Touch screen simulation

[Dale Harris]

Bubbling to the top of the "Think about it" pile today came this idea...

Currently when you are entering items into a sale you can press [F1] to view the first page of the stock table. If the item you want to ring up is there you can press the indicated letter key (A - T) to enter that item into the sale. You then must press [F1] again to ring up the next item by viewing the stock table.

This works pretty well if the item you need is on the first page of the stock table although you can press [Page Down] to view additional pages and enter items from those pages also.

But what if you have a whole bunch of stuff you want to be able to enter from this process?

Lets say that you can enter a "menu" of items, for example...

A. Drinks
B. Breakfast entrees
C. Lunch entrees
D. Dinner enrties
E. Desert
F. Appitisers
G. Salads
H. Soups
I. Sandwiches
(up to 20 groups)

Now when you press a letter you are taken to the stock table page that lists that kind of merchandise and like before you can now press a letter key to enter that item in the sale.

You then enter the price (if different from the stock table price) and the quantity. However now instead of going back to the "stock number entry box" you are automatically back in the "Menu" to pick another item. This means that you just have to press two letter keys (menu) then (item) to ring up most anything in your stock table and no one has to know the stock number for anything.

This assumes of course that you do not have more than 20 merchandise groupings and that each grouping will fit on 1 to 3 stock table pages.

If you are being asked to pick an item pressing [ESC] will return you to the merchandise menu and from the merchandise menu pressing [ESC] will return you to the "stock number entry box" at which point the program will act just like it always has.

To set this up there will have to be a new feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program to type in your grouping list and the stock number of the first item in that group as they have been entered in the stock table. Your stock table will have to be organized by groups. All the items in the first group must be listed, then all the items in the second group, etc. Each group should start a new page meaning n X 20 +1 so the groups can start on lines 1, 21, 41, 61, 81, 101 etc. Groups can span more than one page so you can start consecutive groups as...

Group 1 starts on line 1
Group 2 starts on line 41
Group 3 starts on line 61
Group 4 starts on line 121
etc.

You would also be able to set the sale "home" as either the "stock number entry box" or the "group menu"

What are your thoughts?

[Andrew]

Dale,

Cool thoughts - at work we have a button entitled "Short Group" this then brings up a menu of some departments e.g. Bulk Foods, Fruit, Vegetables, Bakery, Fish etc...

We then select one department and a list of items appear (not all items for that department of course, as this would take forever in a store of this size).

We can then scroll through and select the item and it is added to the sale. This feature is used a lot for the fruits and vegetables if you don't know the PLU.

[Alan]

I'm working with Micros 3700 PC Touchscreen tills now, which have 12" TFT's and I have the DOS drivers would u believe!

So... I can test POS with touchscreen interface at any point

Alan

[ChrisKraus]

Well, I think it would be a great idea to assign letters to the first 26 catogories (A-Z). But also, Even if you had a so-called "touchscreen" interface, DOS can't support a mouse so how is it going to support a touchscreen?

- Chris

[Alan]

DOS does support mice - it has done for over a decade!!!! You just need a tsr like mouse.com!

I've got all of the drivers on a disk

The software thats loaded on the units that I fix have a numeric keypad on the screen for data entry.

If you use DH-POS on them you can plug in a standard keyboard & mouse to enter stock, or if you use POSNET this is done from the server end anyways. It has all the usual PC ports, two cash drawer ports, two USB etc etc.

Alan

[Dale Harris]

Actually, it is a touch screen <u>simulation.</u> While it displays information on the screen you will have to press the letter keys for anything to happen.

While it would be swell to have a real "touch screen" feature that would require users to purchase a touch sensitive monitor, my simulation does not, just use the keyboard.

[Bobby]

I think that would be a great idea. It expands on the quick entry for th efirst 20 items in the stock table. I find it much quicker to just push a few keys than use a touchscreen.
Thanks Dale,
Bobby

[joe@sportsmanspub.com]

Again speaking for the bar/restaurant crowd, this touchscreen simulation would improve our profductivity by at least 100%

Another idea--how about 1 touch hot key access to the parked sales screen. We are in & out of there all night.

[Andrew]

As long as you're in a sale - you do only have to press one key to access the sale parking lot.

[joe@sportsmanspub.com]

could be wrong...

[Bobby]

no, you are right, press f6 then it gives you a list of options for the parked sale. without the options, though, the program would not know what to do with the sale that you are in.

[Andrew]

Thanks Bobby for affirming that I am not completely mad (yet)

[joe@sportsmanspub.com]

this wonderful idea?

this great idea?

this best idea ever?

[suamme1]

This would help me out greatly this summer. I wish it were already here.

I run a summer camp store and we do lots of small items (ice, sodas, pencils, candy, etc.) on top of our nomral sales with a UPC-A attached. This would keep me from having to make a "cheat sheet" with barcodes for normal items that would be to great to fit in the first screen of letter codes.

Having the page down type feature in the stock table does not help me any because my employees are not bright enough to figure it out (since they range from 15-17 years old and only work for 8 weeks).

If someone simply wants a bag of ice and candy it would be much easer to press A A B A to get it rang up than picking up a scanner and finding the stock number barcode.

[Andrew]

Oh dear this is getting sad ,

a) The stock table can be easily searched from within a sale:

[F1] --> [Tab] --> [2. Description] --> "ICE"

b) If that is too difficult, I don't see how using Page Up/Down and pressing a letter is hard.

I work in a supermarket chain and our employees range from 15 years and upwards, we aren't able to search our stock table, but are able to use a page up/down list like Dale's for items like Veges, Fruit etc.

But when we get to the right page - we don't get little letter's like in DHPOS, no we have to press the up/down keys to move to the correct item.

Now I'm pretty sure the employees have grasped this concept, I myself learnt very quickly to memorise as many common PLU numbers as possible and this is what a lot of us do. Red grapes=1371, white mushrooms=1085 etc.

Heck I even know the barcodes to items which don't scan at all such as a pack of 5 rubbish bags, 9414241016878 a particular loaf of bread is 9414917000488 etc.

c) If things are still too difficult - put price stickers on all your items - set DHPOS to minimal mode and when selling items, POS will just ask for the quantity and price.