Are you an Aloha Beta Tester TS 6.5.xx problems 2

[eburks]

Are we beta testers if we upgraded to aloha 6.5; what about 7.0

We are using 6.5.24 and having a lot of little problems

1)quick combos not working right anymore (one of our quick combos is set to charge 10.00 including tax if you buy a plate and a drink) if they buy 2 plates and 2 drinks Aloha TS 5.3.31 charges the correct amount; 20.00 (one store is still on 5.3.31)

Aloha TS 6.5.24 same quick combo (I even deleted it and set it up again with no effect) only charges 10.00 if they buy 2 plates and 2 drinks (oops!) If the cashier is sharp and puts 2nd plate and 2nd drink on seat 2 it charges the correct 20.00

2)Credit card Swipes spitting numbers into the tip line, NEVER happens on 5.3.31 (I have tried OPOS and keyboard wedge)

3)irritating warning about keyboard wedges (keyboard wedges have not YET been made PCI non-compliant but radiant wants to bug you about them every time you close BOH manager)

4)Much longer reboot times 4x longer time to read trans log
(are we gonna have to run our terminals on Gigabit ethernet

5)sometimes terminals fail to complete the loading of Aloha TS and end up back on the windows screen. This NEVER happened and does not happen on 5.3.31... using SAME hardware

6)Intermittent freezing of screen for a few second while entering tips and some (only some) terminals have a nasty habit of needing to have the 1st digit of the tip amount hit twice (makes for easy tip errors) It is NOT a touchscreen issue

7)same terminals new software... credit card swipe errors had always been VERY! low probably less than 1 in 200; now credit card mis-swipes are probably running 10 times higher

I will probably have to upgrade hardware that ran fine on 5.3.31

Am I the only one who is having these issues (I do not run Radiant Terminals I run Dell and NCR computers + ELO touchscreen monitors IDT and Magtek MSR and Javelin Viper all in ones) 256 MB minimum Ram, 512 max Ram I have more problems on the Javelins but I have more Javelins than any other combination. No Javelin has ANY problems with 5.3.31

All run Windows XP Pro or Windows Embedded SP2. I have not installed IE7 or above on any terminal.


It appears that we are getting what quickbooks and windows users have dealt with for years. Install the new version and you are the beta testers and not getting a proven trouble free system. Unfortunately there are fewer of us to complain loud and long enough to get the bugs fixed; especially compared to Quickbooks. Will their be a 6.5.85 that runs better, will 7.xx fix or break everything????






FYI a bit of explaination on the Quickbooks thing. Google about Quickbooks problems on the Quickbooks user forum and you will find all sorts of horror stories about problems that crop up in the new versions. You will see months of complaints about the same problems. Quickbooks will meanwhile release anywhere between 4 and 6 maintainance releases over a 7 month period. Users will find that maintenaince release 7 fixes their problem that they have dealt with for 7 months. The moral to this story is for example... do not upgrade to Quickbooks 2012 in Nov 2011 when it comes out. Wait until the last possible moment like late May when they tell you they are no longer supporting your current version. Make sure you download the latest maintenance release, install Quickbooks and the maintenance release.... be much happier.

 

[coorsman]

What about another POS system?

Aloha 7.0 is going to be a cluster .... Just ask anyone with Aloha Take Out and Delivery, I went thru reprogramming an entire POS systems with Squirrel 10 years ago when they dumped DOS and programmed in MSSQL and xtml programming. MSSQL is the most stable of all database programming languages.

Aloha is still running a DOS based file system,"DBF", 10 years behind the curve, it works now , "kinda" but just wait for the next 5 years of re-programming to 7.0.


Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[msk997]

what type of hardware are you using?

 

[msk997]

Disregard the previous message, I saw your hardware

 

[RokStar]

Quickbooks sounds exactly like the Radiant model, that's some sound advice! Any Aloha release is a cluster.

The only good news about it is that they now supposedly run Customer Activity Profile Tests against all the new releases.
BUT.. all that really shows is that the same exact types of button presses produce the same exact type of result, mostly screenflow.
There's no financial data being compared, and a ton of other configs unchecked. (still better than nothing.)

They created a monster, and they created it in the wrong language, with very old & outdated methodologies. I first heard that 7.0 was going to be the migration to .NET, but I'm not sure anymore. I've heard that will never happen.
</endrant>

But I've been running 6.5.17 and haven't had ANY of those problems you've listed (I don't use QC). But there's the preverbial: your mileage may vary

But in order to get this result, it took rigorous testing, months of testing, basically, all the things a real software house would complete before they release it into the wild.

Ok... a second side note:
Be aware of new credit card processing mandates coming up soon. Discover and Visa need changes made, or there could be a financial impact that you probably don't want to have to deal with.
As far as I know, EDC 7.0 is required to meet this deadline, and there may be a POS version requirement also (you can mix versions of EDC & POS now). Check with your processor(s). EDC 7.0 will be released in Q2-2011.

And a third sidenote:
Set this registry key to turn off the stupid warnings.
HK_LM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment
"NoMsrWarn" = "TRUE"

[small]May the Schwartz be with you.[/small]

 

[alohaakamai3]

Rokstar, you mentioned this is for the BOH- is there a way to turn that same message off for the front of house when swiping a card?

Regarding the rest of the conversation, welcome to the wonderful word of high speed Internet.

As recently as maybe 6 years ago (and definitely 10 years ago), distributing software (i.e. bug fixes and patches), especially larger files, was PITA ass for developers. Products needed to be 95% done before release.

Not anymore. With almost all computers having an "always on" high speed connection, they can let a lot more slide, this they know they point users to downloads for patches and updates later on, after they've gotten money from the initial release. Plus, like you said, they can't start relying on end-users to do the beta testing.

 

[tikky212]

Hi Eburks, I saw you have a problem with Aloha Sales Report shows $0 amount of Exempt Taxable. I have the same problems but I think our report never shows it. Did you know how to fix it?

Thank you for your time.
Tikky

 

[eburks]

eburks (TechnicalUser) Oct 27, 2011
@tikky212

The fix for getting tax exempt reported was to upgrade from 5.3 to 6.5 I want to be PCI compliant but I hate 6.5 and am still avoiding the upgrade at another store

Also, you need to make sure you have the report setup to be printing tax exempt and that is in the reports menu (my problem is not fixed by setting it up in reports but is fixed on the system we upgraded to 6.5

It still only gives you a total of the days tax exempt sales

The only place that any tax ID that you enter on the front of house gets reported is in a reprint of the guest check so be warned (we got audited) Get those tax exempt forms, have them enter the tax ID on FOH, keep a copy of the receipt for each exempt sale and only take tax exempt forms from your state
(we have had a lot of out of state groups come through with their state tax exempt form; that won't cut it. We have also had people from Texas come in with our Tennessee form and that is the right way.

 

[tikky212]

@ Eburks,

Thank you so much for your respond.

My big problems is we will never get an upgrade

Guess I just need to tell all the staff to keep Tax Exempt receipt for me. Or do u have any suggestion?

Thank you,
Tikky