Industrial Vending Changelog
The most recent updates are listed at the top.
08/09/2026
Turn off stock tracking for a machine
A vending machine can now be set to stop counting stock, with the new Do Not Track Stock setting on the machine’s settings page. While it is on, the machine dispenses whatever an employee is entitled to without checking a stock level first, no stock figures are shown for its selections, and no low stock alerts are sent for it.
This is for the period when a team is still learning the refill process, or any time the recorded counts have drifted far enough from what is really on the shelf to get in the way — an item that is physically there can no longer be refused because the count says zero. Transactions are still recorded the whole time, so your consumption figures and usage reports are unaffected.
Restock the machine before switching it back off: stock levels reset to full at that point, the same as pressing Refill.
05/09/2026
Silence offline alerts for an individual machine
Editing a vending machine now offers a Disable Offline Notifications switch. Turn it on for a machine that is expected to be unreachable — a spare in storage, or one that has been taken out of service — and it will no longer raise an offline alert or email anyone after 45 minutes of silence. The machine is still monitored and still shows its Online or Offline status and “Last seen” time on the machine list, so you keep the full picture of your fleet. Every machine starts with the switch off, so offline alerting is unchanged unless you turn it on.
25/08/2026
Messages stay visible while you work
Confirmation and error messages in the admin portal now appear in a fixed message panel at the lower right of the screen. They stay visible even when you save a form or run an action while scrolled down a long page, so you can see whether the action succeeded without returning to the top.
21/08/2026
Offline alerts for vending machines
Vending machine connectivity is now checked every 10 minutes. A machine that has not been seen for 30 minutes is marked Offline on the machine list, and if it is still silent after 45 minutes an alert goes to the notification email addresses configured for that machine and to administrators who have failure alert emails switched on. You get one alert per outage rather than one per check, and a machine that has never been online does not raise one. This covers both KioskForce machines and legacy Vending on Track integration machines.
20/08/2026
Yearly limits on employee groups
Employee groups now offer a Yearly cycle alongside daily, weekday, weekly and monthly — as both a spend limit and a transaction limit. It suits items an employee should only receive once or twice a year, such as a headset or a jacket: give one group a small yearly budget and another a larger one, and supervisors can still issue a replacement when someone needs it. The cycle is the calendar year and resets on 1 January, so it is not the same as a product restriction with a one-year look-back, which counts twelve months from each pickup.
20/08/2026
Default employee group
You can now mark one employee group as your organisation’s default. Employees who have not been put in a group are given the default group’s limits, so your baseline spend and transaction caps cover everyone — including employees who join through self-service onboarding, a ServiceNow sync, a CSV import or a temporary access code, none of whom arrive with a group. Tick Use as the default group for this organization when you create or edit a group, and the group list shows which one holds it. An employee who is in a group of their own is governed by that group, not the default.
09/08/2026
Uploaded photos are optimised automatically
Product photos, vending machine photos, locker photos and your organization logo are now processed when you save them. Each picture is converted to PNG, scaled down so its longest side is no more than 1024 pixels, and compressed. The shape of the picture is preserved, and a picture already smaller than that is left as it is rather than being enlarged.
In practice this means you can upload a photo straight from a phone without resizing it first. Kiosk screens, the product list and the employee mobile app all load noticeably faster as a result, because they are no longer downloading multi-megabyte originals to display a thumbnail. Camera information stored inside the file, including the GPS location where a phone photo was taken, is stripped out at the same time.
Two things to keep in mind: the change applies to photos uploaded from now on, so existing photos stay as they are until you replace them, and the reduced picture is the one that gets stored, so keep your own copy of the original if you need it.
News & Updates on the Dashboard
We ship changes to the portal regularly, and until now the only way to find out about them was to come here and read this page. A Latest News & Updates window now appears over the dashboard the first time you open it after a release, summarising what has changed in plain English.
