POS Integration (Aloha, Micros, Squirrel, Maitre’D Volanté) 2

[blackle]

Hello,

I work at a small startup company and I'm researching POS integration for our schedule management product. We're looking for software to allow us to fetch (or retrieve) the gross sales per hour of our customer's POS networks. The systems that are 'high priority' for integration are: Aloha, Micros, Squirrel, Maitre’D, Volanté and Silverware.

My question is: What's the best way to implement this software across all these platforms? A few of them have reporting tools that can send hourly email updates, but not all of them. If most POS systems run windows and has database backends, could I simply write an application that queries these databases to compute the hourly sales? Do I need developer licenses to do this? If I don't is that a TOS violation?

 

[Moregelen]

You can access the database without any need for extra licensing; it doesn't violate anything, though it does of course add more 'openings' in your network.

Micros specifically creates an ODBC connection on ever machine that a location windows service can easily access. The DSN is always micros and there is always an account setup just for things like this called custom,custom that has read rights on the majority of tables and stored procedures.

You will need a license for PMS/SIM if you want to make the software interactive from the terminals (ie: to plug into ANYTHING on ops, you need that license); to just read the database though you need no additional licensing.

The general trend is that for pre-RES 5, most of these utilities actually utilized Micros' built in task scheduler (Auto-sequences) to run their exports on a schedule. Removes one of the hardest part of programming a scheduled task. For RES 5, the general trend seems to be to use the Windows Task Scheduler instead, as it has proven more reliable than auto-sequences.

If you do as a lot of are doing and code it in .NET you basically have a situation where every Micros system out there can run your program, so long as you target a lower framework. A minimum of 3.5 .NET is required for all RES 5 installations; the lowest .NET I've ever seen on older sites is .NET 2.0 (.NET 1.1 is required for these sites, but most have had at least 2.0 as well). Plus, the .NET language (make sure to target it as a 32 bit not any CPU) provides VERY easy, seamless access to the pre-existing ODBC connection.

 

[Moregelen]

I really need to start proof reading my posts.. It really looks like English isn't my first language..

 

[blackle]

Thanks a lot! That's very helpful. All that we'd be doing is reading transactions and tallying up sales, so there's no need to use the GUI. I haven't thought about what language to write this in (I don't even own a POS system to experiment on yet @_@ ) I was thinking c, but I imagine now that it would get very difficult very quickly, unless the database can be accessed as a raw file.

 

[Moregelen]

Hmmm. Nope. And why go C instead of C++? But C# is a very easy and quick language to deploy on.

And also, Micros has a lot of stored procedures that you can build on. It doesn't take long at all to put something for data exports together. The hardest part is how you process it once you have it, and how to display it.

I know it only took me like two minutes to write a payroll export. The data is very ACCESSIBLE.

 

[pmegan]

Just a few things to know/keep in mind.

If you're running a query and send the data out you should be fine. If you're looking to have an app or service connect to your customers' systems and extract the info you're going to run into PCI accountability.

The Micros 3700 has a DSN named Micros on all it's servers, all version 4.x systems have a user named custom, but some dealerships have been setting their own passwords. In my market our vendor moved away from the custom/custom user about 4-5 years ago. Version 5.x systems won't necessarily have a custom user at all. If the database is upgraded from v4.x then yes, but the custom user isn't a default part of version 5.x.

The Micros 9700 has a DSN that I believe is named mcrspos, not sure what user accounts are available. There are two versions of 9700; one with SQL Server Lite and one with a full installation. Systems with a full installation are no problem, but it is a TOS violation to directly access the database on a SQL Lite system. You have to use the old 8700 method of creating a data dump through a proprietary export and parsing through a flat file.

Micros Simphony doesn't offer any database querying that I know of. There's a big push to make this the main Micros POS product so that might be a problem. Also, Windows XP is going end of support in early 2014, (2003 server in 2015), and therefore out of PCI compliance, so any restaurant with an XP "server" will have to upgrade at that point and Micros is giving Simphony the hard sell. You might want to ask your potential customers if they're planning on upgrading so you don't end up with a bunch of obsolete installations 6 months down the road.

 

[Moregelen]

The push to simphony for small places is still, at least, a ways out. But yes.. I know it will be interested. We host a client who has hundred of locations.. I can tell you right now there is no way we'd install third party software on that server. If they need something special, we have in house programmers for that.

When simphony two eventually (its still at least a few years off, at least that is what it feels like despite the framework already being there) incorporates tenanting it will be interesting.. my company at least probably will make it difficult for you to install the software on our servers, simply because we will have a lot of individual restaurants all on a single server. We most assuredly wouldn't give you direct database access. You might be able to just install it on the local workstation though. They use POS Ready system for the local server aspect.

I'm still too new to Micros to say anything definite, but Simphony looks CONSIDERABLY more mutable. I think most things like what you are doing will be able to be incorporated directly into the Micros system. All data exchange in simphony two is now done in XML as well which is nice. And from the docs I've been able to read, it actually looks like it is using some silverlight with WPF type GUI control, though, again, I wouldn't quote me on that...