Take An Order!
Version 2.0
June 2000
Take An Order! is a powerful
tool for field order taking using a Palm Computing platform handheld device. Orders
can be taken manually on a standard unit, such as a Palm III, and can also be taken
with the assistance of the built-in barcode scanner of the Symbol SPT 1500. The resulting
information can be printed directly in the field, and also HotSync'ed back to the
desktop, creating a simple text file (tab-delimited or comma-separated) which can
be easily imported into any existing desktop database, spreadsheet, or other business
management software.
The complete software package consists of the following items:
For Windows, the following two additional files are used:
For Macintosh, the following one additional file is used:
Windows:
If you should ever wish to completely deinstall the conduit, you can do so from the Windows Start button. Select "Run" and type into the dialog box which appears
"C:\Order\TAOInstall.exe" -u
The exact path that you enter into the Run dialog will depend on where you installed the software, but note that the name of the program must be enclosed in quotation marks as shown, and the "-u" at the end of the line is not enclosed in the quotation marks.
Macintosh:
To de-install the conduit, simply drag it out of the Conduits folder.
From the Applications window on your Palm device, look for the icon labelled TakeOrder which looks like this:
If you have registered the software, and have obtained a serial number from Stevens Creek Software, you enter the serial number by selecting About Take An Order! from the Configure menu. On the bottom of the information screen which appears telling you about Take An Order!, you'll see a License button. Tap on that button, and this screen appear:
Use Graffiti (or the on-screen keyboard) to enter your serial number (supplied to you by Stevens Creek Software); when you're done, tap on the OK button. If you enter an incorrect number, the software will let you know. If necessary, tap on the Cancel button to dismiss the Enter Serial Number screen.
If you have a site license copy of Take An Order!, the Name field in the Enter Serial Number screen will also be a dotted line in which you can enter information. In this case, you'll need to enter your "site license name" in that field, as well as the Serial Number in the bottom field.
If you run into a problem, this probably means that when you provided your Palm user name to Stevens Creek Software, you did so incorrectly. Check the name in the Enter Serial Number screen shown above, and write it down exactly (including case, i.e., whether the letters are upper-case letters like THIS or lower-case letters like this) and email it to Stevens Creek Software technical support and wait for a new serial number to be provided to you.
In general, you will want to set up a catalog of items to be installed into your handheld unit. You will be able to add items into the catalog directly on the handheld unit, as described below, but assuming you have a reasonably large number of items, you'll almost certainly want to prepare the catalog on the desktop. Chances are, of course, that you already have a desktop database containing information about your products, so you'll just need to export the required information from that database as described in the next paragraphs.
In order to set up a catalog, you must first prepare an appropriate text file containing the information. This file must be a simple tab-delimited or comma-separated text file, containing one or more columns of information, one line per catalog item. The order of the information is this:
Items are "sequentially optional," that is, if any item is present, all preceding items on that line must be present. For example, if you want to specify name, price, and barcode, you must include the 1 (or 0) for taxable and another 1 (or 0) for discountable. If the price is not present, it is assumed to be 0.00. Items are assumed to be taxable and discountable unless specified otherwise.
So each line may look like any of these options (where
represents the tab character):
Widget
Widget7.95
Widget7.9510
Widget7.95107559608282
Widget,7.95,1,0,7559608282
Each line in the file does not need to be the same; for example you might have barcodes next to most items, but not next to a few.
The order of items in this file is up to you, but once they are installed into the handheld unit, they will be sorted in alphabetical order by the name of the product.
The text file you create must be given the name Catalog.txt (Windows) or Catalog (Macintosh) (exactly as shown, with an upper-case "C" and the rest of the name lower-case), and it must be placed in a special folder. We'll discuss that folder in the next paragraph, but for now, we'll just note that whenever you HotSync, the Take An Order Conduit looks for a file named Catalog in the appropriate folder. If the file is found, the contents of that file will be downloaded into your handheld unit to serve as your catalog, either replacing any existing catalog, or being appended to it, depending on how you configure the software. The file will then be renamed as Catalog.bak (Windows) or Catalog (downloaded) (Macintosh), so that subsequent HotSyncs will not reinstall the same catalog, but the file is still there in case you need it. If you later create another file named Catalog in order to install new information, when that file is renamed, the previous backup file will be deleted.
