DD Reports & Windows10

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Windows 10 does some strange things with printers and Digital Dining.  And you may encounter this issue if using a Windows10 machine as your Back Office.  Symptoms of this issue could be any of the following but typically this simple fix will address any of them.

  • Reports display incorrectly (column titles and data appears unformatted)
  • Reports display blank results when information is known to exists to report on
  • Reports appear to not run at all.  (ie. No report window pops up after a report is run)

To fix this issue, try navigating to control panel, devices and printers and ensure that you have a default printer selected.  To do this, right click on the printer and select “Set as Default”.  A check mark will appear over the printer typically letting you know that this particular printer is now your default.

Reopen BackOffice and run your report and see if the issue is resolved.

If the issue is not resolved.  Go back to control panel, devices and printers and select a different printer as the default. (You can always select any printer to print to once you are ready to print a report.)

Try to run your report again and see if that fixes the issue.

If that does not, your system may need to have a REPAIR_ALL run, which typically takes roughly 20mins.  Please call if you feel you need to have a REPAIR_ALL run on your system as certain aspects have to changed prior to running this tool.

Our support number is 843-900-4433

 

Properly Uninstalling Digital Dining from WinXP

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Digital Dining leaves behind some trace files when is uninstalled from a WinXP system.  So after an uninstall is performed you need to backtrack and perform a few extra steps to completely remove DD.  You want to do this when performing reinstalls to address issues or things of that nature.

Before Uninstalling DD, backup your configuration files in the Digital Dining directory.

You will want to copy the following files to a temporary location as you will drop them back once a reinstall is complete.

DDDATA.ini, DDPRINT.ini, POS.ini

Next open control panel, add remove programs and select to remove Digital Dining.

When the uninstall is complete DO NOT REBOOT yet.  Select No when prompted to reboot.

Browse out to File Explorer, and navigate to Program Files or Program Files (x86) and right click on the Digital Dining directory itself and select Delete.

Next still from File Explorer, navigate to the Windows directory.  Navigate to the Assembly directorty.  High all files that start with DD.  Delete these files.

Next Reboot and then perform a fresh install from the BackOffice\Data\CDROM directory. (ie. Setup.exe) — Always install as administrator.  Do this by right clicking the setup.exe file and select “Run As Administrator”

When the install completes, DO NOT REBOOT.  Grab your configuration files you copied out of the directory earlier and paste them in the Digital Dining Application directory.

Now you can reboot and the system should come right up and hopefully any issues being had are now resolved.

Troubleshooting Caller ID Issues with DD

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Digital Dining Caller ID is relatively simple process to setup and manage.   You just have to plug in a CallerID box such as WhoozCalling and then setup the Caller ID server to reflect the COM port and communication settings.

This is done by launching the Caller ID Server from the Digital Dining Application directory and then select Setup from the top menu.

Enter in the details for the COM port and how many lines the system will be using and what type of CallerID Unit is being used.

Numbers should start relaying through the CallerID Server and users can select to enter order for the caller directly from the POS.

Computer Not Found Error

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When attempting to connect to your data folder from a client terminal, sometimes even though you can see the backoffice machine and select the data path for DD, it will come back in a yellow status saying “Computer Not Found”.

This issue seems to be Permissions/DNS related although typically changing these settings will not correct this error for some reason.  Here is a work around that does fix the issue:

  1. Make sure the back office machine is using a STATIC IP Address.  Not DHCP.
  2. Open Windows File Explorer, Browse to Windows directory.
  3. Browse to System32\drivers\etc
  4. Locate the files labeled “HOSTS”
  5. Right click on the file and select edit.
  6. At the bottom of the file on a new line enter the IP Address of the backoffice server.  Hit the tab key, then enter the network name of the backoffice machine.  (ie. xxBO).
  7. Save and close the file.
  8. Your digital dining data path box should now appear green and you should be able to connect to data.

How to fix QSR

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QSR sometimes will display a memory allocation message and offer the ability to choose to move Storage Memory to Program Memory.  Unfortunately without a bump bar attached you have no way to select this option.  So here is the breakdown of how to address this issue:

Step 1) Stand in front of the QSR box.

Step 2) Push the Power Button Off

Step 3) Push the Power Button On.

All Fixed.

 

Setting Up Multi-Store Frequent Diner

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SETTING UP THE HQ MACHINE
(The machine that will house all the data for the Frequent Diner data.  This SHOULD ALWAYS BE the back office where Digital Dining is installed.)

Step 1: Click on START | RUN or Press the Windows Key + r (if Windows 8 or higher).  Type ~cmd~.  In the black box that opens, type ~ipconfig~.  Press enter.  This will display the current IP configuration for this system.  We are looking for the IP Address and the Gateway Address of the Computer. .  The IP Address & Gateway should be something like (192.168.#.# or ###.###.###.###). Write down both of these addresses and label them accordingly; as we will need when we are configuring Port Forwarding in our router.

Step 2: Open up your web browser and type “Whats My IP” and hit enter.  This will display the HQ’s public IP Address. (This is the address the other stores will use to communicate with HQ.  ie. 69.124.54.127)  Write this address down as you will need it later when setting up the other locations.

Step 3: Install Digital Dining on the Back Office PC and select ~Typical Back Office & Frequent Diner Multi Store HQ~.

