General Principle

Fortress GB provides two very distinct and different functionalities.

• Providing barcodes for single match tickets (handling also cancelling of barcodes)
• printing (and re-reprint, and canceling) season ticket cards.
• Loading matches on Fortress ST cards

Fortress GB does not handle retrieval of controlled tickets.

Important : 

• Fortress is called and must be UP with all mappings OK to sell tickets.
• Fortress is called and must be UP with all mappings OK to print season tickets (but when selling, we don’t call it)
• Mappings MUST have been defined before selling the tickets, even for season tickets (the printing will need data that are produced only if the mapping is defined).

Beware : Fortress GB is not the same system as the Fortress (=StadAccess) used at Stade de France. Although they are related (they are both access control systems), their behavior in SecuTix is entirely different.

General setup of the interface

See example below in screen capture. Here are the explanations of the parameter.

• Synchronous, Export contact..., bypass contact : put "false". Not used in Fortress GB
• URL : url of the fortress GB at Everton, provided by Fortress GB team.
• Login, password, Agency code, client App Id, Client API Key : values necessary to connect, provided by Fortress GB team.
• Shipment modes codes w/o Fortress barcodes generation : if a tickets shipment mode code is one of those (comma separated), no call will be done to Fortress GB for barcode generation. So we should put here the codes of all the shipment modes types of type “Load on RFID”.
• Fortress MemberId for anonymous contacts : when SecuTix buys a ticket for an anonymous contact, the following memberId is passed to Fortress GB. Value 00001 is a proposed value, that still must be validated with Fortress GB team.
• Use virtual printer : for season ticket printing. The value "Virtual" is passed as printer code to Fortress GB.
• Season codes for which season ticket card printing is authorized : as explained. Season codes must be separated by commas. A new season code may be added here when Fortress "Roll-Over" has been done.
• Forcing season ticket card print. Renewal on same card impossible. As explained. 

Definition of mappings

• Concerning product mappings : Fortress matches are mapped to SecuTix performances. But, in an external manager context, we must create a mapping for a product in ordre to tell SecuTix that this product is handled by Fortress GB. In consequence, every event or competition must be mapped at least to a value of -1, not used by Fortress GB, but indicating that this product is "managed by" Fortress GB.
• If no mapping is defined for the tariffs, physical configurations, areas, blocks and entrances, the object's code will be transmitted to Fortress.
• All the mappings must be defined (run batch "check mappings" to check that point). If a mapping is missing, SecuTix cannot guarantee the system's behavior.

Season ticket printing and mass printing

• Season ticket printing and mass printing use specific "Fortress" printers, which are virtual printers as seen from SecuTix.
• The most important part of their setup is their logical name, which is the name they have in Fortress setup.
• Mass printing uses a specific printer name. Ask your fortress contact to provide it to you.

Batches

• Read catalog : reads all the objects information accessible from Fortress system and dumps them into the logs. Read only batch.
• Check mappings : compares the mappings defined in SecuTix with the objects in Fortress. Throws an error if a mapping is missing. If a mapping is missing, SecuTix cannot guarantee the system's behavior.
• Create missing tariffs : finds all the tariffs associated to products managed by Fortress and checks if they are known in Fortress. If not, creates the missing tariffs in Fortress. How to run the create missing tariffs batch ?
• Create missing events : once provided a given event code, creates all the performances not existing yet in Fortress. How to run the create missing events batch ?
• Check access control : once provided a given event code and a date, AND an access control report from Fortress, compares the tickets associated to the given performance with the tickets in the access control file. Then, logs the differences. Those ones are considered as errors if valid tickets from SecuTix are not known in Fortress. Warning if tickets in Fortress file do not exist in SecuTix.

Data organisation

1. When a ticket is created, Fortress generates
   1. a standard barcode, which is stored in SecuTix ticket's barcode and in ExternalManagerMovement barcode field.
   2. an Adult barcode, stored in external manager movement externalValue2 field, which is then available on ticket editor with field named zzz_customParameter02
   3. a Concession barcode, stored in external manager movement externalValue3 field, which is then available on ticket editor with field named zzz_customParameter03
   4. a ticket identifier,stored in external manager movement ticketReference and externalValue1 field, which is then available on ticket editor with field named zzz_customParameter01
2. When a season ticket card is printed, secutix stores season start and season end dates in card validity dates

Problems we met

• Error when printing season tickets (and mass printing) :  do you have a FortressGB printer badge printer associated to your workstation ?
• This printer must be declared in your badge printers list and NOT in jour ticket printers list.
• To find errors in the logs of Kibana, do not forget the english timezone. Maybe that your problem was logged one hour ago.

Setup screen capture