Got it marks the announcements as read and the window stays away until the next release. Remind me later closes it without marking it read, so it returns on your next visit. A What’s New link at the top right of the dashboard reopens it whenever you want, including after you have read it. Whether you have read them is remembered in your browser rather than in your account, so a different computer or a cleared browser shows the window again.
This first round covers Quick Dispense, the Refused Requests page, the clearer kiosk screen flow settings, bulk employee import from CSV, and API tokens with the AI integration. All of them are described in full further down this page.
05/08/2026
Organization Clone Now Copies Everything It Should
Organization Clone — the button on the Organization Information page that creates a new organization from an existing one — was leaving things behind. A cloned organization came out on the default currency rather than the one you had set, so every price and every value figure in it read in the wrong money; cloned products arrived with no value at all, which made reports show zero rather than show nothing; and two kiosk settings, the raw card reading option and the drop sensor notification toggle, reverted to their defaults. None of this was announced — the new organization simply looked right and was not.
Ticking Clone Trackable Items also failed outright, reporting only “failed to clone organization” with no explanation. That option now works, and copied items arrive in Draft.
Alongside the fixes: archived products, archived trackable items and administrators whose access has been revoked are no longer carried into the new organization, and both organizations now get an audit log entry recording who cloned what — the new organization’s log says it was created as a copy and names the administrator who created it.
Organization Clone is now documented in full, including what is and is not copied, under Settings → Cloning an Organization.
04/08/2026
Longer Sign-In at the Machine
An employee who signs in at a KioskForce machine with their Access Code or card now stays signed in for 10 minutes instead of 5. Employees collecting several items, reading through a long list of selections, or returning trackable items were being signed out mid-task and having to enter their Access Code again. The 10 minutes are still counted from the moment they sign in rather than from their last tap, so the sign-in always ends on a fixed schedule and an abandoned screen can now sit signed in for at most 10 minutes.
03/08/2026
Machine Hardware Details Visible Again on Hover
The blue i icon beside a machine’s name on the Vending Machines page shows its model, serial number and notes again. The pop-up had stopped appearing after a recent update to the component that draws it, so hovering the icon did nothing and there was no way to see the hardware details of a machine you had renamed. Nothing about the details themselves changed — only whether they were displayed.
Kiosk Items Listed in MDB Code Order
The list of items a machine reports is now always sorted by MDB Code, lowest first. Previously the order was left to the database, so a kiosk could show coil 0025 above coil 0000 and the same machine could list its items differently from one visit to the next. Item numbers are compared as numbers, so coil 9 comes before coil 10 rather than after it. Nothing about your selections has changed — only the order they are listed in.
Quick Dispense Improvements
Refinements to Quick Dispense (Press and Hold) following testing on a machine:
- The drop sensor is now bypassed while quick dispensing, whether or not Disable Drop Sensor is switched on, and you will no longer receive drop sensor alerts for items taken this way. Employees quick dispensing collect everything at the end rather than after each item, so the items already dispensed sit in the chute across the sensor and it cannot see anything drop — the machine was reporting items as not dispensed when they were, and stopping part-way through a queue on hardware that was working perfectly. Coils that do not respond or time out still fail, stop the queue and alert you as before.
- If dispensing stops after a problem, the kiosk now says which item failed, why, and that pressing and holding will do nothing until Clear is tapped — previously holds were quietly ignored, which looked like the screen had stopped responding.
- The waiting list now shows the item being dispensed first, then those still waiting, then those already finished.
- Fixed item cards appearing at uneven widths on machines using the compact (Chocolate) item layout.
02/08/2026
Searchable Timezone Dropdowns
Clearer Kiosk Screen Flow Settings
A vending machine now has three settings that shape what an employee sees at the kiosk, and they were easy to confuse. They are now grouped together on the vending machine settings page under Kiosk Screen Flow, labelled with the moment each one applies — after login, while picking items, and after each item is dispensed — and marked as applying to KioskForce machines only.
The Express Selection options now lead with what they actually do, because the Enable/Disable wording runs opposite to what you would expect: Enabled adds the “Take new item / Return item” choice screen after login, and Disabled removes it. Nothing about how your machines behave has changed, and no setting was reset — this is wording and layout only.
