How to: Customize a Hydra Device for POS

Abstract
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of some of the available options for developing customizations for Hydra payment devices for a Retail Point of Sales (POS) payment processor. This document assumes the reader is familiar with programming in C# and with different types of payment terminal devices.

Sample files
N/A

Further reading
Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 for Developers [AX 2012] SDK Download

Tutorial
Payment terminal devices which provide multiple capabilities are often referred to as Hydra devices (the naming coming from Greek mythology regarding a creature that possessed many heads). These devices often include one or more of the following capabilities: PIN Pad for entering an encrypted PIN associated with a payment card Magnetic Stripe Reader (MSR) for reading track data from a card Signature Capture (SigCap) for capturing a signature digitally Display for displaying transaction and other data

Other capabilities are often supported as well but the above list is commonly supported. As the PIN Pad must be injected with security information from a payment processor, the payment processor may often determine which devices are supported. This document will proceed with the assumption that the payment processor is most likely providing the customization(s) that may be needed. The Payment SDK consist of the following objects: Connector (such as the Dynamics Online Connector) Handles basic payment processing Notifications (Proxy and Contracts) Messaging between components Payment Manger State machine for Payment Terminal (ie.., Hydra device) Payment Terminal Contracts Interface for a Payment Terminal

Payment Terminal Device specific implementation (somewhat like a device driver)

The payment SDK includes a sample reference implementation of a Payment Terminal for the L5300 device. If one wishes to provide an implementation for another device, the simplest approach is simply to provide another implementation of the Payment Terminal Contract for the new device (IPaymentTerminalHandler). This interface is fairly straight forward and self-explanatory. The reference implementation can simply be changed in the way it communicates with the physical device. The basic operations required are: Initialize Close DisplayLines CardReaderEanble PinEntryEnable SignatureEntryEnable ClearData

If one would like to update the payment connector to support multiple devices this can be done simply by providing an implementation of the IPaymentTermainlFactory interface and dropping the DLL in the Support sub-folder of the folder that contains the connector. Additionally one can have the manager automatically identify a card (based upon the account number, name, or track data) within the payment processor (without requiring user input) by implementing the ITenderTypeFunctionalIdentification interface and dropping the DLL in the Support sub-folder that contains the connector. One possible usage would be to atomically detect loyalty cards using this approach.