THE IDEA
I want to automate start of day for people who aren’t at their restaurant first thing in the morning (ME)
So the premise is simple: Set a time and the work period starts.
Some things to consider
1- The work period must be closed for it to start automatically
2-The computer must be on
3-You can add other actions to the rule too!!
FOR EXAMPLE (I HAVEN’T DONE THIS YET):
I plan to set up a prep list for the day and have that print from the kitchen printer in the morning
4-You can also set up end work period like this too! but all the tickets must be closed before the trigger goes off
Bonus Round
I have also set up a Number that will perform END WORKPERIOD
Useful for days where you aren’t in to close and have someone filling in. You can just tell them enter this number before you leave and it will close the work period
Automating work period work period end has always been discouraged in the past.
It must be remembered that this WILL NOT WORK is any tickets are left open…
That is why I believe it has been discouraged as without the manual action staff might leave something open and then days will merge as they do not have the thought process of checking its closed.
This action was originally added to allow the addition of a command button to end period rather than having to go in to the work periods screen.
1 you cant trust it… if someone leaves ticket open it wont close.
2 It should be a discipline for your workers to close work period and not enforcing this just leads to other laziness or things they will miss.
I am aware of your thoughts regarding auto ending work period but I think what she has set up is just like a pin that they can enter to auto close work period . Only fired after pin so it still does require user input. I think to enhance this feature we could as to the rule to check for open tickets, and I’d there are then it will show a message stating to view and close the tickets before ending work period. In saying that I think it then becomes no different t to how WP is currently setup. With the exception of just notifying user before hand that there are open tickets that need closing in which case a button is pressed which directs them to the open tickets
I saw the trigger and was concerned about this however thats for work period start.
I see that they have just done a user pin specifically for end work period. I would just create some form of confirmation for the work period actually closing and/or a message prompt should there be any open tickets.
Alternativly use the loveley new custom nave screen to create a end work period button…
BTW just so you know triggers will NOT fire if a ticket is open that is how they are designed.
The principle is the same… so if they forget to sign in to that user… wp doesnt get closed… its just added step for them to remember… additionally if they do sign in with that number but a ticket is open… WP doesnt close… it wont warn them it will just not close it they will logout thinking its closed and its not.
A better discipline is to just make them click Close Work period and it will warn if open tickets. I am sorry but this is a very bad practice to try and do this and its my opinion the user method with auto close is even worse your making them manually do something but no assurance its closing WP when they should be clicking Close WP and it properly tells them if there is any issues ensuring it closes.
You do not have to give them Admin to close WP its a simple setting for user settings.
Yea I get the concerns for automating the END WORK PERIOD. I mostly did this to show START OF WORK PERIOD and to include some thing I found interesting as I toyed around. I think setting up user pins to automate actions has a lot of potential.
We also have Application Started event, Screen Change event etc.
I agree there might be potential for something there but what is difference in entering a pin for user login to automate something vs just using automation command requiring a pin? Wouldnt it be better to just create an Automation Command Button and automate it to match an input string via constraint? I mean the effect is you press it then enter required pin and it executes if correct pin is entered. That sounds more realistic vs using a User Login to perform a function.
PS: I am not entirely against automating Work Periods I am trying to stress how important it is to think your process through entirely because 99% of the time automating Work Period starts or Ends will cause major issues eventually that could have been prevented.
Discipline with requiring employee to start or stop WP manually means you have accountability as well. When you automate it then its even harder to know what went wrong and who was responsible when it does.
@emre probably wishes he never allowed that automation It was partly mine and Q’s fault hahaha
As you have said before with the custom nav screen or perhaps a ‘manager entity screen’ it offers an alternative to the actual WP screen. It wasn’t added with the intention for full automation.
So long as people understand that it wont work if there are open tickets.
Perhaps he should have hard coded a message into the action if there are open tickets.
I like that idea of hard coding a message if tickets are open, i use the action to close work period as part of my end of day (cash up) screen. if there are open tickets nothing happens, it would be good if there was a reminder popup to say tickets are still open
is there something we could create such as an ask question that pops up if when trying to end work period there are open tickets? ive not looked into this yet its on the “To Do” list haha
The Actions for Starting and Ending a Workperiod are fantastic. It means we are not locked into a hard-coded Workperiod screen, Instead we have ful control over it. This is the main reason the Action were created. They were not created to be used for Automatic Start/End, though that is possible.
##WP Open or Close [Automation Button] (Widget)## Entity Screen:Workperiods
###Properties (13):###
Widget Type:
Automation Button
Name:
WP Open or Close
X:
315
Y:
0
Height:
150
Width:
465
Zindex:
0
Angle:
0
Scale:
0
Corner Radius:
0
Auto Refresh:
checked
Auto Refresh Interval:
0
Margin:
###Settings (7):###
Button Color:
#00FFFFFF
Caption:
[='{SETTING:ISCURRENTWORKPERIODOPEN}'=='TRUE' ? '' : '']WorkPeriod is[=('{SETTING:ISCURRENTWORKPERIODOPEN}'=='TRUE' ? 'OPEN' : 'CLOSED')][=TN('{REPORT TICKET COUNT:(TS.Status=Unpaid)}')>0 ? 'Cannot Close Workperiod with ' + TN('{REPORT TICKET COUNT:(TS.Status=Unpaid)}') + ' Open TicketsClick here to see Open Tickets' : 'Click here to ' + ('{SETTING:ISCURRENTWORKPERIODOPEN}'=='TRUE' ? 'Close' : 'Open') + ' the WorkPeriod']
So i am able to end my work period with tickets open in the system this is currently how my system is running. I could have multiple tickets open and still be able to end the work period. Is this default behavior? If not how do I not allow the work period to end if tickets are open?
Are you marking tickets as closed before payment accepted for some reason?[quote=“antasp3136, post:19, topic:9406”]
Is this default behavior?
[/quote]
No, default behavior does not allow WP to close if tickets are open. It sounds like your tickets are not actually open.
It was partly mine and Q’s fault hahaha
