Parked sales Issue

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ToPS
Parked sales Issue

Post by ToPS » Mon Jul 29, 2013 1:26 pm

Dale,

POS 7.1j - Networked 3 x Sales and 1 x Backoffice PC.

Senario:- Call up a large parked sale, say more than 150 lines, and use the F6 and 3rd option to open another parked sale and then save the first sale.
Save the 2nd parked sale and open the 1st again and it will only have 60 lines in the sale. The total will be for the 60 lines only.

If the F6 and option 2 is used to park the first sale and then F6 again to retrieve another parked sale, everything works fine and all sales are saved correctly.

In other words, if a sale is parked by opening another parked sale, only the first 60 lines are saved.

I hope I'm not the only one with this issue.

ToPS

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brucef2112
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Re: Parked sales Issue

Post by brucef2112 » Wed Jul 31, 2013 3:38 am

I tried testing on my POS. And I also found buggy conditions parking with option number THREE when there were more than 60 lines in a sale. However I couldn't reproduce the exact example that ToPs had. I also had a problem with the config of allowing 60+ line items.
So I came across 2 issues so far.

Testing configuration:
Version 7.1g. (which was suppose to have a fix for a random flipping of 60 to 200 issue of some sort related to lock register password).
No network single register
stock table set to 5k / password needed,
sale recording-Voids set to 10k and allow voids,
Sales History-Z Read set to Yes
Master password set.
Go to after sale set to: NEXT SALE
Set customer info to "Enter Customer information at End of Sale.

ISSUE ONE: POS Config set to 200 really isn't
Before I was able to test ToPs' bug, I discovered a problem with POS not letting me add more than 60 items even though the posconfig showed that it was set for 200 items. (I remember setting it up for this when it became available, however I never had a sale come close to 60 line items so this never became an issue before, until trying it with ToPs example).
Once 60 items were in the sale the POS messaged that "60 items have been entered. No more are alowed!".
I voided the sale and from the main menu went into check the configuration setting for number of sales File Maintenance > Run POSCONFG > Sale Recording-VOIDS.
At the bottom of the screen it showed "MAXIMUM 200 LINES PER SALE". I then hit F1 to run RECONVRT.EXE. It also confirmed the same thing. it displayed "This register is set to 200 lines per sale. Should it be converted to 60?" I chose Quit and returned to the register without making any changes.

After confirming the configuration was set, I tried again but the same thing happened. I then closed the POS.
I downloaded version 7.1j and installed over the 7.1g and tried again. but with the same results.
To get it to accept 60+ line item sales, I use RECONVRT.EXE to convert it down to 60, restart pos and exit. Then run RECONVRT.EXE again and let it convert it up to 200.
I was now able to create 60+ line item sale.

Issue One handled. But there is still something buggy in there that didn't allow my original 60 to 200 change to really do anything even though the config showed that it was set to 200 after reconvrt. I have no info to help track this down because this was done a while ago when 200 line feature first came out and I never had a 60+ sale that would have shown this as a problem.

ISSUE TWO: Crazy things happen when using Park option 3. Park this sale, retrieve parked sale. Like changes aren't saved back to a re-parked sale
Related to ToPs' issue, He starts with saying "Call up a large parked sale....". He never specified the steps used to create the large sale that was referred to as parked. I tried several scenarios with 158 line items but I couldn't reproduce his exact results but I can confirm there is a bug in using option 3 which produces erroneous data on screen when switching between two parked sales using there respective same park number of the original sales.

Using version 7.1j with the same configuration outlined above and after using the reconvrt to set line items to 200, I created 2 sales and parked them using the following steps.

1.Create Sale Number One with 158 line items in sale. Each line item has a quantity of ONE except for 2 line items. Line 100 had a quantity of THREE and line 155 had a quantity of FIVE.
At this point your last item should be on line 158 and just below the Pieces column you should see the Total item count is 164. You should take note of the SUB TOTAL, TAX, AND GRAND TOTAL LINES and jot these numbers down as sale number 1.
(NOTE:If you used PgUp to scroll through the rows in the sale, be sure to page down to so the last row item shows before continuing).

2. Park the sale by hitting F6 > 2. Park this sale, start new sale. > Type "1" and hit [Enter].
At this point it looks like you're ready to start the next sale. But wait! Did you notice that the Line number column isn't starting at number ONE? Take a look. It is still showing the line numbers of the last page of the sale you just parked.
Just to see something strange, Hit the page up key, you see it scrolls up one page but you can't scroll back down again.
Regardless of where you stopped scrolling in the item list, just continue to follow the steps for creating the second sale as shown next. (as soon as you enter the first item on the second sale. the line counter will move to number one on its own if you didn''t manually pageup all the way up.)

