Overview and Architecture

This article gives an overview of iVend Cloud. The article also discusses the different applications and modules of iVend Retail, brief description of these modules and finally overview of how the application suite is licensed.

Product Overview   

iVend Cloud is the managed services offering for iVend Retail and its related modules. iVend Cloud includes iVend Retail software and its managed services including Application Management, Infrastructure Management and Support365 Standard.

In partnership with Microsoft, iVend Cloud is available on the Microsoft Azure infrastructure.  Therefore, customers of iVend Cloud will not need to make an investment in hardware and infrastructure to support the operation of iVend Cloud for their business. This is all included and part of the iVend Cloud offering.  An iVend Cloud customer will only be responsible for providing supported iVend POS hardware and working internet to connect to iVend Cloud from the local iVend POS.

iVend Cloud includes comprehensive Application Management services in the standard license fee that will be performed by the iVend core application team where we as an organization become the extended IT team for a retail business.

Complete Infrastructure Management is also delivered by a dedicated team of infrastructure experts from our company, so a retailer does not need to make an investment in the acquisition of servers and the maintenance that comes along with that.

iVend Cloud includes comprehensive support based on the Support 365 Standard Plan in the monthly licensing fee.

iVend Retail is an enterprise class retail management solution that addresses Omnichannel requirements of medium to large sized retailers.

As an integrated Omnichannel retail management solution, iVend Retail helps retailers to optimize business operations to gain more time to focus on what really matters - cultivating customer engagement and capitalizing on retail trends. iVend Retail helps retailers increase revenue, build customer loyalty, reach new customers and lower their operating costs.

iVend Retail is seamlessly integrated to most of the industry standard ERP applications. iVend Retail is installed and configured outside the ERP landscape but it integrates into the ERP through its connectors. We have standard (productized) connectors to SAP IS Retail, SAP ECC 6.0 EHP 7, SAP Business One (both SQL and HANA), Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (both on-premises and online), SAGE X3 and SAGE 300. In the context of SAP B1, iVend Retail also installs an AddOn in the B1 landscape.

Figure 1 – Cloud Deployment Landscape

iVend Cloud has a simple approach to licensing focused on the number of POS licenses per device and iVend Cloud users (Formerly Management Console User).  The store license has been removed from iVend Cloud pricing. Licensing is explained in detail later in this article under the Licensing section.

At the core of the solution is iVend Enterprise, which is the central repository of all transactional data (sales, refunds, exchanges, promotions, etc.) that comes from the retail stores. This transactional data is then integrated into the ERP. The master data (items, customers, price lists, tax structures, etc.) is all 'inherited' from the ERP. Some of the masters like items and customers are bi-directional whereas some are only unidirectional. The ERP is the master copy of the entire inventory status across the retail chain. iVend Enterprise is also the application where all retail related master data is defined. This includes Gift Cards, Coupons, Promotions, Loyalty Programs, Campaign Management, etc. All these retail related processes are integrated into SAP with appropriate accounting impact.

iVend Retail can also be implemented in an Unplugged mode where it is not integrated to any ERP application.

Orchestrating around iVend Enterprise are the other modules. At every retail store there are (at least) 2 licensed components (i) iVend Cloud Users and (ii) iVend POS. The iVend POS could either be a terminal POS (the one that we normally see in retail stores) OR it could be a mobile POS (available on both iOS and Google Play store as iVend POS).

iVend POS (terminal or mobile) will always be deployed on-premises and will be configured in the Offline Mode. This means that the POS terminal can continue ringing sales and recording transactions even in the absence of online connectivity. In this deployment scenario, the replication is configured between the Offline POS and iVend Cloud Store. This is the most popular and recommended deployment scenario.

iVend Cloud also offers Hybrid Deployment option for retailers who have a large number of POS terminals in a store and would prefer to deploy iVend Store on-premises. In such a deployment scenario, the store and all the POS terminals configured in the store can continue ringing sales and recording transactions even in the absence of online connectivity. In this deployment scenario, the replication is configured between the On-premises Store and iVend Enterprise on cloud.

