Premier POS Blog

Premier Retail 2009 Service Pack 1 Launched

2009-09-14T06:08:00.001-07:00

Premier Retail 2009 Service Pack 1 has just been launched. Adding support for Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, German, and Spanish languages along with various performance improvements and additional functionality, below is the highlight of what is new in this release.

Premier Retail 2009 can run in 6 different languages:

Chines;
French;
German;
Czech;
Arabic;
Spanish.

Regional currency and date formats completely supported.
Support for small screen sizes (including hand held devices).
Added support for serialized items including the ability to enter ranges.
Introducing Premier Retail Manager, formerly known as Premier Configuration, with:

Ribbon Menu Interface for easier navigation.
Creating and processing purchase orders.
Creating and processing purchase receipts.
Maintenance of suppliers/vendors.
Maintenance of customers.
Maintenance of inventory items.
Maintenance of accessory items.
Maintenance of substitute items.
Maintenance of unit measures.
Maintenance of customer payment terms.
Maintenance of inventory warehouses.
Maintenance of customer price lists.
Enhanced maintenance of clerk security levels.
Capabilities to print reports.
Capabilities to print bar-code labels.

Premier Code Engine enhancements including but not limited to:

On Item event has been enhanced to let the user remove the item from the tape if necessary.
PCEGrid functionality enhancements by including 20+ new methods and properties.
Ability to access configuration options in PCE macros.

Bug fixes:

Ability to specify custom workstation codes.
Resolved Gift Card sale issues.
Resolved item selection issues when using Item Lookup.
Fixed deletion of menus.
Fixed receipts to support regional settings.
Fixed unhandled exceptions in the Auto-Import feature of Premier Report Engine.
Ability to delete menu-sets.
Fixed refreshing of registered PCE assemblies.
POSSystemAPI.Customer.Find() bug resolved.
Fixed problems with conversion of Order to Invoice.
Order to Invoice conversion now generates a workstation specific transaction code.

For more information and to download head on here.

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2009-09-14T05:45:00.001-07:00

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Premier Retail 2009 Hot Fix 1 & IS SP 5.3

2009-03-05T09:57:00.001-08:00

Premier Retail 2009 is going to get its first Hot Fix release the ~~second~~ third week of March. The HF1 update will fix the inability to print reports when connected via web-services, processing of credit card payments via Hypercom services, inventory and customer lookup performance issues, and enhancement of PCE macro execution along with a few other minor improvements.

New functionality includes, but not limited to;

End-users will now have the capability to specify filter criteria prior to invoking the inventory lookup via PCE.
Ability to access all Configuration Options via PCE.
Ability to make changes to the configuration options and refresh the application without restarting Premier Retail.
Yes-Pay credit card payment support.

Furthermore, the Premier Retail 2009 Hot Fix 1 release will fully support Interprise Suite SP 5.3 release. (Please note that the current release of Premier Retail 2009 is confirmed to work without any issues with IS SP 5.3 as well.)

Interprise Suite SP 5.3 addresses the following known issues;

Interprise CRM
- Multiple Email Service can now be installed provided that a different Service Name is given.
- Custom Field layout customization can now be saved from the Contact Form.
Interprise System Manager
- New Import Wizard will now show on the application via the Data Dictionary Manager.
- Old Import Wizard is retained.
Interprise Inventory
- Fixed transaction date posted in journal when doing stock take transaction
- Fixed Kit Item when configuring kit component price of different currencies Interprise Supplier
- Fix amount paid in Supplier Check when partial payment is done through supplier payment.

Configuring Premier Retail for Optimal Performance

2009-02-26T14:05:00.001-08:00

Premier Retail 2009 provides various configuration options that control overall performance and memory consumption of the application. Here is a quick overview of the Configuration tool and description of some of the configuration options available.

Note: This guide presumes that you have Premier Retail 2009 installed and the database configured on your system. If not, then please follow our Getting Started guide available online.

Selecting the Workstations

‘Premier Retail Configuration’ lists the defined workstations in the right side of the configuration window. Workstations are the systems/terminals on which Premier Retail is running. Important; Workstations should be unique, i.e. no two systems should have the same workstation code.

To set the workstation code for the current system;

Click on the Application Button.
Go to ‘Point of Sale’ > ‘Workstations’.
Select a workstation from the existing workstation drop-down list or create a new workstation.
Click the ‘Set as this Workstation’.

Premier Retail allows configuration of each Workstation to differ from each other. For example one workstation on the network can be configured as an information/advertisement kiosk while another might allow customers to search the store’s inventory for specific items. Similarly Workstations in the Members Area could be configured to automatically apply discounts to the items purchased or add gift items to the transaction.

To configure a workstation, select it from the Workstations list and check the checkbox. Now when a configuration option’s value is changed, the selected workstation will be updated. So, selecting all workstations will apply any changes to each workstation in the network.

Loading Data Into Memory

Located in the General category, ‘Load Data Into Memory’ is one of the most vital configuration option in Premier Retail when it comes to performance. When enabled, Premier Retail loads inventory, customers, and other data into the system memory reducing round-trips to the database during sales, customer lookups, and other events. Although transaction processing speed and overall application performance is improved, enabling this option has its drawbacks; memory consumption is increased and application startup is slower.

When to enable;

Inventory is less than 10,000 items.
Database is located on a remote server.

When to disable;

Inventory is over 10,000 items.
Database is located on the local system or network.