This location of the special folder and the files it may contain will vary from
system to system, but a typical setup is shown here, in a case where we are assuming
that the handheld unit (your Palm) has the name "Natasha" (folder or directory
names are shown in black, and file names in red):
|
Macintosh Macintosh HD
Palm
Users
Natasha
Take An Order
Catalog
Catalog (downloaded)
Orders
Orders01...Orders09
Summary
Summary01...Summary09
|
Windows C:
Palm
Natasha
Take An Order
Catalog.txt
Catalog.bak
Orders.txt
Orders01.txt...Orders09
Summary.txt
Summary01.txt...Summary09
|
You won't need to create any of these folders (shown in black) yourself. When you install your Palm (or related, e.g., IBM, Franklin, Symbol) desktop software, the main directory (shown as Palm above but this name may vary on your system) will be created, and, on a Macintosh, a sub-directory (or folder) named Users will also be created. Whenever you HotSync a handheld unit to that desktop computer for the first time, a new sub-folder is then created (shown here as Natasha). Note that on a Macintosh, the user's folder always has the same name as the handheld unit, so for example if the name shown on the Palm is "Bullwinkle" the folder will be called Bullwinkle. On Windows, however, the folder name may be different (for example, it might be "Bullwi"). And finally, the first time you perform a HotSync after installing Take An Order conduit, the Take An Order folder will be automatically created. This means that after installing the conduit (described above), you should do at least one HotSync (to create the Take An Order folder) before attempting to install a catalog into the unit (you can avoid this step if you create the Take An Order folder yourself). The only thing you as a user will need to be concerned with are the files in that folder (shown in red).
Once you have created the Catalog file and placed it in the folder, you need to configure the conduit settings:
Once you have created the catalog file, you need to set the conduit for the appropriate action. Run the HotSync Manager program, and select Custom (Windows) or Conduit Settings (Macintosh). Double-click on the Take An Order conduit and you'll see a window that looks like this (Windows and Macintosh look slightly different):
For purposes of downloading a catalog, there are two relevant settings. Download full catalog to handheld (labelled Macintosh overwrites handheld on the Macintosh) downloads your catalog as is into the handheld unit, replacing any existing catalog (and making any collected orders useless!). Synchronize will append the data in your desktop file to an existing catalog on the handheld unit. If you work with very large (thousands of items) catalogs, you will undoubtedly find that appending new items to a catalog is much faster than installing an entire new catalog; with smaller catalogs it won't make much difference.
Once you have selected the proper choice and clicked on OK, the next time you perform a HotSync the catalog will be installed in your handheld unit.
When you launch the Take An Order! application, you'll see this screen which is the screen on which orders are normally taken:
Before you create your first order, however, you'll need to set up your product catalog, which contains the items which can be added to your orders. Tap on the Add Item button, and you'll be taken to the Catalog screen:
If you haven't created and installed a catalog from the desktop, as described above, you'll see the default catalog (shown above), which is automatically installed to allow you to try out the software. The items it contains are a number of software products from Stevens Creek Software. We'll assume, however, that you want to create your own catalog. Tap on the Menu button, and you'll see this menu:
Most of these menu choices are self-explanatory, but we'll explain them anyway:
Add Item brings up this screen which you can use to add an individual item into your catalog:
The catalog lets you enter the name of the item, the list price, a bar-code or part number (PN), and to indicate whether that item is taxable or discountable. If you are running Take An Order! on the Symbol SPT 1500, you'll want to be sure to fill in the BarCode (numbers only, no dashes or spaces), so that you can select items by scanning as well as by hand. Note that if you are entering a UPC code, you should enter the 12-digit code, including the "check digit" which is the final number. If you are not using an SPT 1500 the BarCode field is ignored, but you may wish to enter some other number (like a part number) here for your own reference.
Some items which you may wish to have appear on your order, for example "Installation," don't have a list price. You can leave that field blank to and the list price will be zero; you'll then be able to set that price manually on any particular order.
Add from Clipboard is a way to add items to the catalog in bulk directly on the handheld. Although in general you'll create catalogs on your desktop as described at the beginning of this chapter, this feature does have one important feature - allowing catalog updates to be sent out to the field via email. Create a text file on your desktop which contains the items for the catalog, with tabs separating the fields, and a 0 (or 1) to indicate non-taxable (or taxable) and non-discountable (or discountable). In other words, an individual line in this file will contain the name of the item, a tab, the list price (in the form "xx.yy", i.e., no "$" at the beginning), a tab, a 0 or 1 to indicate taxable status, a tab, a 0 or 1 to indicate discountable status, a tab, and the bar code. Note that all items except the item name are "sequentially optional." This means that you can fill in the item name only (leaving the rest of the line blank), the item name and price (leaving the rest of the line blank), and so on. The price defaults to zero, and the taxable and discountable status discount to 1 (true). Now you can email this file to a salesperson in the field who is receiving email on their Palm (or, if they receive it on their desktop or laptop, they can copy it into a Palm memo and download to the Palm). Now, once it's on the Palm, the user selects the relevant text in either the MemoPad or email application, copies it to the clipboard, and then returns to Take An Order! and uses this feature to add the new items to the catalog. Although this same function can be accomplished using Palm's remote HotSync feature, not all users will be able to take advantage of remote HotSync, so this technique offers an alternative.
