Rollover setting
The rollover setting is a mechanism used to check validity of Validation Items based on an expiration date encoded in the item’s barcode. This method is derived from a combination of encoding an expiration date into the validation number and checking that date against a setting in ScanMan.INI. The ScanMan setting used to verify whether an item is valid or not is called the “rollover” setting. The rollover setting was introduced to eliminate the need to encrypt the year part of the date in the barcode (making for a shorter barcode on the ticket).
The rollover setting works like this:
1. Scan the barcode.
2. ScanMan module first reads the information about the expiration date of the ticket (usually included in a line on the layout involving the syntax encrypt_date(tmp_edate).
3. ScanMan module first checks the date of the item–if the expiration date encrypted is earlier than the current date of the PC, the item is automatically invalid.
4. If the item is not expired based on the current date, ScanMan module still attempts to determine whether the item is good for the upcoming season.
5. To determine this, ScanMan module checks its own rollover number vs. the number of the month encrypted in the item expiration date.
6. If the rollover number is on or between today’s date (month) and the number of the month the item expires, the item is assumed to be invalid. The system assumes that the item is from a previous year.
7. As long as the rollover number does not fall on or between today’s date (month) and the number of the month the item expires, it is assumed to be valid.
8. The purpose of this is to determine whether an item you are scanning is supposed to be good for dates still to come in this season at the resort or if the item being scanned is really good for next season at the resort.
Example:
• It’s March of 2012.
• You scan a ticket that has an expiration date of 12/25/12 (it has been pre-sold for Christmas of the next ski season).
• Your rollover number is set to 10.
• The ticket does not scan as valid, because the rollover number falls between today’s month (3) and December’s month (12).
The rollover setting can also be set by scanning:
SETROLLx
Where x is the number of the month.
Note: If your area does not have an “off-season” or you want your tickets to be good for more than one year, you should not encrypt the date into your barcodes. That way, ScanMan does not check the date when scanning and assumes that all tickets are good if you are scanning offline.