New feature, 255 parked sales

[Dale Harris]

I have a new feature in limited testing. The new feature is the ability to park up to 255 sales instead of the old maximum of 75 sales.

Does anyone want to test this?

[peewee3ie]

I would like to test it.

[Granita]

I will test too

[ToPS]

Dale,

We use this feature a lot and would also like to test it.

Is there maybe a way to make the feature a bit safer?
For instance:- when a parked sale is recalled, could it not be "wiped" from the hard drive until it is paid or parked again?
It sometimes happens that the wrong button (escape)in pressed and the complete parked sale disappears.

We use parked sales for Hampers that are packed with between 10 & 40 different stock items.
Each hamper that is packed is "parked" when the hamper is packed.
Then when a hamper is sold it saves much time.

Another concern is:- when a customer does not want a specific item in a hamper we will remove it from the package and delete the line in the sale. We would like to be sure that it is added to the stock again.

Regards

ToPS

[Dale Harris]

In this version the maximum number of parked sales has been increased to 255.

When you are at the list of sales that have already been parked if you
have more than 80 sales parked you may press the [PAGE UP] and [PAGE DOWN] keys to view additional pages.

WARNING!!! When you run this version of the program if you have any sales currently parked they will be erased. This is because the file of parked sales has to be reformatted to accomodate the additional parked sales. The parked sale list will only be erased the FIRST time you run this version.

The download file is a complete download of only the .EXE program files. To test this version you must make a backup of the current POS folder that you are using. Download this file to the BACKUP folder and unzip the file. This will replace your current .EXE files with the new ones in only the backup folder. When you run the POS.EXE program from your old POS folder you will still be running the old version of the program. When you run the POS.EXE program from the backup folder you will be running the new BETA test version 6.39b BETA1.

You can also just download and unzip this file into a new folder and run the new version but you will have to start from scratch because there will be no data files in the folder.

Please test this new version and report back even if you find no problems. That way I can release the new version for download.

Here is the download link...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

[Dale Harris]

ToPS,

A sale cannot be in two places at once. (OK, I could make it be in two places at once but that would be a bad idea.) Specifically it cannot be in the parking lot and up on the purchase screen being modified. If that were possible then you could save multiple copies of the same sale to the parking lot.

It must be possible to delete a sale that was retrieved from the parking lot because that may be what you want to do.

I suppose that it would be possible to tell you that you are parking a sale that is already in the lot or ask you 4 times if you really want to delete that sale. But I do not think that anyone wants to go through that.

Items that are removed from a parked sale are returned to the stock table inventory. At least I am pretty sure they are. You can always check the inventory before deleting an item, then delete it from the sale and check again.

[Andrew]

The other concern being if you have networked registers - and parked sales remained in the lot even if being edited by someone, is that another register could unpark the sale and make changes simultaneously.

Data corruption just waiting to happen, at least with Dale's current implementation this wouldn't be likely to occur.

[Dale Harris]

Tri has found an error in sorting the list of parked sales. So I have totally placed the sort routine.

Here is the new download link...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

[Dale Harris]

I got an email from Tri in Vietnam that this feature is now working fine.

A few more reports from you folks and I will release this thing.

[peewee3ie]

POSABLE BUG

WHEN YOU PARK A SALE. THEN GO BACK TO IT AND THE CUSTMORE WANTS TO PAY FOR IT YOU ENTER IN THE AMOUNT AND PRESS ENTER IT COMES UP AND ASKS YOU DO YOU WHANT TO PARK THE SALE OR RETURN TO IT.


THIS IS SETUP IN NETWORK MODE.

ALSO I CAN EDIT A PARKED SALE FROM THE OTHER TILLS. I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A GOOD THINK BECAUSE YOU COULD HAVE STAFF THAT COULD KNOW SOMEONE THAT GOT THEIR SALE PARKED AND THE STAFF COULD LOWER THE PRICE OR DELELT AN ITEM

[peewee3ie]

SORRY FOR THIS POST AND THE ONE BEFORE THIS TYPED IN CAPS. IT IS MY KEYBOARD.

[ToPS]

Andrew,

just to remind you that only one networked PC at a time should be able to access the parking lot.

Dale,

I was thinking that it might be possible to program in such a way that the "copy" of the sale on the HDD could only be changed by/via the one being "edited".

Saving multiple copies of the same Sale would be of use to us as the hampers/gift packs mentioned in my previous post normally containes the exact same products and it is currently time consuming to re-enter the same set of goods many times.(up to 15 times at a time)

I do understand that such a provision could not be made for 1 DHPOS user only.
It would however be interesting to know if any other users has thought of or are using the parking lot for a similar purpose as it is very usefull for us.
Any suggestion in this regard from anybody would also be appreciated.


POS Greetings

ToPS

[Andrew]

Andrew,

just to remind you that only one networked PC at a time should be able to access the parking lot.

ToPS,

I'm well aware of the 1 PC in the parking lot at once feature - heck, I was around here when we couldn't park any sales.

However that safety measure wouldn't guard against what we're discussing as once you've unparked a sale - you're out of the parking lot.

I was stating that if one terminal unparked a sale, and this "sales remain parked whilst being edited" feature was implemented - someone could easily:
- unpark the sale on another PC (as your PC is now no longer in the parking lot)
- edit the sale before reparking it
- then you park it on your PC

<insert data conflicts here>

[Andrew]

ALSO I CAN EDIT A PARKED SALE FROM THE OTHER TILLS. I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A GOOD THINK BECAUSE YOU COULD HAVE STAFF THAT COULD KNOW SOMEONE THAT GOT THEIR SALE PARKED AND THE STAFF COULD LOWER THE PRICE OR DELELT AN ITEM

Tony,

The ability to park and retrieve sales on networked tills is considered a feature. Many a time when I worked in, or visited a store - something goes wrong with the till, e.g. their EFTPOS terminal isn't working.

With this feature (which was called Store/Recall at the supermarket) you can park a sale on a malfunctioning PC and go to another that is working.

While what you propose is possible, it is easy enough to see from the sales screen what has been done to a sale, and such figures would be visible in the closing dockets and journal.

[Dale Harris]

Sale parking is mostly used in restaurants. As the customer orders more the transaction is updated. At the end of the meal the waitress can recall the sale to print out a sales check. When the customer brings up the sales check to the counter the cashier brings up the sale to have the customer pay.

This would all be very inconvienient if at every step you had to find the computer that originally started the sale to further process the sale to the next step.