Modify Selected Item is used to do just that. Tap on an item in the existing catalog so it is highlighted (it will appear in inverse video, white letters on a black background) and then select Modify Selected Item. The same dialog shown above will appear, but this time with the existing values filled in. Modify them as you want, and then select Update (which appears in place of Add) to update the catalog (or Cancel to change your mind). Note that modifying an item does NOT affect items which are already on existing orders (which will be described below); it only affects items subsequently added to orders. So you can change the price of an item near the end of the day (for example) without changing the price of the item on orders received up to that point.
Delete Selected Item does just that; tap on the item to highlight it, then select this menu item.
Clear Catalog is something you'll want to do at first to remove the sample catalog shown at the top of this page; after that you'll obviously want to be more careful about selecting it!
Sort Catalog will only be needed if you have just imported a catalog, and even then, it should happen automatically without you needing to do anything. Likewise, when you create a catalog within Take An Order! itself, using either Add Item or Add from Clipboard, the catalog is automatically sorted into alphabetical order.
Once your catalog is configured, let's return to the main screen:
The first thing you'll do is to click on the New button to start a new order. If there is a current order that is non-blank (that is, it has some items in it), the order number (shown on the top line of the screen) will increment, and the screen will also be cleared of the existing order.To set the order number to a particular number, after you tap New, tap on the Menu button and select Order Number from the Configure menu (note that instead of tapping on the Menu button, you can also tap on the title "Take An Order!" on the top line of the screen; the menu will drop down just the same way):
This window will appear:
Enter the desired number and tap OK. Depending on the system you want to use, you may set this number once only, or once a day, etc. You can only enter numbers to be entered as an order number; letters or other characters are not permitted.
Now you're ready to add items to the order, so tap on the Add Item button, and the catalog screen will appear:
To select an item, you simply tap on it. When you do, the item will be highlighted (changed to inverse video, white letters on a black background). You can select multiple items at once simply by tapping on them one at a time (or "tapping and dragging" if they are adjacent to each other on screen). To change the quantity of the item(s) which is (are) selected, just tap on the appropriate quantity; if the quantity is greater than 9, tap on Other and a window will appear in which you can enter the actual number. When you have the items and quantity selected, tap on Add to Order and the selected item(s) will be added to the order and the selection cleared. You can now select more items if you wish (perhaps with a different quantity), and then return to view the order by tapping Done.
When your catalog contains more than 9 items, it will exceed the size of the screen. Two scroll arrows will appear in the lower right of the screen, and you can tap on these to scroll the list up and down. The "hard" scroll buttons on the Palm handheld device will have the same effect. However, you'll find it even easier to find items using IntelliScroll (tm), which lets you tap on the first letter of the item and immediately scrolls to that section of the catalog. This is similar to the "Look Up" feature in the Palm Address Book, but doesn't require the use of Graffiti so is much faster in practice.
Thus if we tap on "P" (or enter "P" - upper or lower case - with Graffiti), the screen will change to look like the one below; tapping additionally on "A" would then display only "PalmPrint."
Note that this is different than the way some Palm "Look Up" features work; in the Palm Address Book, for example, writing a "P" in the Look Up field will scroll down to the P's but, if you only have a few of those, will also show you the Q's, the R's, etc. IntelliScroll will show you ONLY what you are looking for, to make it easier for you to pick them out of the screen.
Some users relate more to part numbers than to item name/descriptions. If this describes you, you can change the catalog screen by tapping on the PN button instead of the Name button (your choice will be remembered each time you use the catalog). Now the display will change to look like this:
What you see is the part number (or barcode, as in this case) displayed in the first column, and the name of the item displayed in the second column. Now the "winnowing" feature of the display will be active on the barcode/part number field, which may be numeric or may be alphanumeric as you prefer. In either case, enter (using Graffiti or the on-screen alphabet buttons) a part number into the find field, and only matching items will be displayed:
When you are done adding items to the order, tap on Done. You can always
come back to this screen to add more items if appropriate.
If you have a Symbol SPT 1500, you don't need to use the catalog screen (accessed by pressing the Add Item button) at all. Instead, you'll just point the unit at the barcode of the item you want to add to the order, and press the scan button on the SPT 1500 (either of the two green buttons on the top of the unit). When you do, assuming you get a valid scan, the software will search your catalog for an item whose barcode matches the scanned item. If one is found, the item is added to the order and the on-screen display of the order is updated. If no match is found, the software will inform you of that fact.
When an item is scanned into your order in this way, it is entered with a default quantity of one. You can change the quantity manually by tapping on the item as discussed in the next section of this manual, and you can also change the number with the barcode scanner. Immediately after you scan the barcode for an item, you can scan a "CODE39" barcode representing a number from 1 to 99. Scans of CODE39 barcodes with numbers between 1 and 99 are interpreted as a quantity, and are used to change the last item entered on the order (to change other items, use the manual method discussed below).
