During normal operation, information is copied from
a lane's database to the server database and vice versa.
Some of these operations happen automatically. Others
occur manually by default but can be scheduled to
occur periodically.
Lane => Server Data
The lane sends transaction data to the server. At the end of
a transaction, the tables dtransactions and alog
are inserted into corresponding tables on the server. Upon
successful transfer, the lane tables are truncated.
If the
server is unavailable (e.g., network is down), the lane just
keeps adding to dtransactions and alog until the server
becomes available again. If bringing the server back online
after a long outage, keep in mind that large transfers will
be required to get all accumulated transactions. In extreme
cases, the lane might stop responding for a couple minutes
until the transfer query completes.
Server => Lane Data
Each lane maintains its own copy of the following server
tables: products, custdata, employees,
tenders, and departments. These tables contain
items for sale, member accounts, cashier logins, payments
accepted, and item categories (respectively). By default, copying
these tables from the server to the lanes is manual. The
Synchronize menu in Fannie provides options.
Employees, tenders, and deparmtents normally don't change often
enough to merit any automated updates, but nightly tasks
to reload products and custdata from the server may be a good idea.
This should be scheduled after any other nightly tasks that
manipulate products or custdata.
Note that Fannie tools for editing individual products and
custdata accounts will push those changes to the lanes
immediately. Updating a record or two is more efficient than
reloading an entire table.
Lane => Server => Lane Data
For the sake of completeness, suspending and resuming transactions
involves moving data in both directions. When suspending a transaction,
the contents of localtemptrans on the lane are copied to
suspended on the server. When resuming a transaction, appropriate
records from suspended on the server are copied to
localtemptrans on the lane. Both operations are always
manual as the cashier has to input suspend or resume commands.