Prior to updating all my Terminals and server to 5.160 my system was utilising a number of Entity Screens set up to provide details of Hotel Rooms occupied at the Hotel. I use these room entities (and Booking) entities as a mechanism for assigning Bar and Restaurant Bills to Hotel Bookings. It is mostly based the great stuff done by @JTRTech and expanded and developed to suit my business.
The problem has appeared with a 5.160 update. I previously configured the Room entity screen to only display occupied rooms (complete with account information) to the POS users. This prevented mistakes and reduces clutter on the entity screen. This was working fine on previous versions but has now stopped.
The Filter is using an Entity State called Room Status with two states 'âOccupiedâ and âVacantâ. I have checked the States and they are operational i.e. they change the entity colour and display and the display format works fine see grabs below
It makes no difference which state I select in the grab below, nothing changes and all Entities are displayed. Also I have tried both Automatic and Custom Entity screen configurations with the same result.
Yes, I have tried it with all categories of user. Same problem
Its frustrating because it has been working before updating all the terminals to the latest update version.Could the database have been corrupted if one of the terminals was logged on with a previous version. Not saying this happened but my staff donât always follow instructions clearly and someone may have logged on despite my instructions.
OK tried that and the Entity colours and Display Formats all disappeared (as expected) but state filter did nothing. I logged out and restarted in case the cache needed updating but no joy.
The Rooms are predifined entities which i display as a screen for waiters to select room entity which is then mapped to a ticket. At the Settle screen I add a payment type âBooking Signâ which uses Room Status to enable the bill to be transferred to a booking account specifically set up for this room occupant. This is all working fine. Its just the display filter thats fubar.
Ok maybe I am confused then. You said you did not want them showing if they are not occupied? But you do want them showing as Vacant for staff to select room? Are we talking about the same screen?
correct. I have also just tested a custom screen and used an entity screen widget to display the room entities. Even changing the Display filter at âwidget levelâ I cannot get it to work.
I would think my states were not working but the Display of the individual entities updates perfectly i.e.green button when Vacant and yellow button with displayed entity data when occupied.
i think i may have to export all my data, products, transactions and accounts and try rebuild the database.Not really what I want to do as the system is live.
Oh i see what you are saying now sorry. I use the entiies in a couple of different entity screens. The one I display to the waiters I do not wish to show Vacant rooms. I have other screens used by my Reception staff for the purpose of checking in and assigning rooms to arriving guest plus checking out departing guests or transferring them to new rooms. on the Reception screens I display all the rooms.
Its been a while but I wouldnt have used state filter myself as personally prefer for consistant layout which is why my setup uses the âdisableâ option in a custom entity grid widget;
See how vacant rooms are greyed outâŠ
This keeps rooms in same position but just disabled the button.
Not sure if it helps but not sure if you are wanting to hide vacant rooms, disallow selection or whatâŠ
If I remember right its the validation expression option in widget properties.
I beleive your setup was based on the âcurrent bookingsâ system I made for a client. You have two entity screens right? one for charging (like tables) and a seccond screen showing similar room grid which flow into the checkin/checkout etc automation?
Emre. Thank you that seems to have solved the problem. If there are no entities selected I guess the screen automatically displays all the entities of the specified type.I tried putting them in again and it stopped working so will leave them out.
The only problem I now have is that my state display string does not show the account balance as it previously did in the following format string
I have tried with (ACCOUNT TOTAL} and {ACCOUNT BALANCE} and account balance was working yesterday but since removing the entities it does not recognise the expression and just displays
yes. all of the Entity Data is displayed perfectly except the Account Balance. It refers to a booking number which is stored in a custom field which matches a Booking Account. The string seems to find all the other custom fields OK but not the Booking Number.
The booking number is definitely there in the custom field and this was working fine yesterday (and for the last few weeks). I am perplexed.
Account total wouldnt work as you said yourself the account is on the booking entity rather than the room and they are linked through entity data.
I would sugest doing some testing with a show message and breaking down the expression.
Checking the booking number shows as expected.
Trying to hard code the booking number inplace of the entity data tag etc.
Thanks Joe. I sorted it now. As usual I was overcomplicating the expression. Now all good.
I liked your solution for displaying all the rooms and for the Reception staff that check in and check out the Room Guests I do show all the rooms. However for the Restaurant POS I have to ensure I display only the minimum of information to the Waiters because they WILL get confused and do something wrong.
I also have some additional room entities relating to early and late check ins as we sometimes have guest arriving early or leaving late who still wish to charge to their account. I therefore transfer the booking to âholding roomsâ until either the guest gets his room or settles the bill.
I am also developing a booking amendment screen because sometimes guests extend their bookings or maybe change to Half Board etc and the Reception staff need a facility to change that without me having to dive into the entity and change it.
The next stage is to develop a link to a PMS to properly integrate with our booking systems. Time to read up on APIâs and such like I guess.
