Micros 3700 and Surveys

[MZ117]

On our Micros 3700 system, we would like to implement surveys for guests to fill out on the website. Adding the trailer is easy, however...

How would I restrict it so that customers can only fill it out within say 3-5 days of visiting. My first thought was to use the receipt number (i believe they reset every 7 days) but I guess I would prefer to have a random code generated (that we could lookup) for the surveys...

Or.. if someone has a better idea, I would love to hear it, as well. In a perfect world, I'd like the receipt to print "Goto website.com/survey and use code "temp123a2" within 3 days..." and then that code is validated online... Really want this more for the newer Micros 3700 site (since we just acquired it) but if anyone has a way to do this with Aloha and Micros that would be ideal.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Moregelen]

If you are setting up the site anyway, you could embed the expiration in the code yourself. You could then encode it so that it isn't obvious to the customer.

Or, if you have a database you can access remotely, you can use the SIM to actually connect to that database (the one the website is using), and insert an entry into the table that contains the valid survey codes, along with a TIMESTAMP. At that point you could do whatever you wanted with it; have them pruned daily, maybe offer a consolation coupon to get them back into the store if the survey expired, etc etc.

 

[GAMicrosUser]

Would be best to embed the transaction date in your survey code and handle validation on the the website backend.

I have implemented a similar survey via SIM. All of the transaction detail for the survey is compiled in a base 10 string. The string is then converted to base 36 format. The reverse conversion is done via the website and the date is validated during that step.

Would recommend looking into a similar solution. Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[Moregelen]

You might consider printing it as a qr code too so they don't have to type it. The tm-88V supports this natively (pretty standard printer for micros so maybe it is what you have).

 

[MZ117]

Thanks for the suggestions, all! GAChickenMan, I was originally thinking a SIM script with backend validation, so that isn't a bad idea.

Moregelen, we do have TM-88s. While I don't particularly like QR Codes -)) that's not a bad idea (considering I was aiming for mobile surveys anyways). Do you use a SIM to print them, I'm guessing? I'm going to take a guess here but does the SIM generate the QR or website backend generate?

Thanks!

 

[Moregelen]

The sim generates the qr code with a:

event print_trailer : SURVEY

// geberate their surgery token and print as qr code

endevent

The easiest way, though it is vulnerable, is to just create a web page like:

Survery?token=ad14252

Where that ad14252 is something real that is something like 03-15-2013-143626 encoded (maybe into something like decimal packed to hex). The first part is the date and the last part a token (maybe their guest check?). And then you can do a check to see how many days it has been in the actual website. If you print it as a qr code, they won't have to type those funky numbers/letters themselves.