I have read serveral topics about product timers but none seem to be what I am looking for, at least when reading it with the limited knowledge I have on sambapos.
In my restaurant people can eat for a period of time, e.g. 2 hours, 3 hours, where they can eat what and how much as they want. But in order to keep track of the time passed since ticket create I would like to have a timer on each entity (table), which preferably changes color when time is fully passed. This is purely for the manager to track if people are not staying longer than what is paid for. After ticket settle the timer should also stop and dissapear.
The timer should be confirgured on product. For example if duration is 2 hours the timer shown at entity should change color after 120 minutes. But if a table choose 3 hours the timer should change color after 180 min.
Is there a way to do this in V4. If not, is it possible in V5. And does updating from V4 to V5 give configuration problems as I am open 7 days and would like to have the system always up and running. I have a microsoft server 2012 and several terminals running on windows 7, windows for POS and windows 10.
I hope somebody can point me in the right direction.
If was V5 it sounds like you are more likely to want to use entity state duration.
Setup entity screen so that buttons have a timmer from when entity state changes to new orders… This would give you a time since sitting down.
You would probably want to make that into some form of ternary expression for colour so it highlights at certain time.
This is not something you would be able to do in v4.
If you did go with product timers in v4 there would not be a centeral place to look at them unless you maybe worked out some form of report to view/print.
Product timers would be more suited if you looked at it the other way where it was X amount per hour and they just stayed as long as they liked and the price was then depended on how long they stayed which would mean you wouldnt need to prompt them to leave, they just pay based on time and it automatically goes from x amount for 2 hours to y amount for 3 hours for example.
Thanks for the quick reply. The service is setup as mentioned and the timer is in my case actually only for managing purposes. It gives me the opportunity to inform client who might have lost track of time. If the wish to stay longer I can add more time on their ticket. But because it is difficult to remember all tables when restaurant is and terras is full, these timers are a handy tool.
If V5 has this option I would like to upgrade. But I read that there can be some problems when upgrading that I did not dare to do it yet. This period is to busy to work without the Sambapos in case the upgrade fails.
The entity state duration you mentioned should mention the state from opening ticket not upon changing order as the order can change is the order exlusive drinks which are not included. From you text I understand that this is possible
The default entity state is: Available --> New Orders --> Bill Requested --> Available
There are only 3 states.
I dont know if adding new order resets the new orders state or not but either way if I was doing it I would probably not use Status anyway and have a separate Entity State to base the counter on.
States have names and values and could even use the value to define the ‘paid’ time…
I didn’t want to dive in too deep straight away and confuse you
As for issues with V5, which were you referring to?
I have seen the odd issue with heavily customized systems and a couple of people having licence issues however I have setup at least half a dozen V5 systems with no problems at all and not experienced any of the issues some have.
I believe there are around 1000 sites so far who have bout/upgraded since v5 release mid last year and given the limited number of people with any issues I think your pretty safe.
That’s comforting to know. I will go for V5 based on your findings. Do I have to setup the menu’s, entities, prices, triggers etc. etc. again or will this be done automatically?