For some users it may be convenient not to carry actual products, but to prepare a printed catalog containing names (and descriptions) of items in the catalog, with bar code numbers adjacent to them which can be scanned in. An example of this technique, which will work with the sample items which are installed in your product catalog when you first install Take An Order!, is found in Appendex I of this manual. To see how this concept works, you can print out that page (no, scanning doesn't work off the screen of your computer!) and then use it to scan and select items from our sample catalog. If the idea appeals to you, you might be interested to know that the barcodes on that page were generated online at the Barcode Server, http://www.milk.com/barcode. If your catalog is small enough, or you have enough patience, you can do the same. At the bottom of this same page in the Appendix you'll find numbers from 1 to 4 representing quantity which you can use to scan in the quantity of an item.
Scanning With or Without Check Digits
Many types of barcodes (for example, the common UPC codes) include "Check Digits". But some users have databases with only 11-digits in them, which will not match the scanned barcode if the scanned barcode includes all 12 digits. To accomodate both situations, the Configure->Scanner menu displays this screen:
The first checkbox on this screen is used to configure check digit scanning. If you catalog includes (in the case of UPC codes) all 12-digits, leave this box UNchecked, but if it includes only 11 digits, check this box.
The second checkbox (and the field which follows it) are used to create a database index to provide major speedups in locating items in the catalog when barcodes are scanned. In order to do this as rapidly and efficiently as possible, the software needs to be configured to know something about the barcodes stored in your database - are they numeric, or do they include letters, and, if they are numeric, how many digits do they have?
Once the order is taken you'll see it on the main screen above (remember, you can always tap on Add Item to return to the catalog to add more items to the order as well). There are several ways in which you can modify this order. Disc. lets you set a discount for the order by selecting an appropriate discount percentage from a pop-up list which ranges from 0-25% and includes an "Other" choice so you can enter any other discount percentage (this version will not let you enter a dollar discount, but see below for modifying individual items).
Cost-plus pricing
If you enter a "negative discount" (e.g., -10), the software treats this as a markup from the price stored in the catalog. This allows you to store your cost (instead of a price) in the catalog, and then mark the cost up by fixed amounts to provide a quotation for a customer. Unlike the discount, which appears on the order as a separate line item "Discount," the markup is bundled into the price of each item, so that the price which appears on the order (or quotation) for each item reflects the base cost plus markup for that item (note that markup for each item must be the same in this model, although, as discussed below, the price of any individual item can always be changed on the order itself).
To indicate the type of order, a second popup list appears below the discount line. Tapping on it will show you this list (discussed in more detail below):
If you check the Tax box, tax will be added to the order; otherwise it will not. The tax rate is set by tapping the menu button, and selecting Tax Rate from the Configure menu:
When you select Tax Rate you'll see this screen:
Enter the tax rate as a percentage.
To add a shipping charge to the order, tap on the word Shipping and a screen will appear into which you can enter a dollar amount for the shipping charge.
Sometimes, you may wish to modify an item in the order. You might want to delete it, change the quantity, or you might want to set a special price for the item for this particular order (as opposed to modifying the price of the item in the catalog itself, which we learned how to do in the previous chapter). To do this, tap on an item in the order and a window like this one will appear:
This screen shows you the item and list price of the item, and then the quantity currently chosen in an editable field. To change the quantity, just edit the number shown, either manually (with Graffiti) or by using the up/down arrows to increment or decrement the quantity; when you tap on Update the quantity and total price in the order will change. To provide a special price just for this item (perhaps it's damaged or you just want to offer a special discount on this one item for some reason), you can either fill in the TOTAL price for the quantity of items being ordered on the last line, or you can fill in the "list price" for this item (but don't change both of them),, OR you can tap on the Discount button to enter a percentage discount. Tap Update when you are done and wish to update the item. Tap Delete to delete the item from the order entirely, or tap Cancel to change your mind and leave this item unchanged. Note that changing the "list price" does not affect the price in the catalog; it simply has the effect of offering a specific discount on this particular item.
Another use for the Edit Item window is with items which are entered in your catalog without a price. For example, you might have an item "Installation" in your catalogwith a price of zero. Select that, then tap on the item in the order and you'll be able to enter an appropriate price for this particular situation, without having a fixed price in the catalog.
