"Over the years, I've recommended Counterpoint to everyone I know in the industry. This software is very comprehensive and user friendly. Overall, it’s difficult to articulate everything this system has done for this company!”
-Feed & Pet Supply Store, Santa Clarita, CA
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OFFLINE
TICKET ENTRY
Where were you
when the power went out?
Continue
ringing up sales even if your workstation loses its
connection to the CounterPoint server. Also great for
sidewalk sales, portable kiosks, or network outages.
The Offline
Ticket Entry Option provides lane redundancy and ensures
fault tolerance so that clerks can continue to ring up sales
if the connection to the CounterPoint server is lost.
Offline
Ticket Entry is also useful during network outages, sidewalk
sales, scheduled server maintenance, or for any situation in
which the server is unavailable. Offline mode may be used as
the normal mode of operation for remote or
sometimes-connected workstations.
Based on the DataXtend
Replication Engine (DXRE), the Offline Ticket Entry relies
on two-way (i.e., bi-directional) data synchronization to
keep all specified tables in sync. This means that data that
is modified in any database will be replicated to all other
databases in the Offline Ticket Entry environment.
Offline V2 uses the Radiant Synchronization Service (Rad
Sync) to synchronize data between the server and all offline
workstations. Rad Sync relies on the principle of “primary
ownership” to determine how to synchronize each type of
data. In an Offline V2 environment, the server “owns”
configuration and inventory status data, while each offline
workstation owns.
Offline Mode
In offline mode,
clerks ring up sales in the normal manner, but the tickets
are saved to a local database rather than to the main
CounterPoint server's database. When the server becomes
available again, the workstation database is automatically
synchronized (replicated) with the server, and the offline
tickets become part of the server's database.
When
CounterPoint is running in offline mode, you can:
Open and
close cash drawers
Enter
sale and return tickets
Authorize credit card (EDC) transactions
Enter
and process orders, layaways, quotes, and holds
Issue
gift certificates and store credits
Add new
customers on-the-fly
View
drawer readings
Other
CounterPoint functions are not available in offline mode.
Synchronizing Data
Offline
Ticket Entry includes PDRE (PeerDirect Replication Engine)
software to replicate the local database with the main
CounterPoint server's database.
Managing Offline
Workstations
CounterPoint
includes Altiris software that enables a single computer
(the Notification Server) to control the installation of
software updates, database changes, and file distribution
for each offline workstation. The Notification Server "talks
to" the other offline workstations and automatically keeps
them all up-to-date.
