How would I programmatically connect to an existing back-end system of a restaurant using say Micros POS, with a web app built with .Net and C#. Thanks.
Update: Sorry for the ambiguity but I'd like to set up an online ordering system that takes users' orders and forward to a restaurant's back-end system to be processed and printed in the kitchen for cooks to see.
There is no particular reason for choosing .Net other than the fact I'm most familiar with it. I'm open to other options.
In general I'm looking for information regarding the feasibility of this and how to go about it programmatically. How would my app send orders to the kitchen's printers? Do restaurant back-end systems allow for a .Net (or any other) app communicate with it? Do they provide an API?
I currently work at an ISV that does basically this with another one of the big 3 point of sale systems.
First and foremost, get the Micros environment up in a VM.
Next, most of these back office systems are running either Windows 2000 or Windows XP (depending on the age of the system), so be really careful about the version of .Net you choose.
Now, as far as architecture goes, run a service on the back office that communicates regularly with a centralized web service (the website that customers order on), once an order is made available, from there you can then insert it into <insert pos type here>.
You will also find in most instances, especially with Micros being the largest Point of Sale on the market for restaurants, they will not be very helpful with documentation and helping you out with integrating into their software.
Also, I think that My Micros (their enterprise application) already supports this type of functionality.
Another opinion, get into FSTech this year and browse all the competition, there are tons for online ordering just so you can get familiar with the competitions feature sets.
What you need to know is define what you want to do with the POS before a choice of technology, if all you want to do is show some data/reports from the POS system's work, you would need to connect to whatever back-end database the POS devices feed into.
If you need to do something else, you need to look for whatever relevant documentation.
It would help you more to ask a more specific question.
I would probably start by determining if Micros POS has an API. If they do, are the systems at individual restaurants even connected to the net? Try chatting up the manager at a place that uses one of these systems, or just check the documentation on their website.
Related
I would like to ship some new features just for a specific group of users to better test it in production and then release it progressively to everyone, should i put IFs in my code and assign specific policies to users in the database?
Is there a better way to do it?
The normal way to handle this is have two versions of your software. The "main" version is the one most people are on, but you also release an "experimental" version which has the new features.
There are various ways to manage the software, but you should look to use strong version management practices in your source code repository, perhaps using some good branching techniques. You should avoid the two versions from diverging too much.
You can choose to invite certain users to the "experimental" version, or have them opt in but give the necessary caveats that things might not work as well, and if you have any SLAs then you might want to caveat them. If you are hoping users will provide you with feedback then make sure there is a good mechanism for that and that the users are aware of it.
If you have client software then uses will need to get hold of the new version themselves. If your software is purely server side (eg a web application or SAAS platform) then you might look at a routing layer eg in the load balancer which automatically sends users to the normal or experimental version depending on whether they are part of the relevant group.
This is a common scenario in software and you should be able to do some good research. I suggest you start by looking into A/B testing.
I've been asked to develop a .NET web application with the following requirements and features:
Moderate software license expenses
.NET Web Application
Document storage (with change history, although a complete CMS is not needed)
Complex data model
Extensible and groupable object attributes
Private/public field visibility
Non-trivial relationships between database tables
Custom alert configuration (screen and e-mail notifications) about approaching due dates, missing documentation, etc.
Resource access control & user management (roles and groups)
High user volume (several thousands of users)
Many complex and dynamic forms
Search engine
Statistical reporting
Bulk data & metadata upload and download
Simple data migration
REST API for external integration
Multilanguage
Full-featured mobile version (for tablets and smartphones)
Corporate look and feel
These are the options I have considered:
SharePoint Foundation 2013 + Custom Web Parts + Custom DB + Document Libraries
Sense/Net + Custom Web Parts + Custom DB + Document Libraries
Custom ASP.NET Web Application
What approach would you recommend? Also, can you please make a recommendation on the following points?
Server characteristics and topology
Application architecture
Scalability
Search capabilities
Reporting tools
Persistence framework
Document storage (MS Office)
Mobility
First of all, I work for Sense/Net, which I want to put out there to be fair.
However, even if I wouldn't be, I'd still recommend looking at our solution based on the criteria you outlined. What you are planning to build seems to be really custom stuff and from experience, I can say that projects like this never changing. Going for an open-source application would definately be my choice, in order to make sure I don't hit a wall later down the line.
