Going Live with Tablets Tomorrow

Well tomorrow we are finally going live with our RDP iPads at the Redesdale. The main hotel where my day job is… :grimacing:
This will be a real test of the setup. We have similar at Horse & Groom already but it’s no where as busy as Redesdale.
RDP route has been taken for a few reasons two main ones being my preference over Windows tablet where loss of connection etc doesn’t result in lost unsaved data as RDP just resumes from where it was before given host PC being hardwired.
Other that we have allot of order added automation and custom commands which make it easier to have full samba vs Android app etc.
50% excited 50% ancious
Will report back next week with results.
Also next week is Cheltenham Gold Cup horse races meaning we have a full hotel for whole week and will be extra busy. One of the busiest weeks of the year. So they will get a pretty thorough testing off the bat LOL.

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Wish you a good luck!
I use a similar setup (server PC at bar, kitchen and back office PC’s, 3 printers + one portable and 3 RDP android phones connected to the bar pc) for the same reasons - no data lost in case of a connection error, automation required during order taking and (!) full samba experience for ticket settlement with a printer at your waist :slight_smile:
We have some very busy days during summer and we had no issues.

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The setup there is;

Headless Server, runs SQL, message server and my PMS integration scripts.

2 fixed terminals in the bar with receipt printers

2 tablets (iPads with RDP to headless PC(s) in network cupboard with server)

2 kitchen printers, hot and cold side of kitchen on network.

1 coffee/tablet receipt printer in still room on network

Kitchen orders from terminal or tablet print to both kitchen printers.
Drinks orders on tablet or for specific tables (restaurant) if rung in on fixed till print to the Receipt printer of EPOS2 till. (No drinks to be taken to table without drinks order)
Coffee orders from any device print to the still room network printer.
Receipts for tablets print to still room printer.
Additional prints for automatic kitchen notifications such as table changes if a ticket contains a food item are printed to the pass/hot kitchen printer.
Manual messages can be sent from any device to kitchen printer, have several default pre written messages for mains away etc and option for a manual message using [?prompt]
Ternary expressions on template highlight room service orders based on there being a room entity but no table entity.

Only thing I need to sort tonight is the second user pin automation for login on tablet as staff use RFIDs on tills obviously not compatible with tablets.

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Good luck!

Looking forward to hearing back how it went.

Will you be using RDP wrapper or will you be running Windows Server?

If I’m honest I’ve started off with a multi session patch. If I get any issues I can soon drop a seccond usff dell in the cupboard and have PC per tablet as buy those small dells in job lots and use them for till terminals, CCTV monitors, PBX server, office PC’s the lot.

In which case I would assume you would use Windows 10 pro or the version that allows you to have a single RDP connection yeah?

My image for those dells is win 7 pro as that’s the COA they came with. But yer, if issues single RDP per PC, I buy them for arround 50-60£ so cheaper than server licence etc.

I just did 11 tablets and 3 terminals setup successfully. Please let me know if you need any help anytime.

PM me if you want me whats app number for quicker communication.

I’m tired if cooking tonight. It was busy. You come cook I’ll hook computers up.

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Man, thats a really complex setup. I hope you nail it first time around! :smiley:

How do you plan on solving this? I am about to start something similar and have thought about this numerous times.
My client thought of using a custom made leather pouches. So RFID reader is always with the tablet. I am not entirely sure if that would work in practice.

I had discussed using the password field and emre had given a snippet of script to hash and validate a value against password field but struggled to get it working.
My plan as a solution for now without entity or other more extensive solution is I’m just going to add a main menu button for ‘set my tablet pin’ and save from prompt a global program setting and validate via SQL from failed login attempt to then check setting pins. Will do for now and will also be able to couple that with my custom confirm admin pin flow and extend that to also use the tablet pins when checking role etc.

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So went live, although not with the new menu as planned due to a chef calling in sick.
Few issues with printers, working to iron out these.
Since updating from 1.60 have been having numwrious lagg issues. Even with is closed constraint on entity state expressions and automation command header expressions.
Removing them sped up general use allot :-/
Contimplating duplicating database and clearing history. At 250k tickets it must be a factor.

Clearing history from experience has always helped increase samba performance.

Not sure why but when database reaches close to 250k, for some abnormal reason, it begins to really slow down even though you have a pretty good server specced system.

I wonder if it the limiation of SQL express.

Issues with printers seem to have settled.
Origionally had the network printers setup locally on each terminal but kept getting issues with failed prints in que.
Have not just got setup as shared printers on server and set printer names to \EPOS-SERVER\sharename and seems to have stableised, no issues for 24hrs. Will see how it goes.

I recently purchased 2 printers from my hardware partner and they have worked rock solid. Decent price too. The price rivals the cheap Chinese printers I used to buy.

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