I am a new user of SambaPOS with some background of IT. I have an restaurant where I am planning to use SambaPOS. I have two medium severity issues and need help to resolve them or get some guidance on them.
I tested the installation on my personal PC with a lot of customization and tweaks. Now, post the configuration, I am happy with it and would like to port it to my Restaurant PC. Is there any way I can copy all modifications, tweaks and configurations directly to the restaurant PC from my Personal PC. This will save me a lot of time and effort. I do understand that there might be some issues that cannot be copies (i.e. like the database configuration) but is there any method which will help me port it (along with the menus, taxes, table setup, etc) easily to another PC.
When I first configured SambaPOS, I used to see the table layouts (i.e. B10, B11…M10.M11…so on) as soon as I clicked the POS in the main navigation menu. However, now I directly go to the Selection Menu (i.e. where i see the food items, etc) and have to select tables to open up their orders. However I like the previous view and would like to change it back the way it was. I do not know what i changed that is causing this.
Additional questions I have is,
Is their a way we can backup the configurations of the POS (i know about the DB backup) but i am wondering if something were to go wrong in the system I would need to do the reconfiguration all over for the whole POS. Is there a way to backup and restore the configuration of the POS. (I hope not all useful features are paid)
Clearing all the transactions or archiving all the transactions should be a built-in feature. or Archiving the transactions based on years should be an feature. As per finance regulations in many countries one needs to backup all transactions copies for a specified amount of time. It would a waste of space if those were to be kept and not have an archived copy.
Is there a feature to mail the reports, accounts, stock inventory on a daily, weekly, or periodically basis (as configured) to the owner via some mailing system (i.e. automated notifications via SMTP configurations to owner and/or other folks like accountants, auditors, etc.)
Inventory triggers - Lets say we have 200 Pepsi (200 ml) bottles in stock. Average daily consumption is 20 bottles per day. with this situation owner knows that this stock will last till 10 days so on the 7 day he needs to call Pepsi folks and order the next batch. However suddenly in the middle there was a party and 120 bottles were consumed in the 2nd day itself. Is there a feature or mechanism that can trigger an notice or notify the owner/ manager that the stock has diminished and needs to re-ordered or refilled?
I have a bit of IT knowledge and would be open to talk with the developer or the owner of this project (Emre Eren) to make such recommendations and if necessary contribute with coding (as much as I can).
Hi,
Have changed to question as all these seem to be questions rather than issues.
Backup tool will transfer all samba settings, sales, buttons, rules, actions, entities etc.
All this information is in the database.
The only setting not in the database are the ones in the local tab/page
Alternatively the database tools module allows you to choose specific settings to export/import.
That’s defult ticket creation method, not at pc so can’t remember the options exact location, it’s either ticket types or maybe department :-/ will check later if you don’t find it.
As above, the backup module will do everything but the local settings Tab/Page
PS $2.99 is so xlittle considering the software itself is free something needs to pay for this website etc.
clearing transactions is possible but only all of then, not say ‘over 2 years’
However it is not a big issue, the beauty of databases if that the amount of transactions will have very little impact on the speed of the database. Emre has tested up to something like hundred of millions transactions and is fine. Sql express allows a database of up to 10gb I believe, which your unlikely to fill with a transactional database.
Check in the printer type options, if not available on V4 the soon to be release V5 supports an email option for
Printer settings.
Sorry, am not experience with the inventory feature as do not use much yet, but I have seen screen shots of either qmckay (I think it was) which had a button to show popup for stock level or it was a popup when low maybe, either way I’m sure there is a way to do this in v5 if not v4
V5 is due out in June, do not worry, all of your settings should upgrade with the install.
Although sometimes you don’t find what your looking for most of these points have been asked about before, please be sure to search the forum before posting.
Yes. Absolutely. I need to do some more digging and figuring out.
Also It would be amazing if you could have modules of tutorials on Youtube on setting up the software and keep adding the tutorials on the changes made on versions too. A fully documented PDF (offline version) would also be helpful.
There are many written tutorials on this forum which are all (most) community provided.
I don’t think youtube would be any more efficient as I would say a sharp screenshot says so much more than a video which will need pausing all the time.
This would be tricky as new features are regularly added.