If DD is already installed (but Multi Store Frequent Diner is not).  Run ~setup.exe~  from ~C:\Program Files (x86)\Digital Dining\DATA\CDROM~.
Ensure to select ~Multi Store – HQ~ for this location.  (For other locations that will communicate with the HQ server, you make sure to select the option for ~Multi Store Store~ (not HQ)).

Step 4: Once the HQ has been installed we will want to go configure the server.  Open ~DDSETUP.exe~.  Located in ~C:\Program Files (x86)\Digital Dining\Application~.  Login as ~sysop~.

Step 5: Click the menu labeled ~Misc~.  Then select ~Servers~.  Ensure that the path for Frequent Diner(old) is pointed to the correct location where Digital Dining is installed.  (ie. ~C:\Program Files (x86)\Digital Dining\Application OR if pointing to a Shared Resource: \\COMPUTERNAME\Digital Dining\Application).

Step 6: Click on the button labeled ~Advanced~  Scroll to the right with the arrows and note the port assignment for the Frequent Diner Server (ie. 50123).  You will need this port number in order to configure Port-Forwarding on the router at the HQ location.

Step 7: Click on the ~External Servers~ tab, and ensure that you see “HQ Messaging Queue” listed here and that the port number matches.  (ie. 50123).  Note: Location should be blank for the HQ system.  ~Save~ and ~Exit~.

Step 8: Open ~DDSTART.exe~.  Ensure that all of the services needed are checked (DDHLSRV, DDCDSRV1, DDFDSRV, DDMSGSRV, DDMSGQUE & DDPRINT) and then select ~Save~ then ~Exit~.

Step 9: Open up your internet browser and navigate to the “Gateway Address” you recorded from earlier.  (ie. 192.168.x.x)  This should prompt you for a login to the router.  Typically the username is ~admin~ and the password is either ~blank~, ~password~ or ~admin~ if no one has assigned a specific password to the router.  If they have you will need to obtain that password.

Once logged in to the router, Port Forwarding is typically found under the advanced section of LAN settings, or it may just be in its own tab or area called Advanced, depends on what kind of router we are working with as to where you will find the Port Forwarding section.

Step 10: Add in the Port Forwarding information for the HQ Machine.  You will click to Add, then you will Give it a name such as FDSRV, then you if asked for Protocol you will select UDP/TCP or Both if that option is available.  For Port range or Assignment you will enter in the Port # you obtained earlier when setting up the HQ Frequent Diner server.  (ie. 50123).  For Destination you will enter in the IP address of the HQ machine that we obtained earlier from when we ran IPCONFIG.  (ie. 192.168.#.#).  Apply your settings, and reboot the router.  This will take down the internet temporarily until the router comes back up.

Step 11: Reboot the Back Office machine and Let all the Digital Dining Services start back up.  We are done with the HQ configuration for Multi Store Frequent Diner.

SETTING UP THE OTHER STORE MACHINES

Step 3: Install Digital Dining on the Back Office PC and select ~Typical Back Office & Frequent Diner Multi Store Store~.

If DD is already installed (but Multi Store Frequent Diner is not).  Run ~setup.exe~  from ~C:\Program Files (x86)\Digital Dining\DATA\CDROM~.
Ensure to select ~Multi Store – Store~ for this location.

Step 4: Once the Store has been installed we will want to go configure the server.  Open ~DDSETUP.exe~.  Located in ~C:\Program Files (x86)\Digital Dining\Application~.  Login as ~sysop~.

Step 5: Click the menu labeled ~Misc~.  Then select ~Servers~.  Ensure that the path for Frequent Diner(old) is pointed to the correct location where Digital Dining is installed.  (ie. ~C:\Program Files (x86)\Digital Dining\Application OR if pointing to a Shared Resource: \\COMPUTERNAME\Digital Dining\Application).

Step 6: Click on the button labeled ~Advanced~  Scroll to the right with the arrows and note the port assignment for the Frequent Diner Server (ie. 50123).  You will need this port number in order to configure Port-Forwarding on the router at the HQ location.

Step 7: Click on the ~External Servers~ tab, and ensure that you see “HQ Messaging Queue” listed here.  For location type in the IP Address we collected earlier from the HQ machine when we went out to “Whats My IP”.  Ensure that the port number matches what was listed on the Internal Servers tab.  (ie. 50123).  ~Save~ and ~Exit~.

Step 8: Open ~DDSTART.exe~.  Ensure that all of the services needed are checked (DDHLSRV, DDFDSRV, DDMSGSRV, DDMSGQUE & DDPRINT) and then select ~Save~ then ~Exit~.

Step 9: Reboot the Back Office machine and Let all the Digital Dining Services start back up.  We are done with the Store configuration for Multi Store Frequent Diner.

In order to see the status of communication between the Store Locations and the HQ Location, From each machine launch DDMSGQUE.EXE (Note: you may need to launch ~Task Manager~, Highlight ~DDMSGQUE.EXE~ , Select ~End Task~, Confirm ~End Task~,  and then relaunch ~DDMSGQUE.EXE~ it in order to have it accessible for viewing.  You should see a monitor like below and it should show its status as to its ability to sync with HQ.

COLOR CODES:

  • COLOR
  • RED
  • YELLOW
  • GREEN
  • STATUS
  • Currently Disconnected.
  • Attempting to Sync.
  • Connected and Last Sync Date.