Sub Orders development

[emre]

Hello. I’ll try to implement something to handle sub order related requests. Orders marked with blue are sub orders of Bacon and Tomato.

I’m not developing it to solve a specific request. Instead I’m trying to improve menu, combo, promotion, vb features in general. So hearing some comments in advance will be great.

How would you expect it to work? Can such feature improve your existing implementation? For example if you are using order tags as products (eg. drink selection for a menu) that can be used instead.

I’m planning to have a Set Parent Order action to mark an order as parent. We’ll have another action named as Apply Parent and when executed it will mark selected order as children of the order that marked as parent with Set Parent Order action. However I’ll decide final implementation later. I can skip Apply Parent action and set all orders as sub order that added after Set Parent Order action.

I’ll also decide handling quantity, pricing and tagging features according to your feedbacks.

PS:I’ll try to handle all possible cases but it needs some development so I’ll give priority to most wanted features. If that only solves requests like “modifiers of modifiers”, etc. that might not worth that effort as it can be solved with sorting or similar workarounds.

[pizzaeilat4]

@emre

How would you expect it to work? Can such feature improve your existing implementation? For example if you are using order tags as products (eg. drink selection for a menu) that can be used instead.

I’m not sure what this has to solve? Maybe if we had an example of something that can Not be done with Ordr Tags and how it will solve it.
I’m not sure I understood correctly,
anyway,Using Ordr Tags and Ordr Tags prefixes are the perfect solution for me to handle sub orders
I would be happy if i could choose several prefixes together sometimes it can help.
Greetings

[gsreddy]

Like some other member requested set menu here is a example : A 3 course menu for two people is set for $50.00
that comes with a platter of starters , Any two Main Courses customer will choose from menu, some breads, and a dessert also choose from menu, if u combine all it may comes to $65.00
But what I think is when u select parent product of Set menu the price will come to $50 and can choose maximum two mains, etc i think
2.Combo also kind same i hope at the moment order tags works fine but example: a coke bottle is $3.00 when u add this to order tag and choose coke as a order tag how this will counted in inventory? so this may help

[Hasa]

@emre

Glad to see this in the works. It will solve all my problems if we do it right.

First ill start with my first example.

Order Item 2 Eggs. It comes with choice of breakfast meat, also with choice of breakfast potato, and also choice of toast,

1. I need to tell how the eggs are cooked. (Poached, over easy over medium, runny, poached soft…)

2. Now I need to give the choice of breakfast meat. So Bacon, Ham, Turkey Link, and sausage). For bacon and ham if chosen I need to know if they want it cooked (limp medium crispy or burnt)

3. Now Choice of potatos: (American Fries, Grits, Hash Browns, Tomato Slice, or No Potato) If Hash Browns are chosen I need to know what kind of Gravy they want (Beef Gravy, Cheese, Green Pepper, Onions, Sausage Gravy)

4. Finally for toast: (No Toast, Bagel, Biscuit, Muffin, Rye, Texas Toast, Wheat, White) If Texas Toast or Rye or Wheat or white is chosen, I need to know how it should be prepared (Dry, Light, Xtra butter, Light Butter, Dark)

Solution:
So with the current way it is, i got it all working through order tags but its not as good as if like it to be. Your solution above will make everything perfect for that scenario above.

So basically
1.I would Create a main item named ( 2 Eggs). This main item would have its own modifiers and free tags. So egg doneness would show up,

2. Under the same page show the sub items choices by category. So after the Egg Doneness, We see multiple categories, choose breakfast meat sub item, then choose, Potatos choices subitems, then choose toast choice subitems.

3. So we chose Egg doneness now down to the choice of Breakfast Meat subitems. We have a list of subitems showing the same as order tags would ( Bacon, Ham, Turkey Link, and Sausage). Say the waiter chooses subitem Bacon, then that item should be autoselected and the order tags should come up for bacon (Burnt, Limp, Medium, Crispy).

And Same would go for the rest. We choose our main item then there are subitem choices that can be chosen. The subitem selections should be shown on the same page as the ordertags for the main item 2 eggs so its easy and fast. Then we should have a feature to autoselect subitems if we choose ( so in the situation with bacon doneness above)

Now the most important part for us is how it shows up in the ticket. I need everything to show up in the order that it is in on the screen that they are chosen. So say the waitress chooses breakfast choice of potato which is 3rd in line before breakfast meat which is 2nd it should come out after Breakfast meat even though it was entered before.

Also Let us configure the format that sub items and sub item order tags show in the printed ticket. So mybe like this:

{Order Item}
__{Order Tag}
__{Sub Item 1}
____{Sub Item 1 Order Tag 1}
____{Sub Item 1 Order Tag 2}
__{Sub Item 2}
____{Sub Item 2 Order Tag 1}
____{Sub Item 2 Order Tag 2}

My uncle whom has been a very good cook and restaurant owner for over 12 years deals with a very large and complex menu and complicated people who want to do all sorts of different things. He loved your idea with subitems after I explained to him how we could implament it.

[Hasa]

A few more comments, sorry for all the writing, im just very excited for this.

Regarding the view on the pos screen: I seen your image example above, and I thought that sub items should maybe be a little smaller and tiny bit more indented and a little less space maybe between the rows and maybe a diffirent color for subitems. Im scared that for a menu like ours it can get very big on some orders and it will be so much on the screen. Think about it I will have 3 subitems for 1 main item then plus order tags space. That 4 lines just for one dish.

