Offline Booking on Guest Check

(particularly considering an extisting Drink Dispenser connection)

A GC booking transaction in the MICROS Retail OSCAR POS system requires the existence of CLIENT databases. Before being booked on the client, the whole GC is copied to the local client database (or is created there). This is necessary to allow further processing of GCs in the offline mode – always to the last client that booked on the GC.

A copy of the current GC state is always existent on the server database, too.

The administration of which client is currently to process which GC is done by the MICROS Retail OSCAR POS server. If a GC is currently on another client, this client will be directly addressed (cp. SALESDEBUG:releaseGC) and queried if it is willing to release the GC. If the process unit currently entered as the processing client is not accessible, this GC cannot be booked on by other clients (GC locked).

This GC processing involves the following dangers:

  1. If the POS terminal and the drink dispenser (DD) stand close to each other and if the waiter books at the terminal (e.g. client 11), leaves the GC there, selects and books at the DD, the booking transaction will not reach the GC as long as the GC is selected at the terminal. The booking of the DD is always laid aside, the attempts will take place every five seconds. Now, if the waiter stands at terminal 11 and selects the table again to find the DD booking transaction, the two processes impede each other, and the booking transaction reaches the GC only by coincidence within a longer interruption with the unselected GC.
  2. If there are temporary OFFLINE conditions within the system, a GC selection will be rejected with the error message “GC locked” if the corresponding process unit is OFFLINE in this moment.
  3. There is a function UNLOCK GC available. This function can and may only be used if a process unit (or a system unit) has an irrevocable defect and will not be ONLINE for some time. After using the function UNLOCK GC for a terminal, the client database of this terminal MUST be reloaded.

After using the function “UNLOCK GC” for a terminal, all GCs that are assigned to this terminal as the “last processing unit” will be accessible for all other process units again (because the entry “last processing unit” will be set to zero). In cases of system unit defects, the other terminals will thus go on booking according to the last GC booking state of the client. If the client database of the defect system unit is not erased or if a client of which the GCs have been unlocked carries out further booking transactions for this GC after the function “UNLOCK GC” has been utilized, this will lead to severe booking differences in ONLINE cases since the processing states of the GC differ between the server and the client..

index.gif Click on the image to return to the Table of Contents.

MICROS Retail Deutschland GmbH
Salzufer 8
D-10587 Berlin
Germany