Polling

November 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Polling (or comms) is the process of transferring data between Retail Pro systems.  This is a two way process which can be scheduled to take place anywhere between “as fast as the computer can process the data” and never.  Most users tend to use a daily polling cycle as they do not have anyone dedicated to looking at sales on a more regular basis – hence the polling cycle is usually determined by the review period required.

A full polling cycle involves the following:

  1. Process out: Identifying any documents that have been changed or newly created since the last process out and converting these into transaction type bundles called “mailbags” – each mailbag contains documents of a specific type such as sales, adjustments, transfers etc.
  2. Exchange: Transferring the mailbags from one location to t another (store to head office and head office to store).
  3. Process In: Opening the mailbags and importing their contents into Retail Pro.

A full polling cycle requires the above to run twice in order to get updated information from the stores to the head office server and back.

For polling to take place, several ducks need to be put in a row.  These are:

  1. The computers that will be polling need to be switched on at the time the polling process is due to take place.  This may seem like an obvious statement, but it is not uncommon for new PCs to be set up without having their power saving features disabled.  As these power saving features tend to kick in after so many hours of inactivity, it is often the case that while staff leave PCs running when they close a store at 5:30pm, by the time polling takes place at 1:00am, the PC has already gone to sleep.  It is therefore critical to ensure that all power saving features, on the PC in general, and also specifically the network card, are switched off.
  2. The Retail Pro Scheduler must be loaded and have the correct profile configured.  The scheduler is what runs processes at a predetermined time.  If this is not running, there is nothing to tell Retail Pro to initiate polling at any time.  Also, if the Scheduler is loaded, but the profile on which the polling schedule is based is not loaded or configured, the Scheduler will happily run on its own and essentially do nothing as it hasn’t been told what to do.  For the Retail Pro 8 Scheduler, the user must be logged into Windows as the process of logging out of Windows shuts down the Scheduler and any other running application.
  3. There must be a physical link between the computers polling.  Basically, your internet connection and VPN has to be operational.  This includes making sure that any firewalls existing between the computers have been allowed to let the polling traffic pass through them.  This “link” is made up of several components – the PC needs to have a connection to a network switch or router, the router has to have a connection to the internet, the ISPs network must be operating, and the VPN between the two computers communicating must be up.  Again, this may sound obvious but issues can arise when, for example, at the beginning of a billing cycle an ISP will reset the connection to start accounting for traffic again.  Some routers are smart enough to re-establish a connection when this happens, some are not.
  4. If you are using Retail Pro 8, everyone must be out of the system at all locations in order for polling to take place.  Retail Pro 8 does allow for polling certain data while the system is in use (e.g. sales transactions going back to Head Office), but it will not allow a full inventory update as this requires overwriting files that Retail Pro 8 keeps open while the system is running.  When Retail Pro is left running one, or several things can happen which will lead to partial polling taking place.  For example, if Retail Pro is running when the process out is taking place, the store will not send a full set of data to the head office server.  If it is running during a process in operation, then the store will not be able to import the data it has received from head office.

We often get requests to “check polling”.  This is usually identified by Head Office staff running reports that do not display a full set of data (e.g. a sales report shows no sales information for a particular store for a given day), or by store staff when tey try to sell a product which Retail Pro says doesn’t exist in their local system but exists at Head Office.

Our procedure to “check polling” is simply to go back to the basics above.  We ensure all ducks are in a row, and in cases where they are not we align them – i.e. we check 1 – 4 above and ensure all is OK, then we manually poll.

One thing to keep in mind is that polling checks need to be part of the daily maintenance of any multi-site Retail Pro system – or any system that relies on the transfer of data from one location to another.  The reason for this is that there are many factors that can affect polling, most of which run outside of the scope of Retail Pro and its internal operation – while these external factors affect Retail Pro, Retail Pro has no way of knowing what has gone wrong and what it can do to address the problem.  Retail Pro does has built-in safeguards to address things like corrupt mailbags, receipt of partial mailbags, handling of mailbags when Retail Pro is left running etc.

If you would like to go through in more detail on what can be done to minimise polling issues and the diagnostics available in Retail Pro to diagnose these, please contact the Retail IQ Helpdesk.

Filed Under: News, Retail Pro

Go on, reboot!!

November 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Everyone has made a joke at one time or another about having called an IT Support line and being asked or told to reboot a PC.

In a previous incarnation, and before making computers part of my daily life, I also made those calls and went through the same process.  I called, I was asked, I rebooted…and a lot of the time the problem went away.

As I went further down the path of IT support, I found my self asking that same question and giving the same advise, only to be greeted by a vast range of responses – everything from full compliance followed by a “thank you for fixing the problem”, to outright lies about having rebooted the computer just before calling and the reboot not having addressed the issue.

Fast forward through 17 odd years of delivering IT support and I’m prepared to put it in writing…Go on, reboot!! and do it OFTEN!!!

