Session auto-start and free minutes

Session auto-start and free minutes at session start

When a cashier creates a Play Now session in IZI, the session starts automatically — no manual Start button required. For prepaid sessions the start fires the moment payment is confirmed; for postpaid sessions it fires at creation. Optionally you can configure a grace period: for the first N minutes the seat is occupied but the tariff does not tick yet.

Auto-start: how it works

Prepaid (card or cash payment)

1. The cashier creates a Play Now session and selects a tariff.
2. Payment is taken on the payment screen — by card or cash.
3. As soon as payment is confirmed, IZI starts the session automatically. The cashier does nothing else.

Technically: the payment publishes an order_paid event → the handler finds all Play Now sessions in that order waiting to start, and launches them.

Postpaid (open session)

If the club has postpaid enabled, a session in Open mode starts immediately on creation — the session_created event triggers the start in the same cycle.

Safety net: the reconciler

Once a minute, a background reconciler checks for Play Now sessions that should have started more than 5 minutes ago but have not. If fewer than 30 minutes have passed since the scheduled start, the reconciler retries. After 30 minutes the session is considered stale — the operator starts it manually.

When auto-start does not fire

• The device is a pod — pods use a different flow where the player presses Start inside the pod after staff have checked it.
• The session was created from the player’s mobile app, not by a cashier through the CRM.
• The scheduled start time has not arrived yet (a future booking): these sessions wait for their time slot, not for a payment event.
• The order has not been paid: for prepaid sessions the session waits for order_paid, so if payment is pending or incomplete, start will not happen.

For more on how sessions are created, see Book a session now and Activate a tariff with payment.

What the cashier sees

After payment goes through, the session in the Hall section moves to active status with no further action needed. There is no intermediate “waiting to start” state in the UI: from the cashier’s perspective a session is either not yet started (order unpaid) or already running.

If the cashier notices the session has not started a few seconds after payment, the cause is almost always one of the conditions listed above. The session can be started manually from the Hall.

Free minutes at session start

What it does

Free minutes at session start is a club-level setting that delays billing by N minutes. The seat is occupied from the moment the session is created, but the player’s package only starts being consumed later. These minutes do not appear in reports.

Typical use case: the club gives a player 5 minutes to sit down, log in, and launch a game before the billing clock starts.

Where to configure it

Path: Organization settings → Club settings

In the CRM sidebar, go to Club settings (under Management in organization settings). Select a club from the dropdown — the settings list appears.

Steps:

1. Find the Free minutes at session start row.
2. Enter a number of minutes from 0 to 60. The value is saved automatically when you leave the field or press Enter — a “Saved” indicator appears next to the row.
3. To disable, set the value to 0.

Technical limits

Parameter	Value
Storage unit	seconds (gracePeriodSeconds)
UI step	1 minute
Minimum	0 (disabled)
Maximum	60 minutes
Default	0

What changes in the session

When the grace period is non-zero, the system:

• Records the seat occupancy start (occupancyStart) — immediately at session creation.
• Shifts the billing window start (paidStart) forward by the configured number of minutes.
• For fixed-length sessions, also shifts the planned end (paidEnd) by the same amount, so the player gets their full purchased time.

Example: a player buys 2 hours and the club has 5 free minutes configured. The seat is occupied at 14:00. Billing starts at 14:05; the session ends at 16:05 — exactly 2 hours of billed time.

CRM sessions only

The grace period applies only when a cashier creates the session through the CRM. For players booking themselves through the mobile app, the grace period is always 0.

Effect on reports

Free minutes do not appear in session reports and are not deducted from the package. For hall occupancy analytics, the seat is considered occupied from the physical session start.

Connection to zone settings

The free-minutes setting is configured at the club level and applies equally to all zones. Zone-specific settings (operating modes, device types) are managed separately in zone configuration.

Practical guidance

Choosing a grace period value

The right value depends on how long it actually takes a player to go from payment to active gameplay:

• 2–3 minutes — PC is already on, player sits down and logs in quickly.
• 5 minutes — the standard for most clubs: enough for account login, client launch, and game loading.
• 10 minutes or more — for clubs that load a disk image before sessions, have a slow login process, or admit players in groups on a schedule.

Avoid padding the value “just in case” — it reduces the accuracy of occupancy reports. Free minutes are invisible in statistics, so actual time at the PC will be higher than reported.

Fixed vs. open sessions

For a fixed-length session the grace period shifts both the billing start and the planned end by the same number of minutes. The player gets exactly the amount of time they paid for.

For an open session (postpaid, no fixed end) the grace period shifts only the billing start. The session end is determined by a manual close.

Frequently asked questions

Does the cashier need to click Start after the player pays? No. For prepaid sessions the session starts automatically when payment is confirmed. For postpaid it starts immediately on creation.

What if payment went through but the session did not start? The reconciler will pick it up within a minute. If the session is still not started after 5 minutes, start it manually from the Hall. The reconciler stops retrying 30 minutes after the scheduled start.

Do free minutes expire if the player arrives late? The grace period is counted from session creation, not from when the player arrives. If the cashier created the session early, the grace period is already running.

Can different zones have different free-minute values? No. The setting is a single value for the whole club.

Does the grace period change the total amount of paid time? No. For fixed sessions the billing window shifts as a whole — the player gets the full purchased time, just starting later.