Sense/Net is practically capable of delivering everything you need out of the box, but of course, customization will be needed.
From a licensing perspective, you would also be better off probably, since we only lincense the CPU cores, not the thousands of users benefitting from the system.
Writing a custom application from scratch with these requierements would make no sense in my opinion as the costs would be well over the one of a readymade solution (whichever you choose).
The things need to be clarified are the reporting tools you will need and whether you need a native application for mobile devices (or would something working in their browsers would be sufficient).
I can see that this answer is well overdue, but if the topic is still of interest and you havent done so yet, drop us an e-mail through our website and we can help you out in finding the perfect solution!
Can you explain multi tenancy in more detail? how to check whether that is working or not?
What is a http adaptor? Can we create two http adaptors in a single process?Correct me if I am wrong?
To give you a brief overview of multi tenant concepts may run through several pages. IMHO, the concept of multi tenancy for a developer can be mentioned as,
Single code base or multiple code bases (Based on the level of multi-tenancy) set up in a server or in a server farm to cater to all the disparate tenant's that may have varying user experience, varying applications (managed through subscription) and each tenant given a feel of dedicated application by showing them their own data and the corresponding bills for what features of the app they are using.
If you maintain a single code base, it is complicated in terms of development and a piece of cake when it comes to upgrade or bug fix etc...
You should Google around for multi-tenancy. The sample link is :http://blogs.gartner.com/alessandro-perilli/multitenancy-is-not-just-network-isolation-and-rbac/
Please fell free to post your specific focus area in multi-tenancy and technology that you are opting for so the community help will be to the grain.
I'm the custodian of a pretty sophisticated, yet antiquated, ASP.NET application. It is essentially a platform that makes creating database applications easier - with tools to read in database schemas, auto generate forms, reports, charts, and provide extremely extensive tools to manipulate those things within the UI. There are some pretty big clients using the platform for some niche applications, and despite the age of much of the code (some of it written as early as 2001), everything runs pretty well.
The company is doing well enough that i need to start considering a new version, and rather than plastering on some new features, i'd like to consider a fresh start. The current solution is a ridiculous 150 projects - down from about 220 when i first started working on this full time.
Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for the general structure of an enterprise(ish) level application? What new technologies should i consider? Maybe some particular books or websites i should review?
I've got a good handle on all of the specifics that make our platform so flexible - but because i've been locked into the general structure of our code for so long, i feel like i'm way out of touch with how the entire thing needs to be structured on a large scale. The current application still has a bunch of .NET Remoting for communication with the databases (just a tad out of date), and a ton of incredibly inefficient code written by someone who wasn't really a programmer.
WCF to serve info from the data access layer? WIF to authenticate? I'd really like to be able to assemble an API that my business partners can use to connect to the data and use a huge collection of common functions i've got set up - ideally that API could run in a web context or in some other environment.
I know this is a pretty big question that could have a lot of possible answers - just looking for some thoughts on where to really spend our research time.
Thanks!
-RP
If you want to rid yourself of all the authentication / authorization hassles, absolutely go for claims-based applications, WIF, ADFS etc.
That's the Microsoft direction - CMS, SP. Office 365. Windows Azure AD etc. are all now claims-based.
Only problem is that ADFS authenticates against AD. Have a look at Identity Server for something DB related.
Plus ADFS via ACS provides Facebook, Google etc. logons.
Im in the middle of developing a product that i will hopefully be attempting to sell towards the end of the year and i was just wondering what the best way to handle the licensing is.
My Product is going to be a downloadable asp.net web application and at the moment looks like there will be a free version and a premium version.
Im thinking about using serials that i can keep track of on my end, but the question is, Whats the best way to restrict the free version and have the application 'know' its premium? or should i just have 2 branches of the same product instead of trying to do it all in the 1?
Im planning on making a web installer for the product where the user can put in the serial and it will determine what version they have.
you could have an encrypted license file that your system checks for every so often which tells it what "version" it is. You can dynamically restrict functionality based on that.
This allows you to keep a single code base, and also make it impossible for the users of your system to simply change a setting in a config file and get your entire system for free.
This is going to be hard to do with a web app.