Quick Dispense (Press and Hold)
At sites where one person routinely collects several items, the extra taps add up. You can now turn on Quick Dispense (Press and Hold) in a vending machine’s settings. Employees then dispense an item by pressing and holding it in the item list — a ring fills while they hold, and lifting a finger early cancels — instead of stepping through the item and confirmation screens. Holding several items queues them, and they dispense one after another while the employee stays on the item list.
The hold is deliberate rather than a single tap, because there is no confirmation screen: a completed hold dispenses the item for real and counts towards the employee’s usage limits. Quick Dispense applies only to coil selections that are not trackable items; locker cells and trackable items keep the normal flow. Each hold dispenses one unit, so three of the same item is three holds and three transactions. Turning it on also turns on Stay on Dashboard After Dispensing. While items are still dispensing the idle auto-logout is paused and the employee cannot leave the screen, so nothing dispenses after they walk away.
24/06/2026
Stay on Dashboard After Dispensing
For machines where one person regularly collects several items in a row, you can now turn on Stay on Dashboard After Dispensing in a vending machine’s settings. When enabled, the kiosk stays on the dashboard (still logged in) after an item is dispensed instead of returning to the login screen, so the employee can keep taking items without re-authenticating each time. Idle auto-logout still applies for security.
21/06/2026
Fortnightly and Three-Weekly Report Cutoffs
Scheduled (Advanced) Reports now offer two extra cutoff ranges — Last 14 Days (Fortnightly) and Last 21 Days (Three Weeks) — in addition to the existing daily, weekly, 28-day and calendar-month options. This makes it easier to align reports with pay cycles or rostering periods that don’t fall on a weekly boundary.
Vending Machine Online / Offline Status
The vending machines list now shows a clear Online or Offline label for each machine, along with a “Last seen” timestamp, so you can tell at a glance which machines are currently reporting in and when each one last communicated with the system. This replaces having to guess machine health from the system status alone.
16/06/2026
More Detail in Failed-Dispense Alerts
When a dispense fails, the alert and notification now include the employee, the quantity requested, the order reference, and the underlying failure reason. This gives operators the context they need to follow up with the right person and resolve the issue faster, without digging through logs.
14/06/2026
Turn Off Drop Sensor Notifications
Some machines have unreliable or missing drop sensors that generate repeated false “fail-to-vend” alerts. Operators can now disable the drop sensor check on a per-machine basis (Disable Drop Sensor in the machine’s settings) and control whether drop sensor notifications are sent, cutting down on noisy false alarms while keeping genuine alerts for machines that are working normally.
13/06/2026
Bulk Import Employees from CSV
You can now onboard many employees at once by uploading a CSV file. The import shows a preview before committing, flags conflicts and duplicates, keeps an import history, and lets you roll back an import if something looks wrong. This dramatically speeds up setting up a new site or refreshing a large workforce.
04/06/2026
Organization API Tokens & AI Integration
Organizations can now issue secure, non-expiring API tokens tied to a dedicated service account, allowing approved external systems to read Industrial Vending data without sharing a person’s login. Tokens are read-only for sensitive admin actions and can be revoked individually at any time. This also powers an optional read-only AI integration, so management tools and assistants can safely query inventory and transaction data on your behalf.
20/05/2026
“Also Available At” Product Cross-References
When the same product is mapped to more than one coil in a machine, the Product Map now shows an “Also available at” note linking the other locations. This helps operators see all the places a product is stocked and avoid running one coil dry while another sits full.
27/10/2025
Filter Key Card Tap Events by Date
The Key Card Tap Events page now supports filtering by date range and by vending machine, with pagination for large event lists. Finding a specific tap — for example to identify and allocate a newly issued card — is now much faster on busy sites.
11/10/2025
Per-Machine Notification Email Recipients
Each vending machine can now have its own list of Notification Emails. These recipients receive that machine’s low-stock and fail-to-vend alerts in addition to the organization’s admin emails — ideal when different teams or locations are responsible for different machines.