One feature not supported in the current version of Take An Order! is that of adding a note to the overall order, like "Don't deliver for 30 days." However there is a "kludge" which allows you do add short notes, as follows: when you are done adding "regular items" to the order, tap on Add Item to return to the catalog screen. Now tap on Menu and then Add Item to add a new item to your catalog. Enter the note as the name of the item (hint - if you put a space at the beginning of the name, it will appear at the beginning of your catalog, making it easy to find). Tap Add to add the item to the catalog. Now select the item from the catalog list and tap on Done. You'll now see a new "item" on your order. When you print the order (Chapter 4) or transfer it to the desktop (Chapter 6) this "item" will appear on your order, with a quantity of 1 and a price of 0.00 (assuming you left the price as 0 when you added the item!). Obviously this isn't an ideal solution, but it does work. Of course you can do this multiple times to add multiple notes like this to your order. If there is something which is common in your business, like "Wait for confirming fax" or "Quotation expires in 30 days", you can even leave that "item" permanently in your catalog to be selected when you need it. Just remember to select that item last so it will appear at the bottom of the order.
In some situations you'll be taking orders (or issuing quotations or delivery receipts) from customers who are part of a known customer base. If that customer is in the Address Book of your Palm handheld device, tap the Sold To button and you'll see this view of your Address Book:
There are two columns of information which are displayed for the names in your Address Book. Both have "popup menus" which let you select what is displayed:
Column 1 is the main "search" field. You can set this column to display the Company, Name (Last name, First name), or Account# (taken from the "Custom 1" field). Column 2 displays one more piece of information (Company, Name, Account, Address, or City/State) which can be used to help you distinguish between similar customers (e.g., multiple customers at the same company). The "*" in column 1 of this screen is used to identify customers who have a "standing order" (see next section).
To provide you with better ability to distinguish between similar entries, "double-tapping" on an entry will bring up this "Details" screen which shows you ALL the information about a customer:
The "Find" field in the lower right of the customer screen, which can be filled in either "by hand" (e.g., Graffiti or the popup keyboard) or more quickly by tapping on the A-Z letters below the names, narrows down the displayed names to only those which start with the contents of the field (that is, if column 1 displays the Company, then only entries in which the company name starts with the letter or letters in the Find field; if column 1 displays the Name, then only entries in which the customer's last name starts with that letter or letters, and if column displays the Account#, then you can enter numbers (using Graffiti) into the Find field to find that Account#). Here, for example, we have tapped on "L" followed by "E" to display only customers whose last name starts with "LE".
Note that the standard "Category" selector in the upper right is also still active and valid in narrowing down the list of displayed choices.
Note that the column 1 "search field" is NOT necessarily the same as the "Sort Order" of the Address Book itself. IF it is (that is, if your Address Book is sorted by Company and you display Company in column 1), then the search will be very fast. If the two do not match, the search will be slower (since the software has to search more diligently through the Address Book), but will still work.
Using custom fields in the Address Book
The Palm Address Book provides four custom fields - "Custom 1", "Custom 2", etc. Take An Order! allows you to use two of these fields to enhance its operation.
Customer ID
The "Custom 1" field can be used to contain a "customer #" or "customer ID" that you use in your business to identify a customer. When orders are uploaded from the Palm to the desktop using the HotSync software (see Chapter 6), each order (at least, each order for which a customer has been selected) is labelled with the customer name, company, and whatever information is found in the Custom 1 field. Thus if you put a customer ID# in that field, that information will be attached to the order which is uploaded to the desktop, making it easier to integrate into your desktop software. This feature is specifically exploited by BusinessVision 32 software. The customer # contained in the Custom 1 field will also print out on any receipts, if and only if it is a number. Thus if Custom 1 field contains "1375" the software will print "Customer ID: 1375" on the receipt after the address. If the Custom 1 field contains "A5621", it will not print. This restriction does not apply to the upload, which always uploads whatever it finds in Custom 1.
If you have any other information written in the Custom 1 field, it will be uploaded with the order, but of course you can ignore it if you are not using this feature of Take An Order!.
Standard discountThe "Custom 2" field can be used to contain a standard discount. That is, when you select a customer, the discount setting in Take An Order! will be set automatically based on this information. In order to lessen the chance that this feature will conflict with any other information you might store in the Custom 2 field, the discount must end with the "%" character (in other words, if you don't want to use this feature of Take An Order!, you can store any other information in Custom 2 that you like, even numbers, and as long as it doesn't end in "%", it won't change the discount when you select that customer). For discounts, the number is positive, e.g., "10%", "2.5%". If you operate on "cost-plus" pricing, the number will represent a markup (a "negative discount"), so the number will be negative, e.g., "-20%". The discount can be specified to three digits, e.g., "10%", "10.1%", "10.01%" or "10.001%". Trailing zeroes need not be included, thus "10%" is just fine, you don't need "10.0%" although that will produce the same result. Note that this discount will be applied to the order when you select the customer, but you can then change the discount (as described above) if appropriate.
