A business continuity plan is a plan to continue operations if a place of business is affected by different levels of disaster which can be localized short term disasters, to days long system wide problems, to a permanent loss.

 

We have built our raffle management platform with the ability to conduct a raffle even if there are technical issues you are experiencing.

 

Here are IT specific problems that you may experience:

 

1.  On game day you may not have internet connection to the server. 

2.  During the event internet connection is lost or the server “blows up”

3.  Network issues and printing ticket stubs is no longer viable.

 

For problem:

 

1.  No connection:  You can still run the raffle however you will be running the raffle in NIMble mode on the terminals.  This mode does not use connectivity to the server and the terminals have pre-assigned ticket ranges.  Please see the terminal manual for further information on how to use NIMble mode.

 

Conclusion:  NO signage, use pre-printed ticket stubs to put in drum.

 

2.  Connection interruption:  If your raffle management server is localized this may be a larger problem than if you are using Tap50:50’s centralized server.  If you are using one of our centralized servers, redirection to a working server is the first course of action.  Please contact Tap50:50 admin. Please note that redirection may take 1-2 hours so if you are running a sporting event this is likely not a great option.

 

 Of course if lack of connectivity is because the internet is not working then this is not a viable solution.  If lack of connectivity is due to an internet issue and the server connection is not on a local lan then your ability to run the raffle is limited.

 

Terminals:  Terminals are basically ticketing books.  You can continue to sell tickets until the ticketing book has no more tickets to sell.  The number of tickets available per terminal is set by the charity per event.  After all the tickets are sold, if the terminal can’t talk to the server to grab more tickets then you cannot sell more tickets and sales will be limited to the available tickets that have already loaded on the terminals.

 

Signage:  Signage will not update while there is no connectivity.

 

Stub Printing:  If connectivity to the raffle manager is not available then ticket stubs cannot be printed.  However the terminals can print reports to let you know the tickets they have sold/marked and voided.  You can individually run these reports for every terminal and have pre-printed ticket stubs as a backup to put in the draw drum.   

 

Conclusion:  Signage will not update unless server re-direction successful, limited to sales that have pre-loaded to terminals unless server re-direction successful,  Resumption of printing should be fine if redirection to server is successful however if it is not then use pre-printed ticket stubs to put in drum.

          

3. Printing ticket stubs not available:  Printers are not fun and can misbehave for various reasons.  If you cannot print the stubs for whatever reason but the handheld terminals still have connection and are updating sales then within our raffle management software a report on unsold tickets is available.  We use an unsold tickets report so you can remove them from a sequentially pre-printed ticket stub solution.  Under Event Management there is a tab called Manage Unused/Void Tickets.