Tech/Training Appointment Lead Times

Lead times for tech and training appointments as of March 29, 2006:

Training Appointments:
Phone appts starting 4/25
Onsites starting 4/25

Tech Appointments:
Phone appts starting 4/11
Onsites starting 4/14

Please call Carrie or Christina in the service department to schedule tech and training appointmetns.

Mick, writes...

It's Sunday night, I'm in the tub with my baby boy, Joe. I'm giving him a bath and we're playing with the bubbles when my cell phone rings. It's one of my customers. They had experienced a power outage and could not reconnect to their server. As, I'm explaining to her that I'll hunt down one of my techs, she interrupts me to ask if I was in a bathtub. Apparently, she heard my son splashing. I looked around for the hidden camera. I confirmed her suspicion. I explained to her that I was giving my newborn a bath. She apologized for calling but thought that BHD tech was available 24/7. I told her it was but that it didn't mean we were sitting at desks at 9:00pm on a Sunday night. BHD Tech Art called her ten minutes later and all was good. Prospective customers think it's hype when we make the claim that BHD "Breaks every rule to take care of its' customers." I thought this story, would illuminate prospective customers as to what the aforementioned credo means. BHD is a special company.

KPI troubleshooting

Apparently KPI since it is in inventory and is accessed by all PC's on the network needs to have the Borland database installed as well on every machine on the network. SO KPI requires start in and Borland on every machine.

Default designs get overwritten when installing program

please remind the client that any default reports and designs get overwritten. Trainers, Please remind them of this as well and tell them to make sure that they always copy the reports then make any tweaks they make to new reports or the changes will be lost.

Hotsync Program for Palm scanners cause cash drawer to not open

the palm software that allows you to hotsync with Retail pro "Caputres" the serial port. if you install this software on a POS it will cause any other device on that port not to work. exit out of the hotsync software and remove it from the startup under START>PROGRAMS>STARTUP

place a shortcut on the desktop and that will do it.

ISBN vs UPC barcodes on books

Clients selling books need to be aware that many books have multiple barcodes printed on them. Some publishers will include ISBN, UPC and EAN barcodes on the book cover. ONLY the UPC barcode should be scanned or meticulously entered by hand into the UPC field of Retail Pro. The UPC field is a special field which includes an algorithmic check digit.

Typically, if a book does include more than one barcode, they will be listed side-by-side. It is important in those cases for retailers to COVER the barcodes other than UPC when scanning items into inventory, or onto a document.

New Advanced Reporting Module Available - KPI

KPI (Key Performance Indicators)- priced at $400 PER Inventory. This is a new customization that was developed by M & M Enterprises. This module is for Retail Pro 8.40 and Above. M&M's KPI modification calculates the Key Performance Indicators for Items, Departments, Vendors and Styles.

KPI data is instantly available at the Retail Pro Main using buttons on the Inventory, Department and Vendor screens.

The M&M KPI modification will also generate KPI reports by month for all Items, Departments, Vendors or Styles. The modification displays and reports Average Daily Inventory, Quantity Sold, Sold P$, Sold Margin, Turn, GMROI, Stock/Sales Ratio and Sell Thru % on a monthly basis.

KPI data is calculated on a daily basis using the KPI Maintenance Utility.

BusinessWorks Licensing

there is a "workgroup" (WG) version which handles 1-4 licenses
there is a "Client/Server" (CS) version which handles 5-40 licenses.

Any user who says they want 4 licnese or more needs the C/S version in the interest of faster processing speed and it is designed for more processes running at the same time.

New Email Spam filter installed

We recently installed a new hardware firewall called a "Barracuda" to stop the vast majority of spam that's comming into this office. This will stop the malicious and vulger emails.

Like all spam filters, it is constantly learing what is spam and what isn't. The Barracuda is in the middle of this learning process right now, so some good emails will be blocked by it at first.

Please inform Christina in the SG with any email addresses that are being blocked by the new filter. She will start a simple spreadsheet of these email addresses so that they can be given to Rob to add to the "safe sender" list.

PRICE/COST Relationship Fields in PO Form Views Aren't Properly Reflected

It was discovered today and logged with RTI that in Retail Pro v8, when looking at a Purchase Order in FORM view, the price/cost relationship fields (Margin %, Markup %, or Coefficient) might not be properly reflected. If the PO P$ or PO C$ values are changed (as does happen when a vendor tells a retailer that their costs are going up) the price/cost relationship fields still reflect the INVENTORY price/cost relationship. A better picture of what is wrong is shown below.





Thankfully, the FORM view of vouchers does properly reflect the price/cost relationship of that specfic document. So, as long as retailers continue using the VOUCHER form view to gauge their price/cost relationship fields there won't be a system impact.

Meanwhile, RTI is testing this new discovery.

PINPADS AND SIGNATURE CAPTURE WITH NCR ALL-IN-ONE UNITS

you cannot use a pinpad and the NCR MCR reader simultaneously. they both run on OPOS drivers, and in retail pro there is only configuration for 1 OPOS MSR reader.

BOTTOM LINE: choose one or the other, you cannot have both.

PINPADS AND SIGNATURE CAPTURE UNITS WITH SHIFT 4

We have heard this question a few times recently..."can you use a keyboard or monitor mounted MSR and a pinpad with shift4 simultaneously on the same machine?" the answer is NO!

the pinpad is setup in the shift4 utg configuration. once you choose credit cards in retail pro it will give you the same window as you get in ppm or credit pro asking to swipe a card. the difference is that you have to click AUTHORIZE first, and that will send the signal to the pinpad to prompt for a card swipe, then the pin#. so even if you swipe the card before you click authorize (as we do with ppm and credit pro) this number is not recognized and gets overwritten when you click authorize and it sends a signal to the pinpad or signature capture unit.

BOTTOM LINE: choose one or the other, you cannot have both.

" is not a valid field entry

you get this error sometimes in presets. it has been logged as a bug with rti.

TO DUPLICATE. use presets to add an item to the receipt, then close presets, and on the receipt make the quantity for that item 0. then try to go back into presets and you get this error.
WORK AROUND: delete the items from the receipt, do not make the quantity 0. if the employee does not have rights to do this, the manager will have to over-ride.

OFFLINE MODE:

It is designed to be able to have the server be offline and have the WS continue running up sales.
I will synchronize 2 things back into the server once it is back on line: Sales Receipts and credit Card Approvals. NOTHING ELSE will synchronize into the real data (not customers, vouchers, etc...).
It is meant for short term use - an offline mode will expire at the main once the licensing window expires (remotes run indefinitely).
It does this by making 2 complete copies of RPRO. First and ALTERNATE DATA RESOURCE and then a LOCAL DATA RESOURCE on each machine that will run offline mode. This requires that each machine have enough hard drive space to save a complete copy of the whole Retail8 folder. For some large clients that will not be possible.
The data is updated each night using the scheduler. If the update does not happen, there is a built in reminder that will ware the end user that the update has not happened and the update can be done manually.