Details on how to setup the Cigarette Critical Inventory System The following screens show you how to setup and run our Cigarette and Critical Inventory Program. When you download our product you will first need to load 2 programs onto your Palm pilot. Please make certain that you have at least 2meg of memory on the Palm for JUST our Cigarette and Critical Inventory system or 4 meg if you are also using our Inventory Purchasing system with over 2,000 SKU's. You will need to have the latest Palm Desktop on your computer and if you are using an SPT1700 it will probably require the Flash Memory to be updated. Please click here to get information on how to do this. The latest Palm Desktop should have been loaded onto your local computer and you can install it simply by going to your local directory C:Series2000Palm and look for the setup program PalmDesktop41ENG.exe. If it is not there you can download it from the web at www.palm.com. To run the Series2k Palm program you will need to install a booster product from Palm which is included for the SPT1500 and SPT1700 but for the SPT1550 and 1800 there is an upcharge of $ 50.00 per Palm Pilot for this product, to order this please go to our order section and order the SPT1550/1800 booster before continuing.(click TO ORDER). If you are using an SPT1500 or 1700 find the following program at C:Series2000Palm called Booster_PalmOS.exe. Once installed go to the Program Menu and select the Appforge Menu - Install Booster Option and select install Booster to a Palm Pilot (or SPT1800 for the paid version). Then select the user as usual and sync the Palm Pilot with the PC to install the booster. If you are using the Paid version of the SPT1800 version we will supply you with a registration number for your Palm. Once that is installed you will then need to install our Palm Conduit which is located in C:Series2000Palm and called Palm4.exe. This will self install the Palm Pilot Conduit. Then locate the Palm Install PRC which can be found at C:Series2000Palm and is called Series2kForPalm- Install10.PRC. You will be asked which user you want to install this for as usual with the Palm Pilot Product.Then sync with the desktop and after syncing watch the screen of the Palm to make certain that the Series2k program is installed. Once the programs are loaded onto the Palm Pilot you will need to setup the shelves and apply the location labels that came with your system. If is important to spend some time setting up your shelves correctly and in an orderly fashion as it will save you alot of time later on. The labels should be placed on the front of the shelves in a location that your cashiers can see easily. Please review the photo below for assistance:
In the picture above you can see the small white label located below each pack of cigarettes or item that needs to be scanned. Put these in the order that you will scan the items on the shelf normally left to right then top to bottom. We will now need to do some simple setup for the system to work, locate the Critical Inventory icon in your Series2k program as shown below. Then select the Setup New Shelf Location and Employees button:
You must setup at least one employee and one Location description. The location is used to identify the area where the inventory is being taken from. I.e. Main Counter, or Rack 1 or Rack2 etc. The employee list is used track which employee received the inventory or did the Shift report. Now you need to check the Hotsync setup and connect the Series2k program with the Palm Pilot. To do this start the Hotsync and right click on the Hotsync icon located on the bottom right hand side of your screen. And select Custom:
and then select Series2000 Take Inventory: and the following screen will appear. If you do not see the Series2000 option shown above this means that you did not install the Conduit correctly - pls. retry it as shown above. After syncing for the first time review the following: Check the installation of the Series2kForPalm by clicking on the Soft Screen Button, bottom left and then click on t
Button.. You can review memory use here and also delete the program if you need to re-install the program at a la Then proceed as shown below noting we would suggest a sample run just to check everything is working as you expect before spending alot of time scanning the shelves and products into the Palm. This is very important to do correctly otherwise you will loose all of your setup location work that is described below. The first syn continue with the screen below after syncing. Now when you sync with the desktop computer the locations that were scanned will be transferred from the Palm to the PC.
Find the above icon on your Palm Pilot and click on it Please read this screen and then click on Proceed After scanning your cross reference locations and BEFORE Syncing make the above changes to your Hotsync Cus During the Hotsync process you will see a progress screen as shown below. This will tell you which functions were done successfully and which processes failed. It is normal for one or two processes to fail initially until all the setup is completed successfully. Here is a typical screen:
and this shows you exactly what is happening. If you get an error you will need to email us the log file which is located under the Palm directory and the user name. and is called Hotsync.Log. If you cannot find it simply do a search for this name and the one that is under that specific user please email us. Once you have scanned the shelf labels and product to the desktop we need to review and edit these. To do that go back to the Critical Inventory EFT System menu and click on the Critical Inventory Detail Setup icon and the following screen will be displayed.
When you sync after setting up the shelves the Location Description and the Convert Type will be blank. To fill those in simply use the down arrow to select the correct setting. The design of the Convert Type is required as the different products that are scanned are different depths and so for a specific reading from the ruler we need to convert that quantity to give the actual quantity that is at that barcode reading. As an example lets review the Convert Type setup screen:
So in the above example if you get a reading from the ruler of 9 or 10 that is going to correspond to 5 actual hardpacks of cigarettes. Also when scanning the ruler quantities it is very important that you put the ruler on top of the product and start the scan below and product and move your scanner up to the ruler so the first barcode the scanner reads is the one closest to the end of the row of cigarettes. As can be seen we have already setup the basic types of cigarettes, namely Hardpack, Softpack and Slim along with a default setting which does not change the scan reading. You can also get a complete conversion report in the reports screen under EFT and Critical Inventory. Other reports are also available at this location. Now review the inventory items that you scanned and make certain that they are all in your database. If you are not already setup with all the items in your inventory database we have many solutions for you. Please email us and we will go over the options available to assist you in this function. Now you are ready to do your first add inventory as follows:
Go back to the Hotsync screen and make certain that it is setup as follows being VERY CAREFUL TO NOW SET THE LOCATION SETUP FOR THE DESKTOP TO OVERWRITE THE HANDHELD before syncing click ok and then sync again and make certain that you get all messages as successful on the sync. Now we are ready to start the initial inventory as follows: Select the Series2k Icon
Scan the location shelf first and then the ruler quantity - then click finish Now this screen gives a complete sales analysis of the items sold by Department # and $ sold. These should be noted by the cashier and shift report from the POS Then close the screen. If you need to change any shift this option is only available on the palm for upto 20 minutes after the shift is first done and only by the cashier that took the inventory for security reasons. You can sync at any time and then review the details back at the PC. To add inventory during a shift you do exactly the same as Take Inventory but simply scan the shelf the items are being put into and then scan the quantity again either using the ruler or the key entry system. Make certain that you select the correct shift when the items are being added to.