The other modules of iVend Retail are iVend for Magento CE connector – a separately licensed component that allows for a seamless integration of an Magento CE site and iVend Retail (and eventually into the ERP). iVend for Magento CE connector along with the recommended Magento Extensions (for Gift Cards, Loyalty integration and Store Pickup) lend the Omnichannel capability to iVend Retail. iVend Loyalty, iVend Passes (digital coupons, Gift cards, Loyalty cards through Apple wallet), iVend Handheld is an application that is installed on Android based Handheld Terminals and is used by back office warehouse users to conduct inventory related transactions like GRPO, stock transfers, picking, stock counting, label printing, etc.

iVend Retail has a comprehensive Extensibility Kit that lends to the application suite the capability to extend iVend’s inherent feature set to create Vertical Solutions. iVend Retail has 2 vertical solutions catering to the specific needs of the niche industry verticals. 

iVend Hospitality is a vertical solution developed on iVend Retail using iVend Extensibility. iVend Hospitality is a fully integrated food and beverage management solution with a multilingual POS system designed to cater to the unique requirements of restaurants, bars, nightclubs and cafes of all sizes – giving a dynamic and flexible solution to add to the overall product offering.

The broad features of the application are:

• Customizable menus and table configurations

• Inventory tracking and management

• Quick order input and secure payment processing

• Kitchen Display System (KDS) integration and recipe management

• Real time data and reporting

• Online and offline mode

• Built in loyalty program

• Upselling and cross-selling capabilities

• Issue coupons and gift cards

• Seamless ERP integration

iVend Optical is a vertical solution developed on iVend Retail using iVend Extensibility. iVend Optical enables optical retailers to easily manage both prescription and non-prescription sales using comprehensive optical master data management processes.

• Wizard driven qualification process for lenses and contact lenses

• Optical specific master data including Lens category, lens type, lens material, lens color, etc.

• Tray management and its fulfilment

• Optometrist scheduling

• Patient appointment booking and reminders

• Comprehensive optical specific reporting

Detailed in the section below is a typical iVend Retail deployment.

At the core of the entire solution is iVend Enterprise – that central repository from where master data is disseminated across the chain AND all the transactions get culminated. Master data like products, product groups, categories, customers, customer groups, price lists, special price lists, promotions, gift cards, coupons, taxes, policies related to till management, user rights, etc. are all defined here and get replicated across the entire retail chain. All transactions like – sales, refunds, returns, store credits, from all the stores, or mobile point of sales, eCommerce portal, all get collated at the iVend Enterprise.

A typical store setup will have the iVend Cloud Users accessing via browser their respective iVend Management Console – the application that is used by the store back office users to carry out their day-to-day business functions like – receiving of goods, requesting stock transfers, raising purchase orders, managing till operations, stock counting, inventory management, generating different reports, managing user rights, etc.

All the POS terminals will be configured in the Offline mode. The store can also have iVend Mobile POS configured communicating with the iVend Cloud store over an Internet connection.

The replication in this deployment scenario is between the Offline POS and Cloud Store. Depending on the security configurations, the replication dashboard can be accessed over the Internet and allows the IT staff to monitor data replication between the POS terminals and the Cloud Store. The replication engine (and by that measure the replication dashboard) refreshes every 5 seconds. This means that every 5 seconds the master data and the transitional data gets replicated across the entire network including the Enterprise.

There can be numerous such store setups.

The iVend Loyalty is an application that is inbuilt in iVend Enterprise. All the loyalty plans, points accumulation plans, points redemption policies get replicated to the stores via the replication engine that runs between the Enterprise and the Stores.

The point of sale – terminal or mobile is the place where a customer accumulates or redeems the loyalty points.

iVend for Magento CE connector integrates a site running Magento Community Edition to iVend Retail. Important to mention is how the online orders get integrated into iVend Retail. The iVend for Magento CE Connector integrates an order placed on the Magento site into iVend Retail as a Special Order. This iVend Special Order is created at a Store using a POS. The POS used to create this Special Oder is of API Type.

