SNB Production WorkflowTrainingWhen the screen stops accepting your PIN
When the screen stops accepting your PIN
The screen says it is locked, not that your PIN is wrong. Those are different messages and the difference matters — your PIN is probably fine.
Nothing. This is about something that happens to you, not something you do.
1Read which message you are getting
There are two, and they mean different things.
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| Incorrect PIN | The PIN typed was wrong. Try again, carefully. |
| This screen is locked. A supervisor can unlock it with their PIN. | The screen has stopped accepting PINs for a while. Yours is probably fine. |
2If it says the screen is locked
Five wrong PINs in a row shut the screen for about fifteen minutes.
They do not have to be your five. Anybody using this screen before you counts towards it.
The screen is locked. Your account is not.
Your PIN still works on every other screen in the building, and it will work on this one again afterwards. Nobody needs to give you a new PIN and nothing has been taken away from you.
3Get a supervisor
A supervisor types their own PIN into the same box and the screen opens again. It takes seconds.
The message changes to Screen unlocked. Enter your PIN to continue. Then type yours as normal.
Or wait. It clears itself after about fifteen minutes.
Do not keep trying PINs while it is locked.
It will not open, and a locked screen with somebody standing at it guessing is how fifteen minutes turns into thirty.
The limit is there so that somebody who does not work here cannot stand at the screen and work through PINs until one opens.
The reason a supervisor can clear it — rather than only the clock — is that a department cannot afford to wait a quarter of an hour to start a job. This has happened: a whole department stopped for fifteen minutes over a mistyped PIN.
And it is deliberately not the person who caused the lockout who clears it. If the same person could unlock it, the limit would stop meaning anything.
What happens next
Once it is unlocked, use the screen exactly as normal.
If it goes wrong
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Incorrect PIN several times with a PIN you are sure of | Check you are typing all the digits. After five tries the screen locks, so slow down rather than repeating. |
| Your supervisor’s PIN is also refused | Their account may not be set up to unlock screens. Find another supervisor, or wait it out. |
| The screen locked and nobody near you can unlock it | Wait about fifteen minutes. It clears on its own. |
| It locks again straight afterwards | Somebody is still typing a wrong PIN. Work out whose PIN is wrong before trying again. |