[emre]

@pizzaeilat4 a use case might be…

We’re giving free coffee for all breakfast items.

When you cancel one item, sub item(s) also gets canceled.

[Hasa]

That’s actually an issue I’m struggling with right now also. Great feature.

[emre]

Another feature…

Kitchen Printout

Printer template

[Hasa]

Great So that is pretty much like I said. If you dont mind asking how long of a wait is this going to be. Im so excited.

@emre

[emre]

@Hasa I don’t want to disappoint you however this not a feature I’ve added to main SambaPOS version. If it is something needed I can think about releasing it. I wanted to see how it can be implemented and for now I can see modules that calculates order prices, discounts, order tag prices, order merging, print out merging should all change to handle sub orders and I’m wondering if it will worth that effort. I still didn’t made my final decision.

[Hasa]

@emre

Oh okay. Well, I dont know about any one else on this forum, but in my personal opinion this has the potential to fill in some or the only gaps that Samba lacks currently. I think you took the perfect approach to it and it would be great. Now as I said before I will definately make use of it for any restaurant I do in my area. Personally I would rather have more features on menu building then credit card integration, phone apps, and online ordering. Although those are all great to have, the menu building features are the main reason restaurants use pos, to save time and money. Just my opinion.

Regardless of your decision, I currently have it working through order tags which is fine but the suborder way would be alot better. Anyways your work with samba will always be appreciated by myself and im sure many others here as you do a great job with every update.

Anyone else in this forum please give your opinion.

Thanks for Sharing @emre

[emre]

Yes I completely agree. SambaPOS lacks something at that area and I’ve decided to improve it. However there are ways to fill that gap. Sub order feature is one of my ideas. I frequently do such experiments by myself and decide something according to my experience. This time I wanted to publish my work to receive some feedbacks about some possible different uses of that feature. I’m not sure if it will be sub orders or something else. Maybe we’ll use sub orders to improve promotions and next to sub orders we’ll implement something completely different for menu building. Maybe we’ll implement nothing and focus on other features people talking about. We’ll see.

[Hasa]

You can count on my advice for anything you release. My experience is a little unique and some of my requests or comments may seem odd compared to others. The reason for that is because here in detroit michigan there are restaurants on every street like never seen before in rural areas. I have dealt with many restuarant owners while running my surveillance systems business and I have seen many different situations.

Anyways, always looking forward to your great work.
@emre

[lautin]

It has been interesting to observe your ideas about Sub Orders development. It is something I have been waiting for in Sambapos. It will be helpful to have the option of offering menu with 2 or more courses. I hope this feature will be available soon.

[Hasa]

@emre hey just wondering if you ended up doing anything with this or did you take another approach? thanks

[Hasa]

Greetings @emre

So after finally doing my first complicated menu setup for a coney island I think its time to revive this topic again.

Let me first give you an example product setup that samba simply cannot handle properly without sub orders.

–Sam’s Breakfast Special–

Comes with 2 eggs (need to know how eggs cooked and if cheese should be added, if cheese added to eggs need to know what kind of cheese)

Comes with also choice of Bacon, Ham, or SSG. (Need to know how they are cooked)

Also come with choice of potato French Fries, Hash Browns, or Grits. If Hash Browns are chosen I need to know how they are cooked and also if they want cheese(need to know what kind of cheese), green, peppers, or onions included). If French Fries are chosen I need to know what if the fries will be plain, with chili, with cheese, or Chili & Cheese.

Also comes with choice of toast. Need to know what kind of toast and also what kind of butter.

Now I know you could say yes we have your previous development of sub order tags that make this possible and I did fully build their menu but its so much more complicated and messy then it has to be. I feel like I am being forced to use order tags for something they weren’t meant to be used for.

If I had sub orders I could simplify this setup so much, where I would then only be using order tags to modify items.

I am begging you to continue development on this #1 for my situation and #2 to make promotions a lot easier to do.

I notice you always want someone to make a point of why you should spend your time on building something on samba and I think I have clearly showed that samba simply cannot handle a complicated (Choice of items included) or promotions setup easily or properly.

[Hasa]

Also another huge problem im having is order tag max. So say you get a choice of ham, bacon, or SSG. Say I set the max to 1 but still want to have the ability to use free tags for that special case scenario. The max limit wont let me add any free tags after I have selected a choice of ham.

[Jesse]

@Hasa

I have clearly showed that samba simply cannot handle a complicated (Choice of items included) or promotions setup easily or properly.

Samba can handle any situation. If it currently cant then we can make it handle it. What Emre does is he looks at longterm support. He wants to add a feature and only need to add it once not having to redo it over and over as new requests come in for different ways to use it.

You say that the menu in Detroit is extraordinarily complex vs anywhere else however I have to disagree the issue may not be the Menu I think the real issue we should look at is how the owner wants it to operate in the POS.

We need to look at your request but it would help us understand better if you showed us what you have tried so far with screenshots and maybe demonstrate what you would like to see.

[Hasa]

Hey @kendash,

I think the issue is that here in detroit there are alot of options and various different deals. Like I mentioned above with my example, I have so many options that I can choose from. Personally I think this sub orders development was such a great idea because it gives me a whole new level of order tags since the toast choice for example will be an actual product and will have its own order tags as vs to toast being a order tag itself.