get Date function- HQ

Posted by Andrea on December 6, 2005, 1:00 pm

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I have a potential HQ client who has heard that Microsoft has a "get date"
function within HQ.
Apparently, the POS has to go to the server and does a "Get Date" function,
this is done repetitively so that the POS is kept online. If there is no
response- it crashes the system. I have never heard of such a thing. Is this
for real?
Andrea

Posted by Rob on December 6, 2005, 2:15 pm

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Yes and No.
Yes the POS is constantly checking to see if it has a connection to the
Database, no it is not checking to see if it has a connection to the HQ
database.
Yes the POS will crash if it loses its connection to the Store Operations
Database, no it will not crash if it loses its connection to the HQ database.
At the store level if they have more than 1 lane, you can setup the other
lanes to go into 'Offline Mode' (check SO help for more info) if they lose
the connection to the SO database
If the Stores can't establish a connection to the HQ they WILL still
continue to operate independantly on there own.

Rob

"Andrea" wrote:

> I have a potential HQ client who has heard that Microsoft has a "get date"

> function within HQ.

> Apparently, the POS has to go to the server and does a "Get Date" function,

> this is done repetitively so that the POS is kept online. If there is no

> response- it crashes the system. I have never heard of such a thing. Is this

> for real?

> Andrea

Posted by Glenn Adams [MVP - Retail Mgmt on December 6, 2005, 2:21 pm

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Store Operations does that - I'm not sure about HQ. To see it, use SQL
Profiler (one of the tools included with versions of SQL Server other than
MSDE) - each register running POS will make a call to the SQL Server for
"Select getdate()" every one second. This is a heartbeat check - the
register is making sure that it can still find the server. If the call
fails, then yes, POS will display an error message and will shutdown. When
you restart POS, it will look for the database again and if it's not there
it will attempt to fail over to the offline database. This is what the
heartbeat is all about - enabling that failover to offline so that the
register can continue to ring sales. It's a shame that there isn't a
smoother transition - like just switching to offline mode without the error
message and forced shutdown, but that's what it does.

I don't remember if SO Manager or HQ Manager do this or not - you can check
in SQL Profiler. In any case, SO would never be checking HQ...

--
--
Glenn Adams
Tiber Creek Consulting
http://www.tibercreek.com
glenn@tibercreek.com
----------------------------------------------
Please DO NOT respond to me directly but post all responses here in the
newsgroup so that all can share the information

>I have a potential HQ client who has heard that Microsoft has a "get date"

> function within HQ.

> Apparently, the POS has to go to the server and does a "Get Date"

> function,

> this is done repetitively so that the POS is kept online. If there is no

> response- it crashes the system. I have never heard of such a thing. Is

> this

> for real?

> Andrea

Posted by Jeff on December 11, 2005, 12:48 am

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Andrea,

You probably want to start posting in the reseller's groups too.

You must have your partner logon;

http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/partnersource.mspx

Then click on the link for instructions to setup Outlook Express.
http://tinyurl.com/7kwtl

Then find and add microsoft.private.mbspartner.retailmanagement and
microsoft.private.directaccess.rms newsgroups.

Finally, add the public site;

Click on the link below and click on "Open with newsreader" under the MS
Retail Management System section on the right. It will configure Outlook
Express for you and will bring you back to this newsgroup in Outlook
Express.

http://tinyurl.com/75bgz

--
=

>I have a potential HQ client who has heard that Microsoft has a "get date"

> function within HQ.

> Apparently, the POS has to go to the server and does a "Get Date"

> function,

> this is done repetitively so that the POS is kept online. If there is no

> response- it crashes the system. I have never heard of such a thing. Is

> this

> for real?

> Andrea