silent switch for remote deployment, and execute the following command line string: sp9****.exe /s
Upon completion of the installation, the service will start automatically.
Upon successful installation, the HP Retail Peripheral Agent file contents are stored at this path: “C:\Program Files (x86)\HP\HP Retail Peripheral Agent”
Review the status of the HP Retail Peripheral Agent service by entering the following command line: sc query “HP RPOS Agent Service”
If the command returns a “run” status, then the service is active and working. If the command returns “stop”, then the service is not running. If the service is in stop status, check the event viewer for any error code
If using the service, check its status by running the following command: sc query “HPTouchpointAnalyticsService”
To configure the Retail Peripheral Agent, navigate to the installation path and run “HP Retail Peripheral Agent Configuration Utility” (RPOSAgentUtility.exe). The following sections within this tool can be custom-configured to meet various ISV’s environmental needs:
Retail peripheral threshold alerts setting
HP Retail Peripheral Agent utilizes the device LDN (Logical Device Name) as the key setting to assign and collect device information. This section allows users the option to use the LDN to assign (add or remove) supported retail peripherals to the management list and custom assign a threshold value to monitor. For HP peripherals, the HP Retail Peripheral Agent Configuration Utility is designed to auto-detect the HP peripheral device ID and has logic to assign the device’s default LDN (logical device name) to the configuration list. For the device’s threshold setting, the value is automatically populated to the configuration list from the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) specification. HP Retail Peripheral Agent can support all 36 UPOS device classes and up to four same device classes.
For example, in the above image, the retail terminal system has the HP H300 receipt printer and two HP scanner device classes installed. By default, the configuration utility detects the existence of those devices and auto-populate the LDN and the threshold setting to the configuration profile. Both the LDN and the threshold field can be edited to the user’s desired LDN/Threshold setting, thus those settings can be utilized to support third-party retail peripherals or HP peripherals but with a custom LDN name. The threshold field should be changed to the user’s specification as the default value has been populated only for HP’s test demonstration.
Device monitor setting
This section has the option to monitor certain USB device connectivity states or any USB device. It can generate a report when the device(s) get detected and when the device(s) get removed. If the terminal supports SMTP, then it has the option to directly notify the user of the event via email.
For example, in the image above, the setting within the “Device Monitor Setting” section has the HP Linear Scanner and the HP Cash Drawer device ID entered into the monitor list. If the device connection accidentally pulls out due to an unexpected event, if the device cable length design is outside the USB specification, or if the device experiences a signal integrity issue, then the HP Retail Peripheral Agent will be able to log the event and send an email notification to the TestUser@_.com member.
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