I have greatly benefited from this forum though am a new Samba user.
I have searched for this report and no on seem to be using it.
Is there a way i can pre-select some inventory items and have a printable report showing item name, cost, qty and total?
You need to apply a filter to your report. The simplest way would be to manually filter the items by editing the report template. You could also likely do something with entity screens if youâre looking for user input to dictate the items.
Can you explain what youâre trying to do in better detail?
Thanks for the reply.
What am trying to achieve is have a kind of shopping list.
I have an inventory report that gives me all the items, what i need is a way i can select just the items i need and print out.
I guess filters can work but i have no report that has them, possible you point me to one?
What defines what you need and donât need? Are you using the inventory tracking feature via recipes? If you have a long list and you want to delete out what you donât need it might be easiest to use data export and modify your list in Excel. If you donât have a systematic way of deciding this then youâll always be modifying your report.
Filtering
Data Export
You could always go low tech and just line out your items with a marker 
I think something can be made up to select items, enter a quantity (to be purchased) and add them to a temporary list to be printed. Is that something along the lines you were thinking of?
SambaPOS does not have something built it natively to make a Purchase Order and receive items against the Purchase Order. That has been discussed many times and it sounds like a major undertaking to accomplish.
Thatâs what am looking, just select some items, enter qty and print.
Yes, i understand a full purchase order is not achievable at this point in Samba.
As @Bob_be has indicated, this isnât something that is available natively. This is likely because most businesses donât handle spreadsheet/list creation within their POS. If youâre using Samba to manage inventory consumption you could easily build a daily report for checking inventory which would provide you an idea of what you need to purchase including (item, quantity (based on your pars), and total costs. If not youâre likely wasting time with trying to combine POS software with word/spreadsheet processing.
Check outâŠ
This is what I came up with. Is this something that you think would work?
Some things this does lack is the ability to sort items and edit items. Once an item is added, there is not going back. (The list is being loaded and added to program settings (sorta like computer memory).) Also, when SambaPOS is shut down, the list will be lost.
A few things I thought would be a nice feature would be to sort the inventory list (left side of the screen) by shopping category (or isle). I think this could be added using Inventory Tags. Since we canât sort the shopping list once created, we can sort the inventory by shopping category and add items as you scroll through the inventory list. Just a thought.
Also, we can add 2 fields to the bottom of the shopping list, to manually add items to the shopping list (items not in inventory)
The hieroglyphics across the top, is my experimenting with printing, itâs just temporary. I havenât tested printing the shopping list on a printer yet, I should be able to test in the next few days when I get back to the office. The process I am using is creating 2 different listsâŠone for printing and another to display on the screen.
A few questions I haveâŠ
1.) Does your printer support HTML printing?
2.) Are you wanting to print on receipt printer?
3.) Do you have vendors setup in SambaPOS? If so, how do you have them setup? Not a big deal if you donât.
4.) The shopping list can be setup to be Local or Global?*
* I have not tested across a network, but Iâm sure it is possible.
5.) Do you have any other thoughts/ideas to add or not have?
Bob_be, i have gone through your method and thatâs what i was looking for, and am very sure will sort several other people having difficulties coming up with a âPurchase listâ from Samba.
The only thing am missing is the item cost.
To answer you;
Your method is quite straight forward, like i said we only need to add the cost of the items and department or item group. In most cases the shopping list is used to come up with a budget, its not a typical LPO that i would sent to vendors.
I can send a dump from my end if you need to check my setups.
Happy Holidays!
Great idea! I didnât think of that!
That will not be necessary. This is pretty straight forward. When I get it done, I think I will post it in the tutorials section (I think would be useful for some people). It is going to take be about a week to do a little more testing and write the tutorial (I tend to get a little wordy when writing tutorials. 
)
Hey @Bob_be, just curious what widget are you using to produce the item report? Is that a custom report viewer with a pivot table report?
This is a little outside of my area since we donât use inventory tracking, but it might be nice to make recommendations on items based on current inventory and pars. Such as a left column with an indicator.
I would probably explore using a Task Editor for it and making the list tasks you can check off.
You can definently sort the items using some string manipulation with split/join. You would just want to store the raw list in a variable as a comma separated and then have another one for the print/display formatting).
