Card Readers Cause Chaos

Dining points not accepted in Benson due to system update

Emma Pollans
The Santa Clara 
February 7, 2019

It was near the end of lunch last Thursday when Benson Memorial Center suddenly emptied as students learned that all ACCESS card readers in the building had stopped functioning.

This affected all food stations in the Marketplace including 540, Fire, Globe, La Parilla, Mediterranean and Pacific Rim.

Despite places such as Mission Bakery accepting cash or credit cards, students were not able to use their dining points and quickly cleared out in search of other food options.

“The outage was an inconvenience and I wasn’t able to get lunch in Benson that day,” said sophomore Felicia Jarrin about the system failure.

This outage occurred on Jan. 24 and lasted from 2:05 p.m. to 2:20 p.m.

This time on Thursdays is when Benson is often crowded, with students seeking lunch following classes that finish at 1:50 p.m.

An outage like this one has not occurred in the recent past, and administrators hope this inconvenience does not happen again.

According to Associate Vice President for Auxiliary Services Robin Reynolds, it was caused when an onsite administrator updated the point-of-sale (POS) system—the self-serve machines where students order their food.

The system is regularly updated, with this particular update affecting the card readers.  

As a result of the update, the ACCESS card readers were no longer functioning properly, preventing students from being able to use their dining points to pay for food.

In an effort to prevent future outages from occurring, any updates or actions will be conducted between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. if possible.

The POS systems as well as the ACCESS card readers are managed by the ACCESS card office and the technology unit of the Auxiliary Services division.

The new POS systems, which were introduced to students following the renovation of the Benson Memorial Center, have not yet been completely implemented to their full capacity, according to Reynolds.

This includes allowing for mobile orders through Blackboard, which students have just recently been able to use to order drinks from Mission Bakery.

Blackboard will replace Tapingo, and students will be able to use this mobile app to order at cafes around campus in the next few weeks. Eventually, students will be able to use Blackboard to order food as well.

Contact Emma Pollans at epollans@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.

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