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My First Cashbox

summary

After reading this, you can create a CashBox and have a functioning fiskaltrust.Middleware instance.

🇦🇹 Austria

Unfortunately, this tutorial is not yet applicable to the Austrian market as rollout plans are not active there. However, while we are working on enabling rollout plans in Austria, you still use the shop to create a SignatureCloud cashbox.

Prerequisites​

Before we roll out our Middleware instance, the following prerequisites must be in place:

  • A working Internet connection (please see Network Requirements)
  • An active PosDealer account (either by registration or by invitation through your PosCreator) at the fiskaltrust.Portal (Sandbox)
  • A system meeting the hardware and software requirements (in this tutorial we focus on rollouts on Windows)
  • Any SSCD components (hardware or SaaS credentials) required for the setup, unless created during the setup itself
tip

Please make sure you use your Sandbox account. So you avoid a bill on your account.

If you don't have one yet, please get in touch with your PosCreator for invitation details or register a new PosDealer Sandbox account yourself.

Rollout Plans​

Rollout plans are guided deployment wizards in the fiskaltrust.Portal, which assists you in buying, reselling and setting up CashBoxes and their components for your PosOperators. A rollout plan typically follows these five steps:

  1. Select the product you'd like to roll out.
  2. Select one or more PosOperators for which you plan the rollout.
  3. Select one or more outlets where you want to perform the rollout.
  4. Create a quote and load the quote into your shopping cart
  5. Perform the checkout

Business Rollout (getting the SCU)​

As the first step, we will be running a Business rollout which will acquire entitlements, transfer them to the PosOperators outlets and activate them and eventually create necessary backend components for the CashBox (in this case, an SCU).

As Middleware instances in France are self-contained setups, there are no particular steps necessary under Business Rollout.

Technical Rollout (creating the CashBox)​

The second step is the Technical rollout which will use a template to create a new CashBox and a new Queue. It will also link the previously created SCU (from the Business rollout) to the new Queue.

For this setup, we choose a rollout plan based on TBD. This plan will create a brand-new CashBox with a new queue and a new SCU.

To start the Technical rollout log into your portal account and proceed with the following steps.

caution

Please ensure the outlet selected in step 6 has a valid SIRET code configured before you create the CashBox.


  1. Open your the rollout management page from Rollout Management / Plan (Sandbox link) in the left-hand navigation menu.
  2. Select Technical Rollout - Creating cashboxes at scale.
  3. Filter for REST CashBox.
  4. Select the plan REST CashBox.
  5. Select Perform the rollout for the current account.
  6. Tick the desired outletwhere you would like to roll out the Middleware.
  7. Click Submit Selection.
  8. Click Create quote - this will take a few seconds. Once the quote is ready, the button will change to Load quote into cart.
  9. Click Load quote into cart to place the quote into your shopping cart.
  10. Verify that the items in your shopping cart match the selected products.
  11. Click Checkout.
  12. Click binding order to complete the order.

At this point, should have the order listed under Shop / Orders. Finishing the order can take a couple of minutes, but once it has been completed, you should have

Deploying the CashBox​

You should now have a working CashBox and be able to download its package and deploy it on your machine.

Download​

To download the Middleware package for your newly created CashBox, go to your list of CashBoxes in the portal (at Configuration / CashBox) and click the download button for the Online Launcher.

The downloaded Middleware package assembles the appropriate binary packages for your CashBox and may take a while. Once your browser prompts you for the file download, save the file to your hard disk.

Deployment​

Unzip the archive you downloaded into the directory where you'd like to deploy the Middleware. Once that is complete, you can start your Middleware instance with the test script test.cmd (please make sure to launch it with administrative privileges).

info

As we downloaded the online launcher, the archive only comes with the launcher stub, and the Middleware will fetch all additionally required packages upon the first start. The download of additionally required packages may delay the first start by a couple of seconds.

Running a test request​

Once the Middleware has been deployed and started, it is advisable to perform a quick check if the Middleware is generally available on the network and responds to requests.

For that purpose, the Middleware features an echo/ping request type that responds with the data it received. If you successfully get a response, the Middleware should also be ready to accept your signing requests.

postman collection

For Postman, you can download a request collection from the Github repository.

Request details​

caution

This example uses REST as a communication protocol and requires your CashBox to have a REST helper enabled.

To perform an "echo" request, you will need to send a POST request to the configured Middleware URL, with the path /json/Echo. That request takes a JSON string in its request body, containing the message string you'd like to receive back from the Middleware.

For example, to send Hello fiskaltrust.Middleware! as a request string, we'd be sending the following request body along with the POST request.

"Hello fiskaltrust.Middleware!"

The following HTTP request example would send the above's string to the Middleware.

POST /json/Echo HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost
Content-Length: 31
Content-Type: application/json

"Hello fiskaltrust.Middleware!"

The response to your request should have a status code of 200 and contain the exact string you sent in the request in the response body.

info

You can find the full details on the request and its parameters (along with a curl example) here.