Playing With V3 alpha

[emre]

Finally I've succeeded on creating tickets with V3

I finished infrastructural improvements and from now on we can continue its development together. So I've published it for friends who wants to help us on V3 development by testing or coding.

Please keep in mind this is only an alpha release and there are lots of bugs.
Do not use alpha releases on production environments.

What's New?
* Accounting module: On V3 Customers are accounts.
* Order Tags: Replaces V2 Gift and Void buttons. We'll use it for modifiers too.
* Calculation Templates: V2 service templates. This one supports discounts too. If button header given it will add buttons to Payment screen. It also contains account mappings.
* Payment Templates: Payment Buttons and account mappings.
* Ticket Templates: Account mappings of tickets and other mapping features.

Known Issues:
* Validations not finished for new modules so do not delete used records.
* Reports may create wrong results.
* Some reports won't work.
* Some features won't work
* Alpha releases won't upgrade database so you'll loose past data on next alpha releases.

Basic Roadmap:
* First of all I'll translate all V3 issues to English on Github website and we'll continue development through github issues. So new features, bug fixes will become trackable.
* Some V2 features does not exists on V3. We'll implement all missing features.
* We'll hunt bugs for a stable V3
* We'll migrate translations from V2 and update missing strings.
* We'll create migration application from V2
* Continue development of new V3 features.

What do I need ?
I released it only for demonstrating new features. I'm still making infrastructural changes. For now you can evaluate new features for getting familiar with them and share your thoughts on how can we benefit from new features. I'll release new alpha soon.

That's all for now. I'll add more information as asked...

https://github.com/emreeren/SambaPOS-3/downloads

[JohnS]

Emre,

Congratulations on the Alpha milestone.

Well done to all the SambaPOS Team.

[emre]

Thank you John..

I forgot to say something. You'll notice we've abstracted lots of features and their names are also abstract too. For example you'll create a "calculation template" for adding a "discount button" or a "tip button" to payment screen. Or you'll define a "default target account" while creating a "account transaction template"

I also need your ideas for better naming of these abstract features.

[JohnS]

Emre,

Very nice - I've spent the last hour playing with V3, and like it - A LOT.

As far as the feature names go, they do make sense to me.
But then again I'm use to the way you think and the way you associate and link features. I think this needs to be revisited towards the end of Beta. New people to SambaPOS may struggle a little with the concepts and structure until they become familiar with it, but that has been the same with V2 - its a learning curve until you start to understand it.

As I spend more time testing V3, I may have better naming conventions.

[jenem]

Hi Emre,

Thank you for the V3 Alpha.

I have been playing around with the software and I realise it is a alpha, but I cannot figure out how modifers now work. Is it to do with Ticket template's/tags. If the option is not ready, apologies.

I have tried to use ticket tag but have been unsuccessful.

Edgar

John, Could you create a sticky for V3 feedback/problems please?

[JohnS]

Edgar,

Modifiers are now dealt with by Tickets -> Order Tag Templates & Order Tags.
You can then assign an Order Tag Template to an item in Products -> Menu List -> Menu Name -> Sub Menu -> Edit Product Properties.
Then add the Order Tag to the Ticket Tag Template.

I have been playing again tonight, and while its been fun, it is still very Alpha and does have bugs, but it does give a clear idea of the workflow and the changes/improvements.


Emre,

Because you can(will) have multiple departments, you may have the same product in two departments, and only one department may use the Order Tag for the product, I think that maybe Order Tags & Order Tag Templates should be selected in the Product Properties of the Menu for the department.

After a lot more playing I got it - no, seriously, I mean I got the logic and its cool.

[emre]

Hello John & Jenem. If you want you can submit bugs at https://github.com/emreeren/SambaPOS-3/issues.

There might be a little confusion between using forum and the issue tracker. Let me describe it a little. Issue tracker is something like a todo list created by community for development team (developers, testers, contributors, etc..)

We'll talk about general features and unreproducible bugs that needs to be talked on forum. We'll extract tasks from what we talked here and create issues at github. Reproducible bugs and simple feature requests may directly created there. So you'll know what we are working on, have an idea about upcoming features and you can track completed tasks. You can also add your comments for your ideas about tasks.

For now you'll see some issues in Turkish. I decided to continue development in English so I'll translate them as needed.

[emre]

Emre,

I'm not sure if Order Tag Templates are a needed mandatory step for modifiers - I think it should be parallel to the Order Tag workflow.
Because you can(will) have multiple departments, you may have the same product in two departments, and only one department may use the Order Tag for the product, I believe that Order Tags & Order Tag Templates should be selected in the Product Properties of the Menu for the department.

So maybe we need
- Order Tags - currently Order Tag Group
          - Add ability to map to Products for global product tagging
- Order Tag Groups - currently Order Tag Template
          - Add ability to map to Products for global product tagging

Having the Order Tag Template field in the Menu Product Properties would be used for both Order Tags & Order Tag Groups. 
I do see where your coming from with the Order Tag Template, but it is a lot of double entry.

We'll use Order tag templates for defining default order tags that will be automatically selected on adding a ticket line (V2 menu item parameters feature). It will be useful for creating menus or combos. To be able to use order tags creating an order tag template is not needed. You'll enable order tags in "Ticket Template".

[JohnS]

Yep. Realized that after I had posted - so I removed that bit from the post so as not to confuse people.

I love it - The logic actually makes sense when you see it   

[JohnS]

Because you can(will) have multiple departments, you may have the same product in two departments, and only one department may use the Order Tag for the product, I think that maybe Order Tags & Order Tag Templates should be selected in the Product Properties of the Menu for the department.

After a lot more playing I got it - no, seriously, I mean I got the logic and its cool.

Maybe just add Menu Name to the Order Tag Mapping to make tags specific to a product or group within a selected menu.

[emre]

John doesn't creating additional ticket templates solves that problem?

[jenem]

Hi John,

No, I tried to create modifiers but was unsuccessful. Button would show on screen but greyed out. When I tried to play around programme would throw exception when deleting order tags.

One thing missing from modifiers which is available on V2 is modifier count.

Emre,

 program had had some exception and has sent reports backed to you

Edgar

[JohnS]

Edgar,

Have a look at the screen shots below.
You just need to create a Order Tag, and then add it to the Ticket Template. Restart SambaPOS.

[JohnS]

John doesn't creating additional ticket templates solves that problem?

How do we use additional Ticket Templates?

[emre]

John doesn't creating additional ticket templates solves that problem?

How do we use additional Ticket Templates?

Create a new one from Tickets > Ticket Templates (for example Bar Ticket Template) and assign it to a department (for example Bar department).

PS: While writing this I thought something. You can also try creating a new sales account (for example bar sales) and assigning it to the bar ticket template. It may solve your cross department sales issue WPE report might show old values but account totals should be what you need.

PS2: While writing it I've got an idea again. You can also create multiple cash accounts for each department and assign them to related ticket templates with new payment buttons. That should separate department cash totals too.

A customisable account summary report will be very useful...




Edit: Sorry after reading your question again I realized I misunderstood it.. Ticket templates will be useful for sharing ticket settings on multiple departments. If we need different settings for a department (for example disabling pizza order tags or disabling gift order tag for delivery department) we'll create new ticket templates. On further releases we'll have more transaction screens other than tickets. This separation especially will be useful there.