3. Create Sale Number Two with 4 line items in sale. Each line item with a quantity of ONE.
(Note: As soon as you enter the first item the line count will move to number one on its own.)
At this point your last item is on line 4 and just below the pieces column you should see the total item count is 4. TAKE NOTE OF THE SUB TOTAL, TAX, AND GRAND TOTAL LINES and jot these down for sale number 2.
4. At this point we are going to park the second sale and pull up the first sale by using option 3 of the PARK menu. It seems odd that it prompts you first for the one you want to pull up before prompting you for a number to save the second. But just follow allong.
So Park the sale by hitting F6 > 3. Park this sale, retrieve parked sale.. Type "1" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to retrieve the first large parked sale). > Then type "2" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to save the small second sale as number 2).

5. At this point you should see the first 10 lines of the large parked sale number 1.
Use the page down key to scroll down to the last page of the transaction so you see the last item in the sale.
Now lets pull up the small sale number 2 again by using option 3 of the PARK menu. (remember, it first prompts for the one you want to retrieve and then asks for a number to save the one on screen to)
So Park the sale by hitting F6 > 3. Park this sale, retrieve parked sale.. Type "2" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to retrieve the number 2 Small parked sale). > Then when ask for a number to save the current big one to, accept the default of "1" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to save the large first sale as number 1 (ie the program knows it was pulled up as parked sale number one so we are just using the same park number to park it again!)

DID ANYTHING HAPPENED?!? At first it looks like you are still at the bottom of the large sale number one. But wait look at the sales totals and Total item count. what looks to be your large sale has some very small tender amount. In fact you'll notice it equals the total of the Small Number 2 sale! Did you also notice that the Total Item Count is some crazy number you never seen when creating Sale1 or Sale2? Mine shows 108. not the 164 or the 4 that I jotted down when creating the parked sales.

Now for something similar but more strange than what you saw it step 2 above. Hit the Page Up key once, it looks like your still scrolling through the large number 1 sale. Continue paging up to view the sale. it seems all the same except for when you scroll up one more time from lines 61 to 70, to lines 51 to 60, the line items disappear! Ohhh my! Also notice that similar to what happen in step 2, you can't scroll back down after any PgUPs. Want to see something to calm your nerves of why you asked for the Small Number 2 sale and aren't seeing it? Continue to PgUp til you get to line 1. THERE IT IS!!!! Your 4 line items from the Small Number 2 sale can now be seen! Now that your at items 1-10, note you can's scroll down anymore 'cause it an't there. But now you understand why the dollar amounts were showing like it is was because it did in fact load the small transaction's dollars and line items BUT BUT WAIT! Did you notice that the Small Number 2 sales transaction's Total item count is showing as 108 and NOT as FOUR? Go ahead, take a quick peek... There is something buggy in there too.

You may be surprised when you see this next buggy use of option 3 of the park menu. On to step SIX!

6. Hopefully you are still following along from above. Where we were looking at Sale number 2 which had the right 4 items listed, the correct prices and totals but the Total Item Count was wrong.
Lets use our PARK option 3 again to park the Small Number 2 Sale again and pull up park Sale Number 1.
So Park the sale by hitting F6 > 3. Park this sale, retrieve parked sale.. Type "1" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to retrieve the first large parked sale). >
Then accept the default of "2" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to save the small second sale back as parked sale number 2).
Now if you scroll up and down the large sale you'll see everything looks great! Line item count, Total item count, dollar amounts, everything check as good.

Do you remember the 2 line items with a quantity(Pieces) greater than 1? Lines 100 and 155. Lets delete these two lines from the large sale. As you do this, note that the item count and dollars are reduced as each line is removed, as they should.
Scroll through the large sale and VOID line 155 (that had a quantity greater than one) by using the F5 Void > 1. Void one line only. > 155 > [ENTER].
Scroll through the large sale and VOID line 100 (that had a quantity greater than one) by using the F5 Void > 1. Void one line only. > 100 > [ENTER].

