So I think right now the main issue is about changing the price…
I’ve been testing ways to change the price, and also how it works within the lifespan of a ticket. Say a ticket is opened and customer buys a drink, ticket is submitted. Then later, customer buys another of same drink again, but now the price is different. I checked and SambaPOS works ok with this (i.e. if I change price within Manage >Products using SambaPOS). However, I also did some experimenting by changing the price in the database, and have found that sometimes it works and sometimes doesn’t. One time I changed price in database, added item to ticket and the new price was used, but then tried again to change price directly on database and it was ignored. Only way I could get SambaPOS to acknowledge the price change was either to go to the Manage > Product (only need to view it, not even save), or actually quit and reopen SambaPOS (logout and login didn’t reflect change). I can’t tell if there is a timed refresh or why it worked one time and not again.
See example below:
So if I am just letting The Drink Exchange handle price updates via database directly (which might end up being the most straightforward way), how can I ensure SambaPOS is using the exact “real-time” price stored on the database when adding a new item to a ticket? Is there an additional “refresh” I can add within the workflow of adding an item to a ticket? I think while ticket is open and items being added is not so important, but at the point of creating / reopening ticket is the important stage where SambaPOS needs to refresh prices from the database, that currently it appears is using some sort of cached price at least some of the time.
Also, my client will just use The Drink Exchange for pricing at certain times on some days, so I think it is best to keep a menu price the same, then let The Drink Exchange update a separate price. I was thinking I can just use a Product Tag in a similar way as showing in this tutorial VIP & Happy Hour (or timed special) Discounts without Triggers. But one thing that I am uncertain about is for storing different prices on products, what is different from using Product Tags or Price Definitions? What is the different features / advantages / disadvantages of each as it appears I could use either?
Saying that though, they have told me their system can also retain a standard price on items and revert back that price when their feature is turned off - so in some point, it might be ok just to go with that but I do also like the fact of retaining the menu price (“original price”) on the POS as well.
@QMcKay yeah you are right Data Export is likely flexible enough to export new tickets to The Drink Exchange, so I will try to find out how they would like the data and I am sure we can do that way.