Close, itâs called Table View, yes Iâm using a Custom Report Viewer. Not sure if Table View a younger sibling of Pivot Table or an equal. I guess it depends on the needs. They each of their strengths. For me, Table View is a little more straight forward to use.
Where a normal report table starts with:
[Report Name...]
and a Pivot Table uses:
[!Report Name...]*
a Table View starts with:
[#Report Name...]*
*The report will need to be saved first before being able to view the results.
You can also do some pretty cool things with Table Views. Like Grouping (pivot tables does this also) and conditional formatting. I havenât worked with Pivot Tables allot.
This is a quick screen shot of our reservation screen. The 2 rows that are colored green is a condition where a deposit was paid. The ! icon next to Kenideeâs name is an indication that a note is written for the party. The last name has not coloring or icon, indicating that no deposit has been paid and there is no note with the party. If/when a deposit is paid for Robinâs party, the line will automatically turn green. I also have it setup when a party is checked in the line with turn blue. (most of these features I took from the default Reservation setup in SambaPOS).
I just started playing with pivot view, didnât know about table view. Seems like I learn something knew all the time (which is one of the reasons I like to post on the forum). BTW here is an example of sorting your variable based on a script call.
You could probably join this into one script by using and as your split, but I just left it simple for now.
// Sort comma delimited string ASC
function sort_items(items) {
var list=items.split(",");
for (var j = 0; j < list.length - 1; j++) {
for (var i = 0, swapping; i < list.length - 1; i++) {
if (list[i]> list[i + 1]) {
swapping = list[i + 1];
list[i + 1] = list[i];
list[i] = swapping;
}
}
}
return list.join();
}
// Format string for display or printing
function format_items(list) {
var items=list.split(",");
var items_formatted="<tr><td>Quantity</td><td>Item</td><td>Total Cost</td></tr>";
var items_detail="";
for (i=0; i < items.length; i++) {
items_detail = items[i].split("~");
items_formatted+="<tr><td>"+items_detail[1]+"</td><td>"+items_detail[0]+"</td><td>"+(items_detail[2]*items_detail[1])+"</td></tr>";
}
return items_formatted;
}
It sounds like he just wants a simple make a list quick and print. (I can understand that thinking.) I know allot can be done with scriptsâŠI just have Zero knowledge about scripts. I think if I went that route, I would use Tasks as @Jesse suggested. (Then I could use another Table View! )
@Jesse, since the pandemic started, I am guessing allot priorities got shifted around at Head Quarters. Was there any talk about integrating any type of Purchase Order?
You can actually do much more with table view. You can pass selected cell data to settings and read them in widgets and other functions.
I did some testing on a printer and kept getting an error message. I suspected that was going to happen. I had a same issue before when I was developing something that used a receipt printer for a non-standard receipt.
Not a big deal, just have to resort to Plan B, as Jesse suggested, using Tasks. Iâm on the fence on whether to use Task Editor or another Table View. They both have their strengths and weakness. (adding items would be the same)
================================================================
Could look something like this:
| Strengths | Weakness |
|---|---|
| - Already built in automation (to remove items) | - Fields are not uniformly separated |
| - Selection multiple all items easy | - Unable to sort columns |
| - Easy undo an action | - Printing limited to designed report |
================================================================
Could look something like this:
:
| Strengths | Weakness |
|---|---|
| - Fields are in columns (easier to read) | - Automation has to be built to remove items. |
| - Columns can be sorted by clicking on them | - Can only select 1 item at a time (as far as I know) or all items can be removed through built automation |
| - Printing the current, adjusted, report view possible |
================================================================
I thought I would take a poll of the community to see what they would prefer. This poll is open to anybodyâŠNew member, experienced members even if you donât think you would use this. I may have missed some strengths and weakness, be sure to read other posts below before voting.
This poll will run until the end of the year. Thank you for your contribution!
0 voters
Sorry @Mchuna , I think I stolen your topic.
Bob_be, i appreciate your efforts.Just like you am completely torn between the two after going through your pros and cons of each.From what i have seen recently, table views are proffered and most probably is due to the ability to sort and printing capabilities.I must confess i have not looked at them much.
So, ill take the first scoop on this and vote Table view with the hope that building the Automatons would not take alot of your time.
Again, thank you for documenting all this.
I have posted the shopping list tutorial. Here is the link: