Very large scale with large business typically has resources to develop their own solutions even more custom tailored involving considerably more backend support.
I don’t think the goal of Sambapos is that forward thinking. It evolves as it solves real problems for its users. Eventually it might hit that level but I’ll be honest I’m glad Emre priorities is NOT to try and please big business but he solves community problems. One day if it evolves to big business it means it has solved enough problems big business likes using it.
I get your point though. Perhaps Emre liked some of your product tag ideas but did not like the exact idea for implementation. Doesn’t mean idea was bad just practically it may not work like the idea thought it would. It also may have been a feature only one person would use maybe not he typically weighs that for ideas.
I think you missed my point. He can easily add individual requests for specific problems but then you run risk of it not getting used much or it interfere with future ideas and have to be rewritten completely again. He weighs that with ideas that come in. It does not mean it’s not important.
Perhaps a solid solution just has not shown itself yet.
Its fine, ill just work out having a validate settings automation command to run the script.
I was merely offering an idea, if your happy keeping full control over you system then fair enough but if the end goal isn’t to have someone else take responsibility so you can be able to sit back with your feet up or move on to the next improvement/project without worrying it will just come back to you when someone messed it up than that’s a shame
To be honest I am getting a little annoyed with the responce
Gives the impression that unless it crashes it doesn’t matter, this wasn’t a request or an issue just a question on an idea for an alternative solution to a previously suggested idea, which I wont bother with if they just get shunned every time.
Don’t confuse problem with issues. My current problem is a payroll and scheduling system. Right now it’s not possible but I’m confident I can make it possible.
I’ve asked for a few things and maybe now it’s not time so I try other things to solve my problem and yesterday I saw a few features made it in that were similar to what I asked but not exact they were better. I’ll continue to work on it but I won’t get discouraged if an idea I have for it is not added.
Sorry but you misunderstood my intent with what I told you. It’s probably my fault for poor comminication. I’ve been working on it for over 7 months now maybe more. I’ve gotten a crude system to work but like you often say it just doesn’t seem professional.
Hmm… Integration is two sided business. Both sides (apps) should be aware of that and should work together. So we have a PMS app and SambaPOS.
SambaPOS is flexible and we have an accessible community. … but that shouldn’t be a disadvantage for us. We’re discussing it in SambaPOS forums not because we’re responsible from that synchronization. We’re discussing it here because of our advantages. I know how important it is. I want to improve related features and integrate SambaPOS to everything… But please don’t criticize SambaPOS for that. I don’t want to take all responsibility and deal with specific integration issues while other side just activating licenses. I’ll allow you to do what you want but please keep in mind that interests me just to improve community’s business opportunities. Please don’t consider it like a SambaPOS drawback and bear with me…
@JTRTech I am sorry. Please dont get discouraged I try really hard to motivate you because your in the elite top of the community contributors you even contribute tons of features and dont even realize it sometimes. I will admit it you come up in Staff discussion sometimes and its always about your good ideas. Someone said something in a staff discussion about you and I thought it was great: You are very smart and you think of great ideas but sometimes your brain works faster than you and your thoughts get put down before you realize it:P Makes it hard for us to fully grasp your thoughts.
That sounds negative but its a good thing because everything you say is valuable… Ignore all the long crap I posted before because really what I was trying to say is dont get discouraged Emre will solve your problems sometimes it just takes time.
Forget the word Problem I think we had some confusion there. Just know that your ideas are great I am just trying to help you work with Emre more efficiently. I chose the word problem because Emre has used it in his descriptions of his general thought proccess so I assumed you had seen that before. It doesnt really mean a problem in bad sense or that something is broken. Think of Problem as a business need that solves a real issue going on in your business.
@kendash thanks for that
To be honest I know you are right that some ideas are put forward to quickly sometimes without even fully grasping them myself which (the honest part) is often because the more ‘unsual’ ideas have come to mind after a few drinks in the pub and want to get ‘pen to paper’ as such before forgotten/while is fresh in mind.
I’m not sure if that is a good thing or bad that I am thinking about samba ideas while on a night out LOL
Just as a final note it wasn’t the term ‘problem’ but the acompanying ‘real’ which gives the impression that the idea/solution doesn’t solve anything that is of consern/actually a problem.
I understand this is probably not how it was meant but just wanted to make a statement on it.
I am not going to get discouraged as am heivily invested in the use of samba with thousands of pounds of epos equipment which its sale is depended on the use of samba, along with the PMS intergration which the hotel is not confirmed to switch to NewBook in late January meaning this intergration needs to be ready by early January. Which was heavily based on my assurance that I can offer a great solution on a good price for the business I have a day job with so can’t drop the ball on this one.
Haha what I’m frequently referencing to is “Real Life Problem”… Not “Real Problem”. I think there is a typo or something. We don’t classify problems as real or fake and I’m %100 sure what kendash talking about is not that.
