I have a client who has asked if we can have order tag buttons on the menu alongside product buttons. They say with their current system, it makes adding modifiers to items like coffee much faster and they are concerned with doing the “normal way” in SambaPOS will slow them down at busy times.
This is a screenshot of their existing system, you can see yellow is products and blue buttons are modifiers.
I know this could be implemented with a lot of custom work but I foresee a lot of issues for which I originally told the client it was not possible, but after seeing @emre post about an unrelated issue but saw he had implemented this in a way, which was intriguing that there might be a way to do this as I’m guessing the fact Emre has this must be because someone has requested this too.
I thought it would be good to post this here and share what issues I see, and see if there is any way this could be implemented easier. This is I think about the third time I have been asked this, as some other systems do offer this functionality which is very convenient for fast paced environments like coffee shops.
So the way it works is you first press the product button then every modifier (blue) button you press after it will add that modifier to the product.
In SambaPOS, I would imagine having custom buttons for the order tags, which then use Tag Order action to add the order tag to the selected product. But also, this would be a pain to setup then also making changes later on is not straightforward for the client.
Here are the issues I would foresee:
You would need to “select” the product after it is added to the order, in order for the order tags to be affected to it. This could cause some issues, specifically with other issues I will detail below.
If you use Portions (which this client does, on the coffee products for cup size), when you select the product, it will show the screen with the portions / order tags. Is there a way this can be disabled?
Normally we would of course be mapping order tags to the products. But if you do this, then when you select the product, the order tags will show on screen. Is there a way we can disable this to happen on specific products?
Product would need to remain selected until you add a new product to the ticket, otherwise you couldn’t add multiple order tags to the product.
If you want to edit a previous order, you have to make sure you deselect the currently selected order first then select the order you want to edit. By default, if you select another order when one is selected already, it would multiple select both of them. Is there any way to disable multi selection behaviour?
As an example, this is how we currently have order tags and portions on a coffee product:
Notice how I created 2 custom buttons “Food Notes” & “Coffee Extras”
I am now trying to see if we can get the Order Tag List popup when any of those buttons are selected.
It may not be exactly what the customer is looking for but I remember a very old POS system which implemented a similar design, and if we could get that to work, may be we can use that method as an alternative with your client and see if he likes that idea.
The idea of popup Order Tag came from the tutorial I created
What do you think of the idea?
Just not sure how to Parse Order Tags in an Ask Question scenario as that is the method I am attempting at the moment.
Itd be a bit of work to setup but you could use the custom keypad settings to “create” auto command buttons that you could make for each order tag.
That way the screen essentially looks like the menu is split in 2, products above and the all the modifier buttons below. There will be a clear divide as when using the category numberpad to instead be a custom keypad with auto command buttons you will see the bar where you enter numbers/scan into still above this custom keypad area
In my example below all the buttons at the bottom are custom auto commands using the category keyboard settings, you could probably make these work to each be order tags and when pressed adds the order tag to the order. it would just take a lot of setting up as you can see in the second image what ive had to type in the keyboard settings to create all the buttons and assign the auto command to fire the rule when the button is pressed
So how would it know which tag goes to which order? You would still have to select the order no? I have to say I disagree this would speed anything up and think it’s time we need to educate and demonstrate a better way to do it.
Here is the interesting part, If you dont select an item, it will apply the tag to all items(probably not convenient)
However if you select an item and press that custom button, you can apply the tag specific to that item.
If this works for you, let me know I’ll share my setup.
Only limitation I’m experiencing at the moment is an order tag cannot be pressed multiple times to multiply it. E.g. Press sugar twice to get x2 Sugar. Trying to figure that part out.
The idea I was making would be the order would be selected automatically when you add to ticket, therefore you could press Latte then +Caramel, +2 Sugar and it’s 3 presses for the product. When you press next product, the order selection would deselect and select next order added. As I mentioned, there are a lot of issues with doing that and was mentioning about this to see suggestions.
It is one press less. The part the client didn’t like is if you auto select, you always have to press Close to close the order tag screen.
i think it’s two-fold, on one part it’s people liking what they are used to, and the order for a busy coffee shop, I can imagine it would be a little quicker. But at the same time, when I look at that screenshot I see information overload, just too much on the screen at once. New staff would have to take time to get familiar with the layout to use it effectively. Definitely SambaPOS wins over the ease of use. Although it is true, quite a few POS systems I’ve seen has this sort of functionality for adding modifiers.
Yeah I understand that, I’ve had a few customers who were adamant on 1 particular way of using POS system. Annoying, but I’m like I’ll do what’s possible but bare in mind, not every POS software works the same. I had 3 customers who wanted all items displayed similar to the screenshot above. Even though I told them, wayyyy to many items, they said they are used to it that way. So I said, if that’s what you want ok but if you don’t like it, changing it will cost you.
Hmm yes if order tags are all same for a category items that may work faster. There is no automatic way to do that but you can create a specific coffee menu category that have order tags in the menu. You need to create a custom menu button manually for each order tag selection.
I know how to apply custom button then apply a tag via automation if this is what you did But this would mean that you have to create each individual custom button then create a rule for thst button.
Im just thinking out loud here… what if we could put a column in the edit product properties field for custom product which could either use an order tag value or name to apply order tag or use auto command and rule.
I know auro command is there already. Im just thinking how we could implement it easier then having many rules individual for each order tag custom button
Shivan ive not tested but from my understanding of how it works. You create custom menu items with names of the order tags and you define an automation command to be fired that uses the same order tag name from within the menu editor. Then you can use [:Automation Command Name] for the tag value. So its just one rule and one action.
You could customize it further by adding a command value to menu editor and can reference that in your action and rule as well. Not sure what you would use it for though.
The tedius part is setting up all those custom menu buttons.
That part i understand and know how to implement. I think i wont be using this often but there have definitely been cases where some clients insisted on such setup. The custom button , action and rule isnt the hard part. Its the having to repeat that task over and over for each individual order tag. Imagine if you had 30-40 tags. Thats 30-40 custom buttons, and rules.
I know how to do this mind you. But i must admit, sambapos is built differently and in my opinion better. Therefore if a customer ever suggest or insists on this… i would charge them higher than a normal rate because they insist of using this method.
I was just trying to brain storm ideas and in process i lesrnt 2 new things!
As kendash is trying to say you can feed the tag name into the automation command rule as the command value allowing a single rule to catch all ‘add order tag’ automation commands and add the tag dynamicly using the command value passed from the button.
Sorry for the late reply. Yes we need single rule and action. This is how I’ve configured menu buttons. When clicked it triggers “Beverage Options” command with Order Tag Value as the parameter.
@emre Your solution looks good, but how are you selecting the product you add to the ticket?
Also, if you take a look at the numbered points on my original post, how well does it fit with these, as these are the problems I foresee with doing this. I get that for point 3 I can just not map the order tags to those products, but the other points I see as issues I would need to workaround, unless I am missing something? They currently have portion on the coffee products (see screenshot I posted above). Is the only way around this is removing the portions and creating an order tag to handle upgrade to larger sizes? I think this may be more problematic for inventory?
But this would mean that you have to create each individual custom button then create a rule for thst button.
and in process i lesrnt 2 new things!
