What Still Works and What Is Refused

Offline, the phone sells from the data it loaded before the outage, and it refuses by name anything it cannot work out exactly. It does not estimate a price. When it refuses, it says which thing it is refusing so you can complete that sale another way.

What still works offline

• Scanning, searching and browsing the catalog, from what the phone loaded.
• Weighed items. The scale still opens and the weight is captured.
• Batch-tracked items, except in an estate that prices by lot (see below).
• Weight-embedded scale labels. A label that carries the weight still sells.
• Serial numbers. The serial is recorded against the line and checked by the store's system when the sale posts.
• Manual discounts within the operator's own cap, on a line or on the whole sale.
• Automatic promotions. The phone applies the store's automatic promotions from the promotion data it loaded before the outage: buy-one-get-one, buy-X-get-Y, fixed-price deals, group deals, and whole-sale promotions. The applied promotion and its discount show on the basket and on the discounts screen, marked provisional. A promotion that excludes a customer group is applied correctly for a customer the phone can place in a group. For a buy-one-get-one offer, the discount applies when the free item is already in the basket; where it is not, the phone tells you which item to add, and you add it. This works only while the phone carries a recent copy of the promotion data. If that data is missing or too old, the phone refuses the sale by name rather than guessing a price.
  • One boundary to know. Some offers carry a limit the phone cannot check without a connection: a store-wide usage cap, a once-per-customer rule, a day restriction, or an offer that issues a coupon or a gift card. If such an offer would apply to the basket, the whole basket is priced at list price offline, with no offers applied and no message on the screen. When offers you expected do not appear during an outage, this is the usual reason.
• Attaching a customer. A customer who is not on the phone can still be added. Their details are captured as typed, and the store's system matches or creates the customer record when the sale posts.

Every money figure on the basket is marked as provisional while you are offline.

What the phone refuses offline

These work online and are refused offline. Each one is refused by name, not by a quiet failure:

• Coupons. A coupon has to be validated by the store's system, so it is refused offline. (Automatic promotions are different: they apply offline, above.)
• Balance-backed tenders: gift card, store credit, loyalty points, and on account. Each of these needs a live balance only the store's system can read.
• Returns and exchanges.
• Void of a line or a whole sale.
• Integrated card payment. Card is taken on the bank's own machine instead. See Taking Payment Offline.
• Split tender. One payment method per sale offline.
• Sets (called a Bundle in iVendNext Desk).
• Price overrides.
• Cross-store orders and endless aisle.
• Editing a customer's details. You can attach a customer, but not change an existing customer record.
• Opening or closing the trading day.
• A price-embedded scale label. A price on the label is money the phone would have to accept unverified.
• A batch item in an estate that prices by lot. Where any price record on the site carries a lot, offline batch lines are refused across that site.

Offline, a screen named Returns, deposits and card payments gathers the money actions that cannot be done on the phone during an outage: taking a return, taking a layaway deposit, and undoing a card payment. It says where to do each one instead, so the refusal is never a dead end.

Related Topics

• Selling When the Connection Drops
• Taking Payment Offline
• Selling
• Selling Tracked Items