Terminal App - Modifiers & Ticket Numbers

[JohnS]

Emre,

With the Terminal app I have found that the Modifiers work well (including counts), but when you select X, the Modifiers are removed, but the screen is not updated until you close out of Modifiers.

Can we have the Ticket Number show at the top of the screen from when you select New Ticket/Table, not just after selecting an existing Table. What this gives us is the ability to take orders in a queue, and issue ticket numbers to customers, so when they reach the counter the order has already been taken which saves time, or if you plan for these rushes, have the orders processed and ready for the customer to collect & pay at the counter when you call out the ticket number.

[emre]

Hello. I've uploaded 2.88a for SQL CE Upgrade fix and that will fix that X button issue too.

I don't think creating a new ticket number before saving a ticket will be possible. Maintaining unique ticket numbers across network has some limitations. When we request a new ticket number we should use it. If user exits without creating a ticket that will waste that number.

Maybe we can do the same thing with that little trick.
http://forum2.sambapos.org/index.php/topic,97.msg671.html#msg671
This is about printing the counter but it will display that number as a ticket tag too.

[JohnS]

Hello. I've uploaded 2.88a for SQL CE Upgrade fix and that will fix that X button issue too.

Thank you.

I don't think creating a new ticket number before saving a ticket will be possible. Maintaining unique ticket numbers across network has some limitations. When we request a new ticket number we should use it. If user exits without creating a ticket that will waste that number.

Using a Pole Display is wasting numbers then. Every time the Pole Display updates it increments the Ticket Number. Order Number is unaffected. This must be due to the fact the Pole Display uses print jobs to display info.

Maybe we can do the same thing with that little trick.
http://forum2.sambapos.org/index.php/topic,97.msg671.html#msg671
This is about printing the counter but it will display that number as a ticket tag too.

Could just print the Bill too. My logic was more like you have a queue of people and you can walk along the line taking orders, then the customer pays when collecting the order.

[emre]

Using a Pole Display is wasting numbers then. Every time the Pole Display updates it increments the Ticket Number. Order Number is unaffected. This must be due to the fact the Pole Display uses print jobs to display info.

Every print job execution shouldn't increase ticket number. I have to check and correct this behavior. Most probably there is a bug.

Could just print the Bill too. My logic was more like you have a queue of people and you can walk along the line taking orders, then the customer pays when collecting the order.

Yes I think this is a great idea. I just wanted to give an example about creating a global counter that daily resets. While creating a new ticket we'll see this number under ticket so instead of printing we can just tell the customer their order number. This is what we can't do with ticket numbers. Yes I can assign a ticket number as soon as we create a new ticket and that will make lots of things easier for me because I need to check everywhere if there is a ticket number or not. This time I'll only assign it on ticket creation and forget the rest. But I'll prefer using tags instead. I know there will be a problem with finding tickets by its order tag but maybe we can find a great solution for this.

[JohnS]

Every print job execution shouldn't increase ticket number. I have to check and correct this behavior. Most probably there is a bug.

it only happens on my terminal that runs the pole display, and the pole display rules have a condition to only execute if it's POS02, so they do not execute on any other terminal. So I believe it's related directly to the pole display scripts.

While creating a new ticket we'll see this number under ticket so instead of printing we can just tell the customer their order number.

Wow. Most of our customers can't remember what to order, let alone an order number
I think if you plan on using this method like I descibed, then a wireless portable printer may be the best solution.

[emre]

Wow. Most of our customers can't remember what to order, let alone an order number
I think if you plan on using this method like I descibed, then a wireless portable printer may be the best solution.

Umm I think I'm missing another great idea here. By displaying the ticket number while creating a ticket I thought you planned telling customer their ticket number. What was your intention with "issuing ticket numbers to customers" ?

Some restaurants prints order numbers and displays completed orders on big displays. Since customers does not wait on queue for their orders there won't be a long queue.
I think taking orders while customer in queue and trying to prepare it until customer reaches to till is something different. We should work on this idea. Can't we do it without using printers? For example using pre-printed order cards and entering that number (or scanning a barcode) while receiving the order might be an alternative.

[JohnS]

Umm I think I'm missing another great idea here. By displaying the ticket number while creating a ticket I thought you planned telling customer their ticket number. What was your intention with "issuing ticket numbers to customers" ?

When you take the customers order, you give them a card with the order number written on it.
You can either tell them to wait for the number to be called out, then collect and pay. Or when they get to the counter, give the operator the card and the operator pulls up the order, grabs the items, and collects the money.
This solely depends on your type of business, but is mostly fast food oriented. This helps with busy periods as you can prepare more food based on the orders, without too much extra delay.

[jenem]

Our local morrisons gives a laminated card with a number when you pay. The number is displayed clearly on a table. When a order is delivered the card is  collected and then reused for another customer.

[JohnS]

Edgar,

You just described the other scenario I was thinking of

That may help with my first scenario. We could do the same thing with the customers in the line. Because both our ideas deal with a lack of table numbers, we need another way to adapt to the way business is done.

Now I thought of ticket tags for recording the numbers (similar idea as Emre's daily order number tickets) and that works for calling out numbers or to find a number on a table.

But how do we call up an order given that number. SambaPOS uses ticket numbers, tables or customer names. Is there a way of also showing a ticket tag on open tickets? The only reference we have is if we print the number on the kitchen/receipt ticket, then we can back reference to the open ticket in POS, but this still doesn't help when a customer gives us a daily order number. You can't go looking thru open tickets - not very practical.

Hang on, why can't we use table numbers. They don't have to be physical tables, but virtual ones - after all it is only a number. You will either use designated table numbers (restaurant) or assign them like Edgar (cafe). We can do the same with taking orders in a queue, and once the order has been fulfilled we recycle the numbers.

Edgar, will that work for you?

[emre]

OK. So it is time to try another SambaPOS feature called "default ticket tags".

Create a new ticket tag called "Order" and fill it with sub-tags from 1 to 30. Assign it to a department and on department settings select "Terminal Default Ticket Tag" as "Order" and leave "Terminal Table View" empty. Now while using terminal application clicking "New Ticket" button will ask for a tag and if there is an open ticket assigned to tag it will be displayed as red.

If we assign same tag as default ticket tag for POS:
- On fast food screen clicking "Order" button will display buttons for tags and clicking a unused tag will automatically create a new ticket with that tag number.
- If there is no department type selected tag view becomes the default view.

[JohnS]

So you are one step ahead of us on this one.

Well done 


OK, so whats with the B & M buttons on the numerator ?

[emre]

I configured B,M buttons from "Alphanumeric numerator value" category setting. This is a comma separated value for each button and useful for typing table numbers or ticket numbers through touch screen. These can be single letters of prefixes like "T-" for typing formatted ticket numbers.

[JohnS]

Sweet - that's clever. What's the Numerator Value for?

[emre]

We use it for configuring small sized numerator buttons. As I can remember default value is 1,2,3,4,5 if we leave it empty.

[emre]

FYI: I've uploaded 2.88b for fixing ticket number increase while using pole displays. Thanks.