Dedicated Locker Assignment Expiry
When assigning a dedicated locker compartment to an employee, you can now set an expiry date and time. The cell list shows each assignment’s expiry below the employee’s name, and expiry notifications help you reclaim and reassign compartments promptly.
09/10/2025
Auto-Generated Access Codes for Temporary Employees
Temporary employees are now issued an 8-digit Access Code automatically, so they can sign in at KioskForce machines straight away without manual setup. This streamlines onboarding contractors and short-term staff.
08/10/2025
Self-Updating Vending Machine App
KioskForce machines can now update their on-machine app to the latest version, with a manual update option available to operators. This keeps machines current with the newest features and fixes with minimal on-site intervention.
21/09/2025
Hide “Login with Card” on the Kiosk
For organizations that don’t use physical cards, you can now hide the Login with Card option on the vending machine interface from the organization settings, presenting employees with a cleaner sign-in screen that only shows the methods you actually use.
17/09/2025
PIN Code Input Events (Admin Access Auditing)
A new PIN Code Input Events page records every attempt to enter a machine’s admin PIN, including the time, machine, employee (if known), result, failure reason and IP address. This gives managers a clear audit trail of who is accessing machine administration and helps spot unauthorized attempts.
04/09/2025
Vending Machine Actuator Management
You can now manage actuators (peripheral machines) directly from a master vending machine. A single kiosk can coordinate many standalone cabinets and lockers, and the new actuator management screen lets you add, edit and remove these peripherals and align them with your product map — making it easy to build out large, distributed vending setups.
09/05/2025
Stackable Item
To allow multiple items sharing the same SKU to be stored in a single locker compartment, we have developed the Stackable Item feature.
27/03/2025
Employee Group
To allow for more targeted employee management, we have developed the Employee Group feature. Operators can categorize employees into customizable groups and set value-based or transaction-based product usage limits.
23/07/2024
Advanced Reporting
To improve the daily and weekly reports, we have developed the Advanced Reporting (Scheduled Reports) feature, which allows you to design and create your own custom reports on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, according to your specific needs.
27/05/2024
Department
In an organization, employees with different duties belong to different departments. To make the employee information clearer, we have added the Department feature to our PPE and managed dispensing system.
01/04/2024
Tags
To improve access management, we have developed a new Tags feature. Allocating tags ensures that employees have access only to the machines and products that they are supposed to work with.
14/03/2024
Factory Test Mode
To simplify testing for distributors or workshops, we designed the Factory Test Mode which allows testing of coils rotation and locker cells opening for all machines.
01/03/2024
Operator Role
To simplify the operation process, we’ve introduced a new Operator role. The Operator will only have access to manage employees and input Job IDs, while the Admin can access all the functions in the system.
24/01/2024
Facility Code Display
We include the facility code (site ID) in the Key Card Number column along with the original HID card ID. This allows the operator to verify whether the card’s facility code aligns with the system configuration when the card is unfunctional.
16/01/2024
Remove Associated Key Card Numbers of the Disabled Employee Accounts
Information on the disabled employee card will be deleted from the system so that the admin can reappoint this card to a new employee.
10/01/2024
Streamline Product Setup with CSV Imports
Manually adding all product information can be time-consuming for large inventories. To make mass uploads faster and easier, our machines now support CSV import of multiple products simultaneously.
08/01/2024
30-Day Average Consumption
To better understand employee needs, we introduced the 30-day average product consumption feature. The function divides the total consumption over a 30-day period by a 20-day working day to get an average.
05/01/2024
Open All the Cells with One Click
We’ve added a feature that allows admins to open all the cells of the locker through the backend system with one click. Once clicked, the doors will open one by one.
28/12/2023
Motor Coupling
To eliminate the limitations of placing only small items in traditional vending machines, we have rolled out the motor coupling feature for KioskForce vending machines. The operation can be made both through the machine interface and the backend system. </content> </invoke>