The reasons for this piece of advice, which I am sure you have been given umpteen times before is simple.  The process of troubleshooting anything is basically a process of elimination, and the fastest way of eliminating a whole lot of unknowns, is to start from scratch, and the only way to start from scratch, is to start working on a PC which has just been rebooted.  So it really is that simple.  You are simply being asked to put the PC into a state which is a relative known, vs. a state which is a relative unknown.  The word “relative” here simply relates to the fact that all PCs are not equal and each has a slightly different configuration depending on its use.

Specifically with Retail Pro in mind, the process of rebooting may address a number of issues in Windows that affect Retail Pro adversely, but which have nothing to do with Retail Pro.  Hence, when you try to process a transaction and something strange happens, the first instinct is to point the finger at Retail Pro because it is not processing the transaction.  However, if an underlying subsystem has failed and Retail Pro needs for this subsystem to be operational, the issue will manifest itself in Retail Pro though it is being caused by something outside of Retail Pro.  A similar issue arises with programs like Microsoft Excel – if you have a corrupt spreadsheet, opening it up in Excel may cause the program to crash.  At first sight it looks like there’s something wrong with Excel, but in fact the issue is with the spreadsheet.  Fixing the spreadsheet magically fixes Excel.

Given that a point of sale PC is often used by a number of people for a number of reasons unrelated to transacting sales (though I know no-one ever uses them for non-business purposes like web browsing, personal emailing, Facebook, Bebo, checking out TradeMe, playing on-line games, looking for work etc.), a reboot is a quick, simple, painless, and very effective way of making a whole lot of problems go away.

Now, ask someone else delivering IT support and they will say I’m giving you bad advice because rebooting masks any problems inherent in the software which are caused by poor software development practices and bugs.  To that I say maybe, and advise they keep in mind the following:

  1. You already own the hardware and the software and unless the entire system is totally dead, a reboot is a lot faster, practical, and cheaper than system heart surgery.
  2. Why peel a grape with an axe? Diagnosing hardware and software problems of a certain nature is almost impossible outside of a lab environment where you can control everything that goes on.  If the reboot fixes it, and the problem doesn’t appear again immediately why look further?  Put another way, simplicity works – ask Einstein!
  3. Everyone “reboots” everything they deal with on a daily basis just about daily.  You don’t start your car, drive it somewhere and leave it running for three months while you go off and do something.  You don’t watch the news at 6pm and leave the TV on until tomorrow at 6pm because you’ll need to turn it on again then.  Better yet, try not sleeping for three days and see how you cope.
  4. Reboots don’t just take care of system created problems, but of people created problems.  You will never have 100% knowledge of the use a system has gotten from a given end user, hence you cannot tell how that use has and will affect the operation of the system.  Of course, no-one ever touches anything and things just happen – but that’s a blog posting on other topics.

I mentioned above about having been told outright lies regarding a PC having been rebooted prior to calling our helpdesk.  The reason I know this is simple – THE COMPUTER KEEPS TRACK OF WHEN IT WAS LAST RESTARTED AND WE CAN GET IT TO TELL US THIS INFORMATION.  For those of you with a curios mind, simply open up a command prompt, (click on Start -> Run… -> type cmd then press “Enter”) and in the box that appears type “net statistics workstation” (without the “”) and press “Enter”.  Now scroll to the top of the window and you will see a line that reads “Statistics since” followed by a date and a time.  If today’s date is not displayed there, you have not rebooted today!!

In case you are curious, I never reboot my netbook until the thing simply says ENOUGH!, at which point I take the advice I have just given you.  This way of running your system is also OK, by the way. The thing is to be sure that you understand the pitfalls of not rebooting regularly and that you accept responsibility for this.

Filed Under: Retail Pro, Support, Technical

How do we lower our support costs for Retail Pro? – Part 1

October 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I was recently asked this question by a Retail Pro user. Given the current economic climate I thought the question a timely one and that other users might also benefit from the answer.

So, if you are serious about saving money on support, I would suggest you:

  1. Train the users
    The starting point is having well trained users. A little more training (emphasis on the little) of those who use Retail Pro would eliminate 80% of the calls to our help desk. Incredible but true.
  2. Use the manuals
    Manuals are one of the first things we are asked about when potential customers are evaluating Retail Pro (smart). Yet, from our experience they are rarely used, let alone updated (dumb).The manuals not only contain the solution to most common problems, but they also provide the “script” for properly training users.

    The retail industry experiences high staff turnover and what generally happens at the store is that the person leaving the company (store) is asked to “show the new person how the system works”. This makes things even worse as many times the person who has effectively been left responsible for training does not have the competency to do so. The “training” is not only shallow but many times simply wrong. The end result is frustration for the new person and calls to the help desk. Procedures on how to do a stock take are a killer. A year ago while helping with a stock take, 5 people where following 3 different procedures!