"Standing Orders"Many users call on customers who place similar orders week after week. Furthermore, some users also offer different prices to different customers. Both of these needs can be accomodated with "Standing Orders." A standing order is simply an order you have created within Take An Order!, but then you enter the number of that order in the "Custom 2" field of the Address Book entry for that customer. Now when you tap on Sold To from the main screen and select a customer with a standing order, all aspects of that order (not only the items, quantities, and prices of each item but also the discount level, the purchasing method (Cash, Check, P.O., etc.), the taxable status of orders for that customer) are recalled and used to initialize the new order. So now you have only to adust the quantities for those items which have changed, delete any items that the customer doesn't want to re-order, etc., rather than starting with a "blank slate" and having to add each of the customer's items to that order.
If a customer has a standing order but you know in advance that this order will be an exception (perhaps their standing order has 20 items on it and today they are just placing a special order for one item), then you simply first add one or more items to a blank order, and then tap on Sold To to select the customer. Now the "other" aspects of the standing order (purchasing method, taxable status, etc.) will be copied to the current order, but the individual items from the standing order will not be copied.
Because of the way in which order numbering works, the simplest way to work with standing orders is to give them all numbers in a certain, low range, e.g., 100-999, and then start your "real" orders at a number above that. Now, for example, when you want to clear out old orders from your Palm, just tell the software (see elsewhere in this manual) to purge orders with order numbers of 1000 or higher, and all the standing orders will be left untouched.
To create a standing order in the first place, just go through all the normal steps of creating an order, including tapping on the Sold To button (if the order number matches the customer's standing order number, then the software is smart enough not to try to "recall" the same order). To modify a standing order, just recall that order and make the appropriate changes.
If the "Custom 2" field ends with the "%" symbol, the field is used to create a standard discount only, as described in the previous section. Thus if you had "10%" entered in Custom 2, selecting that customer would set the discount to 10%. To use the more powerful "standing order" feature, the number entered in Custom 2 must start with the "#" symbol. Thus if you set up Order #100 to be the standing order for a customer, you'll need to enter "#100" in the Custom 2 field for that Address Book entry.
Note that "standing orders" do not have to have actual items on them; it is permissable just to use standing orders to set the "other" aspects for a customer (taxable status, method of purchase, etc.).
Renaming the custom fields
Incidentally, you can rename custom fields (using the standard Palm desktop software) to something meaningful, so if you are taking advantage of the two features described above, you could rename "Custom 1" as "Customer ID" and "Custom 2" as "Std. Discount" or "Standing Order" something similar.
After you select a customer in this way, and the software returns to the order screen, the words Take An Order! in the upper left of the screen will be replaced by the name of the customer, or, if the name is blank, the company name, providing visual feedback of the customer selection.
If you are actually collecting payment in a field situation, you'll want to indicate how the order is paid for. From the popup list of choices, select Cash Sale, Check, Credit Card, Quotation, Invoice, or Purchase Order ("Purch. Order") as appropriate. If you select Credit Card, a screen will appear in which you can enter the customer's name and credit card number (the name will already be filled in if you selected it from your Address Book as described in the preceding paragraphs):
If you have a separate credit card machine, this won't be relevant, but if you enter a credit card number here, it will print out on the receipt along with a signature line, allowing you to use the Take An Order! receipt as a credit card slip which can be signed by the customer.
If the select Check or Purchase Order as the method of payment, the same form will appear, labelled "Enter Check#" and with the expiration date month and year choices missing. Now you can enter a name (if it's not already entered) and the check number or purchase order number. Unlike credit card entries, which are verified for the correct digits, you can enter any numbers at all as a check number or purchase order number.
Use the left and right arrows in the upper right hand of the screen to "scroll through" your orders (or, just use the Configure->Order# menu if you know which order you want to look at). There is no "search" facility provided to allow you to search for a particular order.
Take An Order! allows you to print your receipts directly to a printer (this requires a copy of PalmPrint from Stevens Creek Software which does the actual printing). You can also transfer one or more orders to a memo in the Palm MemoPad application, or to the outbox of several email programs.
Select the type of output you want from the Orders menu - Print, Email, or To MemoPad:
In each case, you'll see this screen which allows you select what orders you want to output:
You can check just the Current Order, All Orders, or orders in a certain range of order #'s. In the last case, you don't necessarily have to fill in both lines. Filling in just the From line and leaving the To line blank will print all orders with a certain number of higher, that is, From the specified number on up. Conversely, filling in just to To line will output all orders whose order number is less than or equal to the specified number.
For printing only, there is also a Print button on the lower right of the main order screen. Tapping that Print button is equivalent to selecting the Orders->Print menu and then selecting Current Order (Note: on a Handspring Visor with a plug-in barcode scanner module, this button is changed to be a Scan button to trigger the scanner, so you must use the Print menu to print).
