July 2005

FEATURE OF THE MONTH

7 Series User List

Defining Lock Out Periods

     Have you ever been on the phone with BHD Tech Support and we are telling you “you need to back everyone out of the system”?  Then you have to run around to every computer and figure out who is in and who is not.  Or if you want to make a system preference change and it tells you POS is in use. Or for that matter, you just want everyone to be backed out so your backups will work that night. 

     From the main screen of Retail Pro 7 series, if you right click with your mouse anywhere you will get a drop down list with options, one of which is USER LIST.  By selecting this you can see exactly which workstations are in Retail Pro, and what module they are in.

                                                        SERIES 7

By selecting this you can see exactly which workstations are in Retail Pro. 

Define Lockout Period In 7 series

Wouldn’t it also be nice if Retail Pro could kick everyone out of the system each night at exactly 10 minutes before your backup starts? Well you can do this in version 7 and version 8. 

In SYSTEM PREFERENCES>SETTINGS>POLLING, you can define lockout periods. The step by step to do this from the main menu is PREFERENCES, then go into, SYSTEM, then choose SETTINGS and press the enter key. Now press your END key on the keyboard, up arrow three times, and highlight POLLING then press the enter key.  You should be on the setting for <Define a Lock Out Period – YES/NO.  By setting this to yes, you are essentially setting a time when the system will back all users out to the main menu of Retail Pro.

     One of the reasons you would want to do this is because if one of the cashiers left a workstation in the invoice screen, the entire month’s sales file would not back up that night.  So if your backup is set to run at 10:00pm, you could set Retail Pro to kick everyone out at 9:45p, with 10 minutes warning.    This feature is great for any reason that workstations need to be backed out. 

8 Series User List

    Have you ever been on the phone with BHD Tech Support and we are telling you “you need to back everyone out of the system”?  Then you have to run around to every computer and figure out who is in and who is not.  Or if you want to make a system preference change and it tells you POS is in use. Or for that matter, you just want everyone to be backed out so your backups will work that night. 

  Now you can go directly to those workstations and take them out of Retail Pro rather than going to every workstation.  If you have workstations listed in the box, but all of the numbers in the lower part of the window are 0, then this simply means the workstations are at the main menu.

From the main screen of Retail Pro 8 series, go to the Options on the main menu and you will see User Info menu.

Define Lockout Period In 8 series

From main menu, select OPTIONS>SYSTEM PREFERENCES. You will see the menu as shown below. Highlight POLLING and then put a check in SCHEDULE A LOCKOUT PERIOD.  Make sure that you put in the advance warning time in minutes when people will be given warning that they will be locked out of Retail Pro.

      One of the reasons you would want to do this is because if one of the cashiers left a workstation in the invoice screen, the entire month’s sales file would not back up that night.  So if your backup is set to run at 10:00pm, you could set Retail Pro to kick everyone out at 9:45p, with 10 minutes warning.    This feature is great for any reason that workstations need to be backed out.