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Remote Desktop or web-enabled inventory

We've got four stores. Eventually, they'll all be running RMS Store Ops with RMS HQ running at Store One.

The Boss wants the sales staff to have access to the inventory at all stores. I have already informed The Boss that real-time access to multi-store inventory at the POS is not going to happen. When someone at Store Three wants to check inventory at Store Four, what's the best option?

Remote Desktop? I can pretty easily give RDP over VPN access to store managers. Sales staff would have to go to a non-POS PC, log in to the RMS HQ server at Store One and check the inventory at Store Four. I intend to upload store data hourly, so inventory won't ever be too out of date.

Web Enabled? No not a shopping cart. (I think) I could set up a private directory on my web server and upload a set of inventory queries/reports every so often by using task scheduler. Anyone with a web connection and a user ID/password could access the page(s) and look for the item they want. This would be a very simplistic approach: basically a huge table sorted by item code.

Suggestions?

Tom

Reply to
Terrible Tom
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TT,

After you are setup with HQ, when you need to check the stores' inventory, the station will contact HQ for the info. HQ will only have hourly updates if you only do it every hour.

You would have to RDP to the individual store to see current.

Web would be all stores posting to the page every 5 minutes or so, but then again, you could have the stores contact and update HQ every 5 minutes too.

Reply to
Jeff

Either I don't understand HQ or perhaps I didn't explain myself very well.

Are you saying that users CAN see inventory at other stores from the POS terminal? I realize that if they can, that the info is only as of the latest sync.

Tom

"Jeff" wrote:

Reply to
Terrible Tom

TT,

Yes, you load some software that's runs in the background, onto one computer in the store that communicates with the server at HQ. It updates the info from the store and downloads new info from HQ. It's known as the HQ client.

Whenever you want to see the Qty on Hand for the other stores, you will have a new button on the Items screen to "Check Stores". The machine you're at, sends a request to the HQ client, the HQ client contacts the server at HQ, and HQ reports back the QoH, Committed, and I think the on-order, from the other stores as of their last update. Worst case is 59 minutes if the stores connect once an hour.

If on a DSL/Cable/T1 or higher, to check is almost instantaneous, OK, well maybe 5 seconds on slower machines!! ;-)

Reply to
Jeff

I designed a company Intranet based on the HQ database. From any computer inside our company network, from any store, all information can be accessed. My sales people are able to see customer info, inventory information, and more. That is the advantage of having SQL as the back end. All of the info is up to date every 10 minutes becuase our stores sync every 10 minutes via a site to site VPN.

Also, a sales person can log on to the internal intranet from the internet while they are on the road and look up stuff on the intranet also. It is very efficient.

Just an idea. If you have anyone in house that can do basic html, it can be done.

Nick

Reply to
Nick

Tom,

HAve you been able to successfully deploy RMS HEadquarters on a Terminal Server? If so, what were some of the hoops you had to jump through.

We are looking into installing RMS Headquarters 1.3 on Windows Terminal Server. Our main reason for doing this is to have one central place where users can view enterprise-level sales and inventory data, and run reports. Putting HQ Manager on a terminal server would keep us from having to install the same software and reports on a half-dozen machines in the office, and would allow our road-warriors to access the application over the Internet.

90% of our target users would have a very restrictive security setup, where all they can do is run some standard and custom reports and view (not edit) customer, sales, and item master information. The HQ Server would not be running on this machine, just the HQ Manager.

Bill Yater The Worth Collection snipped-for-privacy@worthltd.com

"Terrible Tom" wrote:

Reply to
Bill Yater

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