If a summary of orders is displayed on screen (which you do by select Summary from the Orders menu) when you select Print, Email, or To MemoPad from the Orders menu, you will not see this screen; instead, the summary will be printed, emailed or transferred to the MemoPad.
Take An Order! uses PalmPrint from Stevens Creek Software to do its actual printing. PalmPrint has its own manual, and you'll want to read that before doing any printing from Take An Order! You'll need to run PalmPrint once and configure the type of printer you're using (HP, Canon, etc.) and the method you're using to print (infrared or serial printing), as well as some other items, including the number of characters per line of the printer you are using and the number of lines per page. Having set these parameters, you won't need to do so again unless the situation changes, and you won't need to return to PalmPrint itself unless you want to use its functionality directly (to print a memo, for example) or unless you need to change one of the printer parameters.
Take An Order! prints in two different ways - on plain paper, or on preformatted forms on which you have printed your company logo, etc. The current version of the software requires preformatted forms to confirm to specific requirements.
Configuration of the receipt printout is done using the Configure menu on the main screen:
Select Form and you'll see this window:
Your first choice is between a preprinted form and a plain paper form; check the appropriate box. In almost all cases this will be "Plain Paper"; "Preprinted Form" applies ONLY to a special preprinted form designed by Stevens Creek Software. You also set the left margin (in numbers of characters) and top margin (in lines). As with the settings in PalmPrint, you probably won't need to change these once you have set them correctly.
If you are printing on plain paper, there are four additional things for you to configure - the Header (the fixed information at the top of the receipt), the Footer (the fixed information at the bottom of the receipt), the Signature Line and Credit Card text (additional information that prints at the bottom when the sale is a credit card sale), and the Currency symbol. To access and configure each of these items, select the corresponding menu item from the Configure menu. The currency symbol is limited to 3 characters maximum (e.g., "USD", "Dm", "$"). Note that PalmPrint is unable to print certain international symbols (for example, the Yen symbol) which can be input on the Palm, so if you want the printout to be correct, you are limited to "normal" A-Z characters (upper or lower case) plus a handful of other characters (such as "$").
The Footer is typically configured to print a statement like "Thank you for your order" or "All quotations valid for 30 days" or whatever you would like to print at the bottom of the page. It's also possible for you to change the text for each order, if you want some sort of custom note printed at the bottom of a particular order. Just remember that that text is NOT saved as part of the order, and anything you enter will remain to print out on subsequent orders unless you change it.
If you are printing on preprinted forms, there is one additional item to configure - the Max. # Printed Items. After the "header" on the preprinted form, there are a fixed number of lines for printing out items on the order; at the end appears the tax, shipping, and total. The maximum number of lines available for printed items will be 13 if your preprinted form is designed to be a half-sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and 39 if your preprinted form uses a full 8 1/2 x 11 sheet (these numbers may vary depending on form design; adjust as appropriate).
When an order is ready, tap the Print button under the order and a copy of the order will print, assuming that the handheld unit and the printer are in contact (for IR printing, this means that you are pointing the IR port at the top of the handheld unit towards the IR port of your printer; for serial printing, it means that you have connected a cable between your handheld unit and the printer).
Instead of (or in addition to) printing orders, you may wish to email your orders somewhere. Take An Order! will create a single email per order (limit: 4000 characters) when you select the Orders->Email menu. To automatically set the "To" line of the email, use the Configure->Email To menu. The subject is always set to "Order #nnn." Of course, you can change the To and/or the Subject (or the body of the email for that matter) before actually sending the email.
If you have a Palm VII, Take An Order! places the order in the outbox of the iMessenger application. It does not send the email; you need to switch to the iMessenger program and do that yourself by tapping Check & Send. With any other Palm, the order is placed in the outbox of the standard Palm Mail program, from where it can be transferred to the outbox of your desktop Email program by the next HotSync.
Selecting Orders->To MemoPad lets you transfer one or more orders to the Palm MemoPad. A single memo is limited to 4000 characters, but the software will create multiple memos as needed.
When you take an order with Take An Order!, the information is automatically recorded.
In order to review existing orders, tap on the menu button and select the Orders->Summary menu:
The order # in the upper right of the screen will be replaced by the word "Summary". To return to a display of the current order, just tap on the word "Summary".
Order summaries always reflect all orders stored in the unit. To clear out old orders so that the summaries reflect only current orders (perhaps today's sales, select Clear from the Orders menu. You'll typically do this after you have transferred your stored orders to your desktop, and wish to start a new "batch" of orders on your handheld unit. You might do this every day, at the end of a trade show or business trip, or at other times. When you select Clear, you'll see this screen:
As you can see, you can check one of four options. Current order clears the current order (perhaps you made a mistake, or the customer backed out of the sale). All orders clears (purges) all orders (after asking you for a confirmation) from the handheld unit. Backed-up orders clears only those orders which have already been backed up to the desktop. And From...to lets you specify starting and ending order numbers to clear (as noted above, it's ok to fill in just the "From" or just the "To").
