Media replenishment management
View Patent ↗A method of method of managing media replenishment at a media terminal, the method comprising: receiving a media event from a media terminal; retrieving a next scheduled media replenishment event for that media terminal; evaluating if the next scheduled media replenishment event is scheduled to occur within an acceptable delay period; and initiating an unscheduled replenishment event only if the next scheduled media replenishment event is scheduled to occur after the acceptable delay period.
1. A media terminal manager comprising:
(i) an event manager operable to: receive events from media terminals being managed by the media terminal manager and update a graphical user interface (GUI);
(ii) a replenishment manager operable to: provide a user of the media terminal manager with information about scheduled media replenishment operations for the media terminals being managed by the media terminal manager and update the GUI;
(iii) a replenishment dispatcher operable to issue media replenishment requests to a media replenishment center to implement (a) the scheduled media replenishment operations, (b) qualified unscheduled media replenishment operations, and (c) update the GUI;
(iv) the GUI including a visual representation of media terminals being managed by the media terminal manager, wherein the GUI is populated with a street map and an icon representing a physical location of the media terminal on the street map for the qualified unscheduled media replenishment operation, wherein the icon of the GUI when hovered over by the user interacting with the GUI presenting additional information for the scheduled media replenishment operations and the qualified unscheduled media replenishment operations including: 1) totals for each media denomination that is to be replenished with the scheduled media replenishment operations and the qualified unscheduled media replenishment operations 2) a date and a time of day for the date for replenishment and a vendor name that is providing the replenishment, wherein the additional information including presenting: details of an incident when a current incident is detected for the media terminal, media event types, times associated with each of the media event types, and media event details in response to any selected media event type; and the GUI is further configured to update the visual representation responsive to changes at the media terminal for the scheduled media replenishment operations, the qualified unscheduled media replenishment operations, the incident, and the media event types, and wherein the GUI including a second visual representation depicting a forecasted media demand versus actual media usage for the media terminals, the second visual representing an accuracy of the replenishment manager in forecasting media demands for the media terminals, wherein the GUI presents the second visual representation as a line graph, a bar graph, or traffic lights.
2. A media terminal manager according to claim 1 , wherein the replenishment manager implements a cash optimization algorithm to create replenishment schedules for each media terminal.