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Gift Card Functionality issues in LS Retail with NAV 2009
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Member Posts: 8
We have not long implemented our NAV 2009 + LS Retail system.
We have 3 POS Terminals in one store with 1 Server - although the third POS terminal is very rarely in use.
We have basic Gift Card Functionality operating through InfoCodes (GiftCardNo and GiftCardIN), and DataEntry (GiftCardNo). After several months running live - we discovered that GiftCards could be redeemed in excess of their remaining value - and we were originally told by our consultant that this was "standard fucntionality" - but we eventually resolved this via trial and error. (At one point they actually told me that the way most people keep track of the balance is to write the remaining value on the back of the card after each transaction!!! Seriously!!! - why have a computer at all at that rate!)
We still have problems with Gift Cards however, but our consultant tells us that what we (now!) have is "standard functionality" (heard that before!), and if we want anything different it will COST US thousand of dollars for them to CUSTOMISE a solution that suits us! (That seems to be their answer to everything). But how it is currently working doesn't seem logical or practical - and I don't put much credibility in what our consultants tell me any more.
The issues are:
(1) Customer's often want to know how much they have left on their gift card before they decide on a purchase - BUT the routine to check the remaining value on a gift card will only work AFTER the Total button has been pressed - ie during a transaction. (Command = "View DataEntry Bal" - Parameter = "GiftCardNo"). So POS staff have to start a "dummy" transaction, then void it. (GiftCards can be for any value nominated by the customer and can be redeemed over a period of 12 months - so customers often forget how much they have left.)
(2) Even if the customer does want to buy something on the gift card, staff CANNOT even start the real transaction, check the balance of the gift card then process a transaction against that card in the same transaction. If you try to do both steps in the same transaction it produces a error.
Having to start a transaction just to check the remaining value seems illogical, but then not even being able to complete the transaction in the same step is even more ridiculous - and it's driving our staff crazy!
(3) There is another problem with the Gift Cards which seems to be intermittent (so very hard to diagnose the cause) which is that quite often (maybe 50% of cases) when we are trying to redeem value against a Gift Card we get an error to say that the POS cannot connect to the Server. Our IT network consultants (who are on a fixed fee contract), put additional diagnostic software to check if there was any loss of connectivity between the POS terminals and the server - and that indicated that there was no loss of connectivity - so it just appears to be a NAV/LS-Retail/SQL-Express problem. (Ironically this problem only seemed to start happening AFTER we found the solution to the gift cards redeeming in excess of their remaining value. I seem to have found that every time our NAV consultants fixed one thing a new problem would arise!
Can someone please help! Even if just to let me know whether what we have is "Standard functionality".
We have 3 POS Terminals in one store with 1 Server - although the third POS terminal is very rarely in use.
We have basic Gift Card Functionality operating through InfoCodes (GiftCardNo and GiftCardIN), and DataEntry (GiftCardNo). After several months running live - we discovered that GiftCards could be redeemed in excess of their remaining value - and we were originally told by our consultant that this was "standard fucntionality" - but we eventually resolved this via trial and error. (At one point they actually told me that the way most people keep track of the balance is to write the remaining value on the back of the card after each transaction!!! Seriously!!! - why have a computer at all at that rate!)
We still have problems with Gift Cards however, but our consultant tells us that what we (now!) have is "standard functionality" (heard that before!), and if we want anything different it will COST US thousand of dollars for them to CUSTOMISE a solution that suits us! (That seems to be their answer to everything). But how it is currently working doesn't seem logical or practical - and I don't put much credibility in what our consultants tell me any more.
The issues are:
(1) Customer's often want to know how much they have left on their gift card before they decide on a purchase - BUT the routine to check the remaining value on a gift card will only work AFTER the Total button has been pressed - ie during a transaction. (Command = "View DataEntry Bal" - Parameter = "GiftCardNo"). So POS staff have to start a "dummy" transaction, then void it. (GiftCards can be for any value nominated by the customer and can be redeemed over a period of 12 months - so customers often forget how much they have left.)
(2) Even if the customer does want to buy something on the gift card, staff CANNOT even start the real transaction, check the balance of the gift card then process a transaction against that card in the same transaction. If you try to do both steps in the same transaction it produces a error.
Having to start a transaction just to check the remaining value seems illogical, but then not even being able to complete the transaction in the same step is even more ridiculous - and it's driving our staff crazy!
(3) There is another problem with the Gift Cards which seems to be intermittent (so very hard to diagnose the cause) which is that quite often (maybe 50% of cases) when we are trying to redeem value against a Gift Card we get an error to say that the POS cannot connect to the Server. Our IT network consultants (who are on a fixed fee contract), put additional diagnostic software to check if there was any loss of connectivity between the POS terminals and the server - and that indicated that there was no loss of connectivity - so it just appears to be a NAV/LS-Retail/SQL-Express problem. (Ironically this problem only seemed to start happening AFTER we found the solution to the gift cards redeeming in excess of their remaining value. I seem to have found that every time our NAV consultants fixed one thing a new problem would arise!
Can someone please help! Even if just to let me know whether what we have is "Standard functionality".
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