Order information (individual orders and summary information) is uploaded to your desktop using the HotSync process. When you are ready to upload inventory from the handheld unit to the desktop, you need to configure the HotSync settings. Bring up the settings window as described in Chapter 2. There are two settings which are relevant. Syncronize uses the standard "Palm paradigm" and uploads only the orders from the handheld unit which has been changed since your last HotSync. Upload All Orders to Desktop uploads all the data which has been collected on your handheld unit, whether or not it has been changed since the last HotSync. Of course, if you want to temporarily disable the conduit, you can also select Do Nothing from the configuration window.
In either configuration, whenever you transfer data back to the desktop, it is written into a text file named Orders.txt (Windows) or Orders (Macintosh), which will be located in the Take An Order folder described in Chapter 2. This file can then in turn be imported into other desktop software (or into any database, spreadsheet, or even word processor). Each time you HotSync, the previous file is renamed, from Orders (or Orders.txt) to Orders01 to Orders02 and so on up to Orders09. Thus you will always have available not only the most recent orders list but the previous nine lists as well, just for safety. Optionally, the conduit will also write the order summary information info a file named Summary (which is similarly renumbered).
Tip: You may be using some other desktop software to import the information from the Orders file and merge it with your corporate data. You may wish that the Orders file were placed in the same folder as your other files, rather than in the Take An Order folder where it is uploaded. The solution is simple. Just create a shortcut (Windows) or alias (Macintosh) and place that shortcut in the folder where you would like the information to be found. Because of the way the files are renamed (described in the previous paragraph), your alias will always point to the latest Orders file, and you'll be able to access it as if it were in your desired folder.
The actual data which is sent back to the desktop is controlled by the Export item in the Configure menu. Selecting that menu will display the screen below, which will allow you to configure the exported Orders file in exactly the way you need it for subsequent use on your desktop.In the "Separator" section, you can choose between having items separated by tabs or commas.
If you check Export orders, then the Orders file is uploaded to the desktop. If you check Export summary, then the Summary file is uploaded to the desktop. You can check one or both of these boxes, as you prefer. And finally, if you check Clear orders after export, the orders on the handheld unit are deleted after the HotSync process is complete. Obviously, this option is fraught with peril, and you should definitely NOT select it until you are ABSOLUTELY SURE that the HotSync process is working properly and uploading your orders as you expect. You can always clear the orders on the handheld unit from within Take An Order! itself (running on the handheld).
The Orders file is uploaded in a format designed to be readable by desktop databases. We show the items here in tab-delimited format, but as outlined in the previous section, they can just as easily be exported in comma-separated (CSV) format. This section outlines the contents of the file.
First, an example of a typical (albeit short) file (the represents the tab character):
1000
Now for the explanation of each item on each line:
The Summary file is also uploaded in a format designed to be readable by desktop databases. We show the items here in tab-delimited format, but as outlined in the previous section, they can just as easily be exported in comma-separated (CSV) format. This section outlines the contents of the file.
First, an example of a typical (albeit short) file (the represents the tab character):
1
At the top of the file, each item in the catalog is listed, with the quantity, item name/description, barcode, list price, and the total dollar (or other currency) amount sold. Note that because some items are sold at a discount, the quantity times the list price will NOT necessarily equal the total dollar amount sold.
After all the items, come a series of items, each with an amount leading off the line and then the description separated by a tab (or comma). This section should be self-explanatory.
PalmPrint
($39.95)
Print directly from your Palm Computing handheld computer to a wide variety of printers,
via infrared or serial (cable not included).
SnailMailer
($19.95)
Mailing list manager for the Palm Computing platform. Print out batches of envelopes
or sheets of mailing labels. Saves up to eight different mailing lists. Requires
PalmPrint to function.
Take
An Order! ($119.95)
Take orders (or issue quotations, bids, estimates, delivery reports, etc.) and print
receipts in field situations. Includes a free copy of PalmPrint software.
UnDupe
($7.95)
Removes duplicates that can occur in the Palm databases (Address Book, Date Book,
etc.). An essential tool for every Palm owner!
AreaCoder
($9.95)
Area Codes are constantly being added and your Address Book becomes incorrect whenever
they are. AreaCoder goes through all the phone numbers in your Address Book and updates
them for you.
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If you need technical support for Take An Order, we encourage you to do so by email at support@stevenscreek.com. You can also call Stevens Creek Software technical support at 1-408-725-0424 during regular business hours (8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Pacific time, M-F).
Copyright 1998-2000 by Stevens Creek Software
All Rights Reserved