Warehouses in iVend Retail are integrated as Sources in Magento and the connector extends the ability to map one or more than one iVend Warehouses to Sources in Magento.

Master data such as Items, Customers, Price Lists, Tax Codes, are integrated from iVend to a Magento site.

Using third party Magento Extensions from Mageworx Gift Cards, Loyalty Points and Pick Up at Store allow seamless integration of these masters and processes across Magento site and brick & mortar stores of iVend Retail

iVend Passes – is a cloud based application which allows retailers to distribute loyalty cards, gift cards and coupons to their customers. Being a cloud application, the retailer gets for his subscription a user id and password to design the template of the different cards and also the content of the email that will be sent to the customer. The designed templates are referred to in iVend Enterprise. From here on, whenever the customers transact at the point of sale, they start receiving these digital passes. To redeem these passes, all that the customer needs to do is to show his digital pass to the cashier at the point of sale. The cashier scans the card – on the phone and the transaction goes through.

These passes are geo-fenced. This means that while designing the passes, the retailer can refer to the geographical location of his different stores on the digital passes. Whenever the customer having the digital pass comes in the vicinity of the store, he will get a notification on his loyalty points OR the expiry date of the coupons that he has etc. An absolutely brilliant way to connect with the customers without being at all intrusive.

iVend Mobile POS can either be used in-store as a point of sale to reduce the wait times at the checkout counter – something quite like an Apple Store where there are no fixed checkout counters OR the mobile point of sale can be utilized by a retailer to set up temporary shops in exhibitions, weekend markets, etc.

iVend Mobile POS can also be used as a fulfillment device. In this case, sales orders can be configured to be delivered by an iVend Mobile POS. The delivery person can record the delivery on the mobile POS and can also collect any balance payment. This transaction gets automatically synchronized to the Enterprise / Store.

iVend Reports & Dashboards – pre-packaged shrink-wrapped dashboards specifically designed for retailers. The dashboards pick up raw transactional data from iVend Retail and include analysis like affinity analysis, contribution by product, product groups, customer, customer group, analysis on how the different promotions have fared across different stores, what has been the most effective tender type across different stores and many more such analysis.

Licensing

iVend Cloud has a simple approach to licensing focused on the number of POS licenses per device and iVend Cloud users (Formerly Management Console User).  The store license has been removed from iVend Cloud pricing.

• The standard monthly charge for iVend POS and iVend Mobile POS is $180 USD per month, per device

• The standard monthly charge for an iVend Cloud user is $95 USD per month per concurrent user

• Minimum monthly contract value is $1,200 USD per month net to CitiXsys. Therefore, a customer below 5 POS will need to pay a minimum of $1,200 USD per month to gain access to iVend Cloud.

• All licenses come with a minimum 12-month commitment from date of initial purchase, however, can be paid monthly or annually to suit the customer’s preference.  Customers that choose to remit payment monthly will enter into a credit card payment contract directly with CitiXsys.   Customers who choose to pay licenses annually will receive a 10% discount.

• For On-Premises deployments, there is a requirement to license an iVend Cloud user for each physical brick and mortar store and one for the enterprise. For example, a retailer with 10 stores and 20 POS will need 11 iVend Cloud user licenses and 20 POS device licenses.

• There is no limit on the number of iVend stores that can be created on iVend Cloud and licensing for the iVend store will remain free regardless of the number required.

Global Support

Gold and Platinum partners are obligated to provide Level 1 and Level 2 support. CitiXsys is obligated to provide Level 3 support.

In the case of Silver partners where the implementation has been done by CitiXsys Consulting, Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 support will be provided by CitiXsys Global Support.

iVend Cloud includes comprehensive Application Management, Infrastructure Management and Support 365 Standard offering. More details on these offerings can be found on iVend.com