The challenge
Every venue had been set up slightly differently over time. When a till froze or the Wi‑Fi dropped on a Saturday night, the first anyone heard was a phone call from a stressed manager. Fixing it meant guesswork over the phone, or a long drive.
- No central view of which venues, tills or network devices were online
- Remote help for Windows tills was inconsistent and hard to control securely
- Problems were discovered by customers and staff, not by IT
- Off-the-shelf monitoring platforms came with per-device subscriptions that didn't fit the budget
What was built
We designed and built a small device that can be posted to a venue and connected by anyone — plug in power and a network cable, and it does the rest — with one central dashboard for the whole estate.
Working today
- One place for the whole estate: every venue on a single dashboard, with a guided wizard that adds a new venue in minutes.
- Network kit already visible: routers, switches and Wi‑Fi access points are read from the existing network management platform, so nothing has to be listed by hand.
- A daily health check: an automatic morning check across every venue flags problems before trading starts.
- Named sign-in and an audit trail: everyone signs in as themselves, and actions are recorded against a named person.
In pilot
- The plug-in venue device: it finds the tills, card machines and network kit at each venue automatically. Card machines are recognised and kept off-limits to remote access.
- Remote help for tills: IT can securely connect to an approved till from a web browser to investigate and fix it, with every session tied to a named engineer.
Rolling out next
- 24/7 monitoring and instant alerts: round-the-clock up/down checks on every venue and critical device, with an alert as soon as something important goes offline.
- A live equipment register: an always-up-to-date record of the kit at every venue, ready for budgeting and standardisation.
One tool instead of several subscriptions
Getting the same result with off-the-shelf products would have meant buying and running several separate systems, each with its own monthly bill:
| What the business needed | Typical separate product | With this tool |
|---|---|---|
| Venue and network monitoring | Per-site monitoring subscription (around £28–£35 per site per month) | Included (rolling out) |
| Remote support for tills | Remote-access licences | Included (in pilot) |
| Remote management of devices | Per-device management platform | Planned |
| Equipment inventory | Spreadsheets kept up to date by hand | Automatic (rolling out) |
For an estate of around 30 venues, buying separate commercial tools was estimated at £11,000–£16,000 a year. The tool has no per-device or per-site licence fees, just a one-off device per venue.
The results
The time it is designed to save
- Problems spotted first: IT knows a venue or till is down before a stressed manager has to phone it in
- No wasted journeys: till problems are looked at remotely in minutes, instead of a drive to site that can take hours
- Faster openings: a new venue is added to the dashboard in minutes
- No manual audits: the equipment list for every venue builds and updates itself
Status at October 2026: in pilot, with the features above marked as working today, in pilot or rolling out next. Time savings are what the tool is designed to deliver, not measured results yet. The cost comparison is an estimate from the project's planning for an estate of around 30 venues and will vary by estate. Company name withheld for confidentiality.