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Centralize and manage enterprise data efficiently through daily business polling. Gain comprehensive insights, automate data distribution, manage inventory, pricing, and orders centrally. Implement FTP for seamless connectivity.
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Polling Managing the Enterprise
Polling Overview Corporate collects all data from stores daily • Corporate sees everything the stores can • Run any of the 60+ reports • as a whole • individual locations • Complete visibility • Corporate computer can distribute data back to stores • Pricing • Taxes • Promotions • Cashier rights and access • Departments and categories • Vendors • Minimum and maximum inventory levels • Etc
Prod Cross • Stores can see the quantity on hand at other locations • This information can be sent several times a day
Location vs. Corporate ComCash Location • usually a store, but might be a warehouse • each location represents an inventory • each location will have it’s own database with ONLY it’s own data (with the exception of ProdCross data) Corporate • is NOT a location, it has no inventory • is a collection of ALL locations in one database (the corporate database)
Polling Overview • Dial-up or high speed connections • Efficient - Only the changes are sent • Fault tolerant • Changes accumulate and stay queued up to poll until they are successfully polled • If a store’s internet connection is down for days, any info that failed to poll will automatically poll when the issue is resolved • FTP site • Currently provided by ComCash for no additional charge (or use your own) • Can use any folder instead of an ftp site • Terminal Server installation • Multiple locations on one network • Stores can be different business types
Centralize Management • Data entry • Virtually all data (products, categories, departments, cashiers, sales reps, vendors, etc.) can be entered once at corporate and pushed to any or all of the locations. • Pricing • New products • Centralized ordering • Corporate can generate purchase orders and push to the stores • Centralized statements • Corporate can generate/send statements
How it works • Every table has a “modified” field • true / false field • “modified true” means the record has been added or edited since the last time we polled • “modified true” records poll “modified false” records do not • Every table has a location number field • Ties the record to the location of origin
How it works • Corporate – PushPoll Corp SEND • Corporate sends changes to FTP site • Remote stores – Store Poll (send/receive) • Store picks up the “from corporate” changes • Store sends it’s changes to FTP site • Corporate- PushPoll Corp RECEIVE • Corporate returns to the FTP site to retrieve the changes the left by the stores
The SetupTo use Polling you will need: • A central computer (Corporate Polling Server) • ComCash installed as a corporate installation • Polling installed as a corporate installation • This should be a dedicated computer • At least one store using ComCash as it’s POS • Polling installed as a store environment • It only needs to be installed on one computer • Typically the server
Set up the store computers. • Install ComCash POS on each computer. • Install Polling on one computer • Set the polling parameters. • Location # (0 for corporate) • Name (Corporate) • FTP site (ftp.myftpsite.com) • Login (myusername) • Password (mypassword) • Drop box (/polling) • Pickup box (/polling) • MUST use forward slashes (ftp protocol) • Drop and pickup are typically the same folder • Schedule each computer to SEND/RECEIVE data to/from the FTP site
The First Poll • At each store (location) • Set all modified flags • Run PushPoll • This will place ALL of the stores data on the FTP site • At Corporate • Run PushPollCorp RECEIVE
About Inventory Counts • Corporate cannot do anything to affect the quantities on hand for a store. • Quantities on hand are sacred • Corp cannot sell, receive, do store transfers, conduct store inventories for the stores
Centralized Ordering • Corp creates purchase order for the store • temporary PO# • The PO gets sent to the store • a permanent PO# is assigned • Store sends it to the vendor • Fax, Print or Email • When the merchandise comes in, it can be received against the PO
Distribution Warehouse • Example: • Five clothing stores • One of the stores has a warehouse attached • Product is purchased and stored at the warehouse and the distributed to the stores • The warehouse has an inventory and therefore is simply another location • the corporate polling server may also be at the warehouse, but not necessarily
Distribution Warehouse • At the warehouse • setup the stores as customers entitled to a price level that equates to cost or zero price • At the stores • setup the warehouse as a vendor • Stores order product from the vendor (warehouse)
Distribution Warehouse • The warehouse fills the order (as best they can) and invoices it to the store • The product travels with a copy of the invoice • The store receives against the original PO • Remember corporate can also create the order for the stores • ProdCross info is available at the time of ordering to see how many the warehouse has in stock