concourse™ Software Platform

Application development and maintenance is often the hidden cost of a self-service kiosk deployment. That is why Source Technologies developed the concourse Software Platform (CSP), an n-tier development environment that includes tools for user interface (UI) design, plus off-the-shelf software for application logic and services, device control, and system monitoring.

CSP lets clients rapidly prototype, test, and deploy applications on concourse self-service kiosks. It is the only software development tool engineered specifically for kiosk applications from the bottom up:

Device Manager

Typical kiosk deployments require development of custom interfaces to control the kiosk devices. The Device Manager module eliminates custom coding by providing off-the-shelf device interfacing and control as part of a complete concourse solution. Device Manager includes four components: The kiosk device SPIs (Service Provider Interfaces), which provide hardware-level device control, the XFS manager, which provides an industry-standard device-management layer, the device abstraction layer, which makes application control of kiosk devices straightforward and easy to program, and the system monitoring and reporting, which ensures the kiosk and devices are functioning properly.

CSP Application Manager

Self-service solutions are complex, requiring management of kiosk applications and devices, external business systems and data, and other automation in a retail environment. Application Manager provides real-time control and orchestration of all these pieces. In addition to running both custom and standard applications (such as concourse BillPay and concourse Teller) developed with CSP, Application Manager provides APIs for building external services that integrate with other business systems, such as POS, authentication, merchandising, CRM, and cash settlement. It can also manage other devices as part of a total retail or branch automation solution, including check imagers, cash recyclers, card dispensers, and statement printers.

Workflow Studio and Libraries

Hard-coding kiosk applications is expensive, time-consuming, and inflexible. Worse yet, changing any aspect of an application can be just as cumbersome. CSP's Workflow Studio is an off-the-shelf application development system that makes it easy to build, deploy, and redeploy kiosk applications on concourse kiosks. It allows programmers to visually diagram the workflow for a single transaction or an entire application using drag-and-drop tools, and then automatically generate .NET, HTML, or Flash applications that run on concourse kiosks. Workflow Studio also includes an application template library to speed development of kiosk applications. Workflow Studio makes application development, deployment, and maintenance fast and flexible.