Adding picker for custom product tags solves a real life problem however constraining them may or may not solve a real life problem. We can say “there might be cases where users may enter incorrect values so it will be nice to have.” Sounds good but I quickly ignore when it comes like that. However if @QMcKay says, “I’ve implemented this and I need to constraint it here” I still ignore “I need constraint here” part but I carefully evaluate what he implemented and try to understand where he needs an improvement. The solution still can be implementing constraints or not but I generally consider that instead of just implementing what requested. So I never blame someone because they’ve pointed me to a wrong direction. I mean this is a good thing… lol …
I think this is more of a terminology crossover on my part, I am not sure on how you differentiate between ‘constrain them’ and a ‘picker’, to me a drop down picker is a method of constraint?
Ok, the problem with current picker is it is simply a way to quickly select previously used values but still allows free typing over the top.
My ideal solution would be that the product tag field in program settings could be improved to offer the ‘constraint’ methods for the interface within product settings and product tag editor table. More simply put an option to prevent free-typing into the interface fields.
This would be very helpful for interrogations and template formatting options like courses where course is drawn from a product tag as the available options are restricted to options defined in the template and typo/case errors can be forgotten about.
This is what I was getting at with my previous idea on the subject;
I know you gave your reasons why this would not be practical which is why I was trying to come up with alternative solutions which could put the ability to achieve this constraint/control ourselves with scripting if it was deemed a low value improvement when time was considered for you to build it in to the software.
Great! Typo errors in printer templates or rule configurations is exactly a real life issue! Now it is interesting for me.
Possible solutions of this issue is what we really need to focus on and discuss.
Defining constraints for custom product tags might still can be a part of the solution. I don’t argue that. However having no predefined tag values is not the only source of this problem. I should properly define that…
Personally, I like the way it works now. I can certainly understand why JTRTech feels differently, and I know why he wants it that way. I am all for standards certainly - coming from a DB architect/provisioner/reporter standpoint, this makes a lot of sense mostly for the very same reasons that JTRTech mentions - disallowing free-entry solves problems. I dealt with this in a major core system conversion and it had to do with standardization of how Customer details were stored for Address (and all parts of an address), Phone, First, Middle, Last Name, and it was a royal pain because address data for example was freely editable. How do you query on that and get reliable results? Answer: not possible.
However…
If we are to constrain GroupCode and Product Tag to a pre-defined list, then when need another config section to make this work. That’s fine. But leave me the option to constrain to that list, or not.
Why?
Because right now, configuring a Product is a single-card process; that is, I can freely create a new GroupCode and/or Product Tag on-the-fly when I create the Product. If you constrain them, then I need to go into the GroupCode section/Card, and the Product Tag Card, create the new GroupCode and Product Tag, then go back into Products to insert my new Product. This is far less efficient, especially for a lot of new Product setup, and it will probably break the Batch Entry option altogether.
This is true - I just happen to define allot of my configurations based around products in ways which all stem from custom tags on products.
I agree with QMcKay that to have this ‘fixed’ for all tags will increase workflow for new/frssh products on a system/batch creation.
This was where my original idea came in that product tags were defined in a similar way to the way we create entity custom fields.
Yes we covered that the data for entity fields is utilized in a different way but as far as I understand Entity Custom Data is sorted in the DB in exactly the same manner as custom product tags? am I wrong?
A string field or even the new ‘list’ product tags is a very basic way to set these invaluable fields.
If this were added in a similar way to custom entity fields you could define the type of field as to whether it was constrained or not and how it was constrained.
In my example I also suggested we might even have the option of a ‘tick box field’ which could be stored as a TRUE/FALSE value in the database and would give a very nice clean precise way to handle YES/NO product tags like my setup I have an ‘Open Price Tag’ which at the minute on order added if tag != ‘’ it prompts for price with a custom keyboard removing the need for a keyboard on the menu screen.
Also kitchen/bar print I have order added tag → state for is Kitchen Print Tag != ‘’ state of Kitchen Order (which gets changed to Kitchen Ordered) on ticket close.
This would remove the use of != ‘’ in allot of uses which is a slightly crude method and would turn to for example Kitchen Order Tag == ‘TRUE’ which is much more precise and professional.
So maybe asking confirmation while adding a new value can be an alternative solution. So you’ll notice when you use a non existing value and can easily confirm it without switching screens. We can even define a permission for non-admins so you won’t need to configure all possible values in advance and non-admins can’t add new values.
I’m not proposing a solution here. I won’t implement it I’m trying to explain when we define issue properly we can find alternative solutions.
You are, sort of. At least it is 1 idea for a solution. And I like it.
See, that idea is better than I expected the solution to be. We can have our cake and eat it too. My thought for the solution is short-sighted, and solves the initial problem, but it is not the best solution… that is why @emre is the master at this stuff, and thinking on a larger scale to produce something even better.
I’m trying to explain when we define issue properly we can find alternative solutions.
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