  3. Attend Retail Pro University
    At least one person in the organization should attend Retail Pro University.The courses are demanding yet fantastic. It is very unlikely that anyone having completed a Retail Pro course would ever need to contact our help desk. These are the same courses that the Retail Pro Business Partners do to be certified!

    We have processed 25 enrollments for Retail Pro University. Of those 25, 18 have not started the course and the rest have not finished it. Is there need to say more?

  4. Help Yourself.
    Nothing will give you more bang for your buck than helping yourself, as to begin with there’s no support charge.In the past 5 years we have contacted customers on over 30 occasions to offer them free training and to let them know that they are contacting the help desk without need as with a little training they could be addressing the issues they are logging with the help desk themselves – checking polling comes to mind! Only 3 customers took us up on the offer! We rarely hear from these 3 and we stopped making the offer.
  5. Make sure that the configuration of Retail Pro changes as the way you run your retail operation changes.
    When Retail Pro is implemented, it is configured to meet the needs and procedures of your retail operation at that point in time. But,  those needs and procedures change. If Retail Pro’s configuration is not changed so that it reflects the changes to the way you run your retail operation, the user will simply say “Retail Pro does not work” when using it. Well, it does work. It is just configured to do things in the way that they were done previously, and NOT as they are currently done.Not having Retail Pro configured properly has another most unfortunate consequence. One I personally resent. Users ring the help desk seeking help as “Retail Pro is not working”. We fix the problem. But since the solution is not the definitive one, re-configuring Retail Pro is, they ring again about the same issue. We fix it again and charge for the call again. This leaves some customers with the feeling that Retail IQ is not playing fair by charging several times for fixing the same problem.

    We constantly see a disconnect between how “Head Office” and the stores think they are supposed to be running the business. This creates confusion and many times calls to the help desk not only from the stores but also head office as “Retail Pro is not working.” Security settings comes to mind.

    Updating the configuration of Retail Pro (or any system) requires some form of gap analysis. No POS system at present simply ” realises that procedure Y  has changed at company X, so I will go ahead and  reconfigure myself  to reflect that change. ”

    But wait there is more!

    Over the last 5 years we have offered to do this analysis for 3 customers cost-free. All three quickly responded:  “Fantastic.” “Thanks.” “We’ll be in touch with a date to do the review.” We are still waiting for the phone to ring to set the date. However, the help desk phone keeps ringing with requests to address issues that won’t go away until the gap analysis is done and the new configuration implemented. The “problem” is not going to go away. There is no problem with Retail Pro. It is doing what it was configured to do.

    Let me repeat that. The “problem” is not going to go away. There is no problem with Retail Pro. It is doing what it was configured to do.

    While we can help you ensure Retail Pro’s configuration reflects the way you run your operation, it is not for us to decide HOW YOU WANT TO RUN YOUR RETAIL OPERATION.

  6. Apply updates.
    Most people think of updates as things that fix bugs and lead to support costs in applying the updates. Well they do fix bugs and we will charge you for applying the updates, if you do not wish to do it yourself. But the updates do more than that. They  introduce enhancements to the application which can enable you to do things more effectively. For example, automate a process that is currently manual.This brings me back to training. You would not believe the amount of times we have found people doing things using “something else” to do something which is important to them because Retail Pro “does not do that”, when it does and they just don’t know it does.

    We have two customers currently using Retail Pro as a cash register – what an expensive cash register! They would benefit immensely from using Retail Pro to its full potential. And yes, we have told them.

  7. Tell us what you need.
    In turn, we can share with you the experience and knowledge we have acquired at great cost to us but with no cost for you. Do not underestimate the amount of money, time and frustration you can save yourself just by telling us what you need.The importance of this issue is almost always overlooked.  We regularly have to retrospectively address issues for clients because, to save money, they thought they would sit down and come up with a procedure to address an issue they have at the retail end of things.  They’ve then gone into Retail Pro and “figured out” how to reconfigure it to cater for that new procedure.  Everyone is happy.  Two years later the bubble bursts because the figures just “don’t look right”.  We start investigating and find that a setting has been overlooked and we have to go back and fix all the data.  Several days of work later the problem is fixed and the client is rewarded with a 15 hour bill.  Everyone is unhappy.  Had we been asked how to implement the procedure we could have identified the pot holes along the way and saved everyone a lot of stress and money.

Our clients sometimes express frustration at being charged for making calls to the help desk. While we cannot run a help desk without billing callers (this would be the equivalent of allowing people to walk out of your stores with your stock without paying for it – you will quickly go out of business) we would love to get rid of the help desk. We would rather grow Retail IQ by having more time to focus on the development of solutions for our customers.

So, here is a challenge. Help us shut our help desk by getting Retail Pro users in your organization PROPERLY trained. Retail IQ would then become the only Retail Pro Business Partner in the world (there are 72) that does not have a help desk. Hooray!

Juan

Filed Under: Retail Pro