Can't Close Shift in mPOS Error

I ran into an issue today and finally found a solution so I want to make a post about it just in case if someone else run into the same problem.  The issue I was having was I wasn't able to open a new shift, because there was already a shift open with a pending transaction. So let's us back up a little bit because at this time I was installing offline database and I was just jumping everywhere and was able to get my mPOS to go in offline mode (great! not great...). I had issue provisioning my offline DB and after getting support from Microsoft I was able to provisioned my offline DB successfully! So I signed in to my mPOS and it asked me if I wanted to open a new shift (strange) because I never really closed my previous shift and I had a pending transaction that I never finished. So I clicked "Open a new shift" and was immediately presented with an error saying that there was already a shift opened and I need to close that shift before opening a new shift.

So I began to delete all the transactions from "RetailTransactionTable" in my channel DB and Offline DB from SQL Server Management Studio. Then tried again but no luck. After digging around a little more I found out that I can delete shifts! Awesome! The table that hold information about the shifts are  CRT.RETAILSHIFTSTAGINGTABLE, CRT.RETAILSHIFTSTAGINGTABLE_tracking, and CRT.RETAILSHIFTUSERSTAGINGTABLE. In those tables I want to find  the TERMINALID, and SHIFTID  columns that matches with the terminal and shift that you are currently on and delete those row(s). I did this both on my channel DB and Offline DB. After that I was able to log in to mPOS and was given a new shift without an error! YAY! 

I hope this little post will help those who might run into these issues! Cheers!

Windows Installer package error

You might run into an error "There is a problem with this Windows installer package. A program run as part of the setup did not finish as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vendor" when you're installing component from AX Setup. This error can be very frustrating as it doesn't give us much hints on why it is being thrown.  After digging around I was able to find some solutions to bypass this error.

I found that you can fix this issue by going to "Services" (click start and type services) should be a gear icon. Then you want to scroll down and find "Window Installer" and make sure the service is running. Try to install your AX component again and see if you can proceed without any error. If the error still persist then you want to restart the AOS in Services and try again. These were the steps I took to bypass this error, and I hope this will help you with this annoying error as well! Cheers!

mPOS screen layout Sale button error

I'm sure we all run into this issue before so I want to make a post about it. When we are configuring the button on mPOS especially for "Product sale" it required us to enter a Bar code. So we would then go ahead and select a bar code from the list, and DONE! When we open up mPOS and click the "Sale" button we quickly realized that it just sold the product from the bar code that we have selected earlier when we were configuring the button properties. However, it should take us to the sales screen should it not? So I found out that instead of selecting a bar code you can add  S P A C E S  in the bar code selection of the button configuration and it should bypass the error where it required you to enter a bar code. Next time you open mPOS and click the "Sale" button it should take you to the sale screen. Not sure why Microsoft code the logic to work like that  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess it was like an easter egg you find on your own.

Loyalty Points not showing in mPOS

Today I want to go over loyalty in mPOS. I originally had everything setup in AX and thought it was correct, but for some weird reason the loyalty points will not show up in the customer account in mPOS. I started debugging and found out that I never setup a loyalty tier (the client said they don't really use tiers). The client still wanted to see the customer loyalty points in mPOS. So I figured I created a dummy tier to see if it will fix the problem and behold it works! Tiers is very crucial in AX, because without setting up a tier the customer loyalty points will not show up in mPOS. So here are the steps I took in order for loyalty points to show up in mPOS.

1) Go to Retail > Setup > Loyalty > Loyalty Reward points. Go ahead and create a new reward points and set it up similar to what I have. Make sure to check Redeemable as it is crucial for the points to display in mPOS.

2) Go to Retail > Setup > Loyalty > Loyalty Program. We want to create a new program and set it up similar to what I have.

3) Go to Retail > Common > Loyalty Scheme. Create a new loyalty scheme and then edit the loyalty scheme. We want to create a new Earning rules, Redemption rules and which retail channel we want to have this loyalty scheme setup for.

Once everything is setup in AX, open up mPOS and issue a new loyalty card to a customer. Once that is done we want to go back to Retail > Common > Loyalty card and assign a Loyalty program for the new loyalty card.

Make sure to run 1050 job which is Loyalty Information to push the data down to the channel database. If everything was setup correctly you should be able to go into mPOS, open up your customer and their loyalty points should show up.

UPDATE:

If you still having problem with the loyalty points not showing up. The cause could be because you are using a "Direct Database Connection". This setting is in the Retail Channel Configuration Utility. I originally did not use direct database connection and my points was showing up. Then when I turned on Direct Database Connection my points were no longer showing. It could be how mPOS API calls to get the loyalty points information to display. Hopefully this will help those who still have an issue with the loyalty points now showing.

mPOS declare start amount error

Today I will show you how to resolve "Declare Start Amount" error. I've ran into this issue and it took quiet a bit of time to figure out the cause of it.

The cause of this error is when a cashier did a "Blind close shift" and not completely closing their shift. In a sense their shift still exist and we need to close their shift out completely. So what we need to do is add a button in mPOS with the operation "Show blind closed shifts".

Go ahead and open up AX and browse to: Retail > Setup > POS > Profiles > Button grids.

Once we are in the button grid form we want to select the button grid that we want to place this button in. In my case it was button grid 90. 

We then want to click on "Designer" at the top of the form. We will see a layout design of the buttons. 

Go ahead and click "New button" and that will add a new button to our layout design. 

With the new button we want to right-click and select "Button properties".

In Action dropdown box we want to select Show blind closed shifts.

Then on Text on button give it a descriptive name, I went ahead and name exactly like the action of the button.

Once everything is done go ahead and run 1070 and 1090 job so it can be pushed to the store. If everything is done correctly you should be able to log in to mPOS and your button should be there. What we need to do now is click on the Show blind closed shifts. you should see a list of blind closed shift. What we need to do next is close those shifts. Go ahead and select the shift and at the bottom right corner select Close shift and select Yes.

Once all of that is done you should be able to declare your start amount and do your tender declaration! :D

Error when closing shift

If you're trying to close a shift, but run into an error stating that you must first declare starting amount and do your tender declaration, then there is a solution to resolve that error.

What we need to do is go into Retail>Setup>POS>Profiles>Functionality profiles. We want to uncheck the box that said "Require starting amounts and tender declaration". Once you have done that go ahead and run 1070 job to push it to the store. The next time you're in mPOS you should be able to close your shift without any error.

Error when Delcaring Starting Amount in mPOS

Did you get an error when declaring starting amount in mPOS? Then I have a solution for you!

What happen is when you declare starting amount the system will try and figured out which payment method you are using. If the store is not using the correct payment method then it would throw an error. What we need to do is setup a "Tender Remove/Float" payment method. We can do so by going to Retail>Common>Retail channels>Retail stores> select your store.

Then select Setup tab and select Payment methods.

In this form we want to create a new payment method and select "Tender Remove/Float", and go ahead and fill out the necessary information on the right hand side.

Once that is done we need to go back to the store and set it. Under Miscellaneous>Payment method we want to set it to the payment method we've just created. After that you want to go ahead and run 1070 and 1090 job to push the data to the store level. 

If you do everything correctly then you should be able to declare a starting amount in mPOS without any error.