Jot down the new Total item count (should be 156). ALSO TAKE NOTE of the new SUB TOTAL, TAX, and GRAND TOTAL LINES and jot these numbers down as the new numbers for the large sale.
Now scroll up and down the full list of items. Depending on where in the list you were viewing when you deleted the two rows, You mayl notice that within the rows there are now 2 blank lines somewhere within them. Most likely found after where the deleted rows were. Seems odd, and like a small thing, but lets just continue. if you don't see the two blank rows, worry not just continue on...

7. One more time, use Park option 3 to park the changed large sale as number 1 and pull up the small sale parked as number two.
So Park the sale by hitting F6 > 3. Park this sale, retrieve parked sale.. Type "2" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to retrieve the number 2 Small parked sale).
Then when ask for a number to save the current big one to, accept the default of "1" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to save the large first sale as number 1.


Now that you have re-saved the large sale minus the 2 voided lines and are now looking at the small sale just take a moment to note the Total Item Count is still wrong AND you have to scroll up to lines 1-10 to see the items in the Small Sale1. BUT we already covered that, so lets move on to step 8 below so you can see, that in fact, you only thought you saved the large sale changes above when parking it again!

8. So once again, as we did in step 4 above, we want to see the big sale again, So Park the sale by hitting F6 > 3. Park this sale, retrieve parked sale.. Type "1" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to retrieve the first large parked sale). > Then take the default "2" and hit [Enter] (to tell it to save the small second sale as number 2).

Now get the paper you jotted your numbers down on and look at the second set of numbers you noted AFTER Deleting the two rows. NOW LOOK at the sales numbers and the Total Item count on screen. Like magic, they have reverted back to original higher Total Item Count (of 164) and higher dollar amounts from the sales original creation!
So we now see It didn't really save the changes after voiding the two line items and parked it back again! WOW!!! That's Buggy!!!

For bonus points switch back again to the Small Number 2 sale. Remember the Total Item Count was 108 and not 4. You may think this is just a screen refresh issue and if you add another item to it that the count would correctly show 5. But it doesn't. After adding another item with a pieces count of 1 the Total Item Count increments to 109. and if you use option 3 again to save it, it does save it with the new item added but the Total Item Count continues to be incorrect and will now show 109 the next time you retrieve the small sale using option 3.

OK.... Of the tens of people who read this, there has to be at least one person who made it this far. Will that one person please report back if you are or arn't getting these or similar results with the Park option 3 with sales having more than 60 line items.
Later,
Bruce

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin - Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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brucef2112
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Re: Parked sales Bug when using option 3

Post by brucef2112 » Wed Jul 31, 2013 8:54 am

I did some more testing with a couple of fresh installs of POS. I did this with a version 7.1g and a 7.1j.
The issue with the PARK option 3 is consistent and repeatable with the two fresh installs of POS. And you don't need 60+ items to see it work.
I tested with a sale of 14 line items as the Large sale and 4line items as a small sale.
The results were the same as the original one I outlined with the 158 line items when trying to reproduce ToPs' results using my upgraded version.

With the two fresh installs they didn't have the 60+ limit as I had with my upgraded version. But the Bug in Park with option 3 is there and is consistent.

However there was an issue when populating the stock tables of the fresh installs.
THIS IS A SEPARATE BUG FROM THE CURRENT ISSUE OF PARKED SALES.

I exported my stock table out of my live register using F5.
I then used the CSV to import it into the 2 fresh installs.
After the import I notice the last column (Vendor Stock Number) had been corrupted. In my data some items had a vendor stock# and some didn't.
During the import any record that had a blank Vendor Stock Number, a single double quote was inserted into the field when the records were imported into the stock table.

I inspected my exported.CSV file and it was clean.
Any blank Vendor Stock Numbers contain a set of double quotes after the last comma.
All records with a Vendor Stock Number contained it's respective data wrapped in a set of double quotes after the last comma.
So the bug is with the import process. It sees the the set of double quotes and adds one of them as if its the data for the field.

So now lots of others can test and report back!!!

Testing configuration:
No network, single register
stock table set to 5k / password needed,
sale recording-Voids set to 10k and allow voids,
Sales History-Z Read set to Yes
Master password set.
Go to after sale set to: NEXT SALE
Set customer info to "Enter Customer information at End of Sale.
Later,
Bruce

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin - Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

ToPS

Re: Parked sales Issue

Post by ToPS » Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:53 pm

WOW!!

Bruce, Wonderful that you went to all this trouble - I don't even have time for a tea break and you have time for all that.
Really appreciate the effort.
I feel better now that I am not the only one with a problem.
I can manage mine for the time being but I am concerned.


POS Greetings.

ToPS

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