Ask Before Creating Ticket - Entity and Department Ticket Types

So I was considering creating a Ticket for Refunds and using Reverse Accounting but realised that your Ticket is related to Department and I would need a new Dept. to create a New Ticket Type “Refund”. The other method is to use the "Set Active Ticket Type Action OR Change Ticket Properties Action to swap Tickets on the fly.
[EDITED: Mixed Dept./Entity reads correct now.]

See Reference:

The issue here is if your Department is not mapped to the altered Ticket Type - some parts of your POS Screen comes up Blank when you return (there are 2-3 Threads with this result).

Anyway I digress but please correct me if I assume wrong with the above summary.

QUESTION: What does Ask Before Creating Ticket actually mean to do?

When experimenting with this → Selecting a Table → then trying to use the show directly below → I get the 2nd screen?

Not sure if this is related BUT even though I have settle off this Table I cannot get rid of the Orange Highlight unless I Log Out and Exit SambaPOS to Windows?

The thing is this Orange Highlight may not be related as I have now switched of the “Ask Before …” and restarted SambaPOS but still get the Orange Indicator? I can cause the symptom by:
Selecting Table → Adding Items to Ticket → CLOSE TICKET (with unpaid items) → Reopen Table → Settle Paid all Items.
This will leave the Table Orange.

If I use the following sequence:
Selecting Table → Adding Items to Ticket → SETTLE TICKET Pay all Items
All is OK.
I have no default State on Tables.
(A Thought for France :pensive:)

You have full control on how colors displayed so if it is orange it is because you configured it to do so. I’ve prepared a diagram to explain relationship between entities, states, entity screens and colors. With your feedback I can improve it to make it more clear.

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I built a very elaborate return system that used full reverse accounting and ticket types with only 1 department. I stopped using it so I never really made a tutorial. I am going to revisit it soon and modify it with advanced v5 features. I probably wont offer a tutorial but I will build a Configuration Task and you can learn from that task once I finish it.

I can say that it is possible to do without requiring multiple departments I have done it. It used original ticket you clicked on items for refund it copied them into a new ticket with new ticket type and reverse transaction for refund.

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Thanks @Jesse - I was trying to study your Implementation yesterday (reverse accounting) as it seems the best solution from all the threads I read. It would be really cool if you get a task up or tutorial as I reckon there would be lots of good stuff to learn in there!

Your Reference:

That is a very useful diagram @emre - thank you.
I am sure lots of other users will get a better understanding of states from the picture as it seems SambaPOS is reaching out past Restaurants.

However, I did not get an answer about: What does Ask Before Creating Ticket actually mean to do?

Also I assume States are persistent after logging out? So why does my Table go from Orange to Clear after I log out. As I mentioned above the Table was fully paid out and the only difference was I put the Ticket aside by using “Close”. Then I reopened the table to Settle the Bill but the Orange did not clear?

I will need to test on my “vanilla” notebook to see if it my setup or not…

[EDIT:]
PS - You might add your image to this original post:

That could be a cache issue. Or you have added some rules thats firing preventing it from updating the cache. It may be loading the screen before the state change happened.

Look at your Update Available Entity Color rule it should look like this:

Yep just tested on my Dev book with little implementations and cannot get the Orange to stick :confused: so must be error my side. Will use the debugger to see what is going on as the Rule is good as above.
Will get back here once I located the error.

Can definitely get the break down of the Tables onto the Ticket Screen still when using the “Ask Before Creating…”.

Ok, really trying hard not to be a clutz about this but it now has me puzzled! Below is the rule debugger output for:

  1. LEFT COLUMN (longest) - Normal: select Table -> Add Item -> Settle Ticket
  2. MIDDLE - Ticket Closing Rules after a Ticket was “Closed” with settlement: select Table -> Add Item -> CLOSE -> Select Same Table (now Orange) -> Settle Ticket
  3. RIGHT - Ticket Close Rules if item was CLOSED and not settled.

I have not played with State Colours and these same rules operate and work as expected i.e. No Orange State on another machine :confounded:. If I exit Samba the Orange State returns to normal?

Not Happy Jan…

Can you pm me a backup?

OK, I am going to reply to myself then :unamused: (Lol). [EDITED - just saw your reply kendash, thanks The Lone Ranger always to the rescue!]

After trolling through rules, actions, states and the debugger - it seems the answer was there was no colour defined for Available State for Entity. The colour was defined as white but this was never edited by me so I guess SambaPOS just had a NULL behind the scenes?

FOUND IT! - the offending button, see @emre I am not going crazy :dizzy_face:
See the picture below: If you use the [X] it leaves the default colour white description but I presume nothing in the database (even though I checked for that).

If the [X] is used, then resetting the Entity Status back to “Available” will be ignored in the Update Colour Action. The reason why my Dev notebook worked is because I probably moved it from “White” and then at some stage moved it back using the drop down selection box.

I know you experienced guys and gals this is insignificant in the scheme of things and you probably have all sorts of colours going on. To me if I think something should work, and it does not, then I need to know if it was me or the system.

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So your saying if you press the X it still shows white but in fact there is no color defined? If so that is something @emre should look at.

Good find btw!

So technically this was a combination of you and the system lol. But the system made it hard to find the mistake. That was a really good find one that probably has been there for a while and nobody knew.

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Ahh, leave me alone, I am quite sensitive at this point in time. Head is a bit sore from banging against the wall haha

Just another for laughs!

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Lol that’s pretty good

I thought you would reply “uncanny resemblance” :laughing: but really … could be some genetic involvement in there somewhere. Nose is not quite right…

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The interesting point is nobody is at the latest evaluation point yet :slight_smile: All of us still learning…

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@pauln this is really amazing. I don’t know how you found it. There is a good reason for that button but I don’t know how I’ll be able to explain :slight_smile:

I’ve implemented that feature while implementing order state colors. Null color means transparent color. For example think order line colors and how it becomes blue when gift status enables… And voiding it makes line color Gray. These happens by default but you can change these colors by defining color for these states.

While gift colors appearing as blue other state colors, (like new, submitted, etc) should not change line color. When you once setup a color for a state (like red for submitted) whatever gift status is order always appears as red (after being submitted) and there was no way to clear that color. That’s why I’ve implemented it. Popup editor incorrectly shows it white. It is actually transparent.

That feature is useful for order line colors but for table button colors it makes no sense as we already define Display State for entity screens… By next version I’ll change transparent color to white (or black depending on theme) while updating button colors.

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