Transaction Posting & Background Posting

What is posting? It is the process which finalizes the transaction and closes it recording the sale as completed and paid for. Unless a transaction has been posted, a user with access to Interprise/Premier Retail can modify the transaction by adding/removing items, making payments, and more.

Posting is one of the biggest bottlenecks in the processing of a transaction in Interprise. To overcome this bottleneck Premier Retail provides two configuration options located in the General category under Transactions; ‘Post Transaction on Completion’ and ‘Use Background Posting’.

‘Post Transacton on Completion’ lets the user turn off posting of transactions completely. Although disabling transaction posting improves transaction completion speed drastically, it is only advised to turn it off if the company needs to review all transactions before being finalized. For instance; a manager may turn off posting of transactions to review all sales made at a workstation ensuring that all records are in order. Note that it is essential to post a transaction in Interprise that was completed otherwise the sales reports and inventory will reflect invalid record.

‘Use Background Posting’ lets the user switch posting of transactions to a separate application thread enabling the Clerk to proceed with a new sale without delay. Enable this option for optimal performance. However, when enabled, if the database is located on a Remote server and the connectivity speed is poor, then the process might timeout during execution and fail to post a transaction successfully.

Inventory Oversell

A great feature of Premier Retail is the ability to disable Clerks from selling an item if the system inventory reflects the the store to be out of stock for that item. Located under the General category in Transactions, the system can be configured to completely disable selling of an item if overselling inventory, let the manager override the restriction when occurred, or not apply any restrictions.

Although useful, disabling Inventory Oversell or requiring Manager Approval on oversell causes the inventory to be refreshed after each sale resulting in slower transaction completion. In a future service pack release of Premier Retail 2009 this functionality will be rewritten to optimally update the inventory via threading and event triggers, but till then it is advised to set Inventory Oversell Mode to Allow.

Disallow inventory oversell or configure for manager approval when;

Inventory is less than 10,000 items.
Load Data Into Memory is turned off.
Database is located on a local system or network.

Refresh Inventory on Lookup

In Premier Retail the Item Lookup provides users with the ability to quickly lookup inventory items with ease. Although the lookup displays each item’s available units in stock, the value may not reflect the actual record unless ‘Load Data Into Memory’ is turned off. The ‘Refresh Inventory on Lookup’ configuration option configures the item lookup to automatically refresh the inventory when the lookup is loaded.

Enable this option if and only if;

Inventory is less than 10,000 items.
Load Data Into Memory is turned off.
Database is located on a local system or network.

Pole Displays A Thing of the Past

2009-02-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

by Ezra Weinstein

As an avid reader of Engadget I always search for the latest and greatest gadgets to add to my personal growing arsenal. Late last year I read a post about a 7" monitor that connected to a computer via USB. The minute I read the article I realized what a perfect application it would have in the retail environment.

For months we have been planning to add support for pole displays to the Premier Retail product line, but as you can see from the picture to the left, pole displays are ancient looking, they are limited to only two lines of display and they are proprietary. Many pole displays connect only to the serial ports of the computer which these days many computers don't even ship with. I've been scratching my head for a while now thinking to myself what a waste of time it would be to build support for such an old technology. So of course alternatives started surfacing in my mind and the natural thought process was to support a second display. Back around the July 2008 time frame we introduced support for a second display which works really well. Instead of being limited to two lines of display the user has the ability to show the entire tape of information (all the items being rung up), and there is plenty of room to feature a flash object to use for advertising.

The problem with a second display is of two fold, space constraints and cost. Our friends at digicom international offer some excellent options that eliminate the space constraint issue and provide a user with a wonderful machine with two screens built in. This is a great machine but of course there is a larger cost involved which brings me back to the article in Engadget which you can read by clicking on the link. I was so excited to see a cost effective, elegant, non power hungry alternative surface and as soon as I could I placed an order the Gadgeteers and ordered one of these puppies! And let me tell you this it not only did not dissapoint it exceeded my expectations. The display I ordered was the UM710 they also offer a model UM740 which has touch screen capabilities. I would have ordered this one but they didn't have it in stock. The price for the screen was only $129 which really set me up to expect a poorly manufactured piece of garbage.

When I first received the screen I was immediately impressed. I quickly installed the drivers on my Dell XPS notebook and then attached it to my computer. Immediately I noticed how crisp and clear the display was. The quality of manufacturing looks phenomenal and running the point of sale with a secondary screen is just amazing.

Whether you are an end user of Premier Retail or one of our channel partners I would highly recommend purchasing one of these screen for each of your registers. If you are a channel partner I believe this little screen will more than pay for itself when you bring into a presentation with a customer. The customer can immediately benefit from providing a better service to their customers and also utilize the screen real estate for advertising purposes. When you are ready to setup your second display do the following:

Run the Premier Configuration Tool

Under the Premier Code Engine Category the first option reads: PCE - After Application Startup

Enter StartCustomerDisplay.VB in that option and click Update

You are all set to go. As a channel partner you have a revenue opportunity to setup these screens and customize the advertising for customers. Any customer is glad to invest in a solution that helps them increase their revenue and for a very cost effective price the customer now has an extremely powerful advertising tool and of course a display for their customers which functions a whole lot better than a two line old pole display!

I will be ordering a UM-740 as soon as it is in stock and will let all of you know how that works. I am anxious to try this out and create a customer facing macro for collecting demographic information or doing a survey. Imagine not having to ask a customer for their zip code instead they can just hit the touchscreen and enter that information...food for thought!