I’ve been working on SambaPOS3 for a while now and have almost reached the point where the system is functioning in a manner that mirrors our current POS system.
The restaurant in question is a very fast-turnover noodle bar, so my setup is two departments (Eat In/Take Out) using two ticket types (Eat In Tickets/Take Out Tickets) and no entities of any kind - I made use of a post by emre here on how to generate a daily counter each day and include it on the printouts. My printer templates are the same regardless of Eat In/Take Out, I simply include the {DEPARTMENT} formatting tag on all printouts to distinguish between order types. All of my printouts are generated after the customer has completed payment.
I’d like to achieve a couple of things with Automation Commands if possible:
Create an automation command that can toggle between the two departments - I know there are department buttons in the footer, however a larger button would be more convenient for staff. If I could change the colour of the button based on department, even better.
Create an automation command that can park the current ticket if the customer is unable to complete the transaction straight away. I understand this is difficult/impossible(?) without having the order attached to an entity, but I wondered if there were any other way around - say perhaps change it to a third ticket type called “parked” and then create a new ticket ready for the next transaction. I could then go back to the parked ticket via the tickets screen. Is something like that possible?
Ive never used V3 and most people in this forum havent so you might struggle for specific answers, however ill try and answer based and what ive read about V3
Im pretty sure you cannot automate changing departments, im fairly certain there isnt an action for changing departments and without that you cant create an automation button to do this (i dont even think that action exists in V4 or V5, someone will jump in here if im wrong)
In V4 and V5 tickets can be closed when either an entity is attached to the ticket OR a ticket tag. Im not sure if you have the ticket tag action in V3, and if you do i dont know if it acts the same way as in V4 and V5 and allows the ticket to be closed, this may have been a V4 update
Have a look if you have an add ticket tag action and try adding one and see if it will let you close. You can then create a parked sale screen where you can select and reopen any parked sale. However you would have to clear them daily as you cant close a work period with open ticket. In V4 there is a preorder ticket type that will allow work period to close when open tickets have been changed to preorders
Have a search for a tutorial i did its called something like Ricks Tutorial 6 - bar tab, i cant remember the exact name but search the forum for ricks tutorials and my bar tab setup i use for bar tab and for parked sales (i have two setup, bar and retail) the process is the same for both and uses ticket tags to enter the customer name (or whatever you want) so ticket can be closed
I would strongly recommend when possible you upgrade to V4, in fact V5 should be out this month and being two versions ahead of V3 has loads more features and would make what you want to achieve much easier (or possible as im not sure these features you want are in V3)
Hi RickH thanks for the quick reply. I probably should have said I’m using v3 for the language translation ability and to help me get to grips with SambaPOS generally - I await v5 with bated breath!
I can probably forego the automation command for switching departments as there are at least buttons available to doing so. The parked ticket is of greater concern, I found your tutorial Rick’s Tutorial 8 - Bar Tab & Parked Sales Setup and you appear to have implemented it by changing the ticket status, a part of the software I haven’t looked into yet.
I’ve created an automation command and used a rule to connect that command to an action which adjusts the status to “suspended”, but this may be where v3 hits its limitation. I’ve tried adding an additional command to close the ticket with no success, and to simply create a new ticket, but no luck either. Can you think of anything I might by chance be missing?
My backup plan if all else fails is to create an automation command that prints a “parked receipt” for the cashier to keep as reference if they need to type it back in again, but to do this I still need a way to cancel the current ticket and create a new one.
Entities defiantly works for this scenario, could you not create a new entity type of PARKED TICKETS give them numbers like tables and continue as you said, printing a ticket with the PARKED entity number on it.
You could force a separate template to print at till with a more basic PARKED template, maybe simple like the kitchen ticket with a dotted line to write the customer name so would be pretty much you second workflow but without the need to cancel and ring back in.
Apologies for the late reply - I’m now the proud father of 7 day old twins - they can keep you busy for sure!
Just wanted to confirm that applying a ticket tag allows me to close the ticket and create a new one in its place - this is perfect for my scenario where staff may need to temporarily move to another customer and then come back to a previous order. It means going through any leftover suspended sales at the end of the day and voiding them before you can end the work period, but that’s not a big hassle for us!
Yes, a ticket tag will allow you to close the ticket in the same way as if entity was selected, but obviously recalling it is a bit trickier without using entity screen etc.
I use ticket tag to allow multiple users to use a tingle till, tag with username and logs ticket it in program setting when closing so second person can use the till then when the first one logs back in it reopens the ‘held’ ticket.
You could look to to create an admin mapped button with actions to select all orders and action to void to speed up this process. Probably another even easier option out there.