What you need to appreciate is that most of the set-ups and features demo’ed on this forum are not standard setups. @emre makes the software in such a way that you can make it completely ‘you own’ which unfortunately makes a written ‘manual’ very difficult to do for beginners as a full manual would have to tell you exactly what to do which is then not making the system your own but just following instructions and a written manual explaining how to setup without telling you what to do/how to setup would have to be writen very open-ended/unspecific to a setup which is in theory what the Wiki is/will become however the ‘open’ less specific type menu would be hard to grasp as a ‘newbie’.
The best way to learn is spend a day reading some of the many tutorials on this forum to get a grasp of the interaction of actions and rules and what entities are and how they work in a working environment.
Its also very difficult as there are often many ways to achieve a similar ‘feature’ - there is no set methodology, ask question/popup/message are a prime example, one person has a preference to one but that doesnt make it the correct way myself and many others prefer ask question for prompts but many use the others.
Many of the features are hard to explain without giving an example and/or workflow which is another difficulty in a ‘manual’ which is impartial.
In short I would say spend a bit more time scouting round the forum, there is the search at the top.
When you have worked it out your welcome to submit your own tutorials/instructions, as said the existing ones are generally not from emre who generally posts the informative feature-set type posts and then the many other forum members which contribute huge amounts of time to helping and building the community post more extensive tutorials explaining how they have done there system.
Many of them even go out of their way to write tutorials for other people who are asking to do things which have no relevance to their own system.
I too had similar thoughts like you in the beginning but once you get a better understanding of the diversity of uses of Samba and how much it can be customised you’ll understand why a full manual is so difficult when compared to a more traditional fixed software. My response is that I intend to post my own tutorials to also help expand the community, have only done a couple so far but they are in the V5 category at the moment but when time allows I intend to upload more.
All of your settings, Menus, Rules,Actions,Calculations, Buttons, etc are stored in the database not the software. Its literally as easy as backing up the database and moving it to a new PC. This is better than storing that information in the software locally it makes it much more flexible, portable, and easier to troubleshoot.
For your tables question you need to set your department back to Entity Selection. You changed it to Create Ticket which by default creates a ticket first. Entity Selection makes you select an entity, Table, first.
You should start using MS SQL Express 2014 if you have not yet. This will give you the flexibility and security you want. It is as simple as running a database backup using MSSMS and restoring it. SambaPOS uses a connection string to connect to the database and instance. I wrote a simple tutorial here:
You can do this with the optional module or you can do it yourself with MSSMS if your running SQL Express by using this script as a query on the database.
PS. v5 the database tools module and database backup modules are built in.
DELETE FROM [TicketEntities]
GO
DELETE FROM [Tickets]
GO
DELETE FROM [AccountTransactionDocuments]
GO
DELETE FROM [AccountTransactions]
GO
DELETE FROM [AccountTransactionValues]
GO
DELETE FROM [Calculations]
GO
DELETE FROM [CostItems]
GO
DELETE FROM [InventoryTransactionDocuments]
GO
DELETE FROM [InventoryTransactions]
GO
DELETE FROM [Orders]
GO
DELETE FROM [PaidItems]
GO
DELETE FROM [PeriodicConsumptionItems]
GO
DELETE FROM [PeriodicConsumptions]
GO
DELETE FROM [ProductTimerValues]
GO
DELETE FROM [Payments]
GO
DELETE FROM [WarehouseConsumptions]
GO
DELETE FROM [WorkPeriods]
GO
DELETE FROM [EntityStateLogs]
GO
UPDATE [Numerators] SET Number = 0
GO
UPDATE [EntityStateValues] SET EntityStates = '[{"S":"Available","SN":"Status"}]' Where EntityStates like '%Status%'
GO
Yes there is it is the Send Email action you can find more information from this discussion here:
The final question about the stock level will be available when v5 releases which will be soon. With v5 you will be able to port all of your setup to it with little issue. There are a few things different so you may want/need to tweak it after porting.
Ive done exactly what you want regarding inventory warning level using the new inventory report tags in V5
Inhave a button setup so when clicking an order line and then the stock level button the pos displays the current level
Also using the same tag i have setup another rule that when the stock reaches a certain level the next time that item is added to a ticket a warning message appears informing you of low stock. You could customise this further for it to tell you how many are left
V5 Beta is currently being tested and finalised, still new features being added daily
Believe the eta for a public release is some time next month if all goes well.
V5 is used in production at several venues it is stable and @emre would not release something unstable. If an issue did come up he would fix it asap. The last time Emre gave us any information on release he said June so it shouldnt be long.
something needs to pay for this website etc.
myself and many others prefer ask question for prompts but many use the others.