NorthStar Order Entry Glossary



Term

Definition

Type

Data Services

A cloud-based service that stores all transaction data for restaurants. Once a session is finalized, the data is sent to data services and stored for later reference. 

Service

Deploy/publish

The process of pushing out new restaurant data from ECM. This data first gets downloaded by Remote, then loaded by Order Entry, then finally the iPads will refresh their data. This update process takes longer if media is being published as well.

Action

ECM

Enterprise Content Management. Hosted on the Web, this content management tool allows customers to define menus and other restaurant-specific data. 

Term

Finalize

This function ends a session, closing out the check. This can only happen after the check has been balanced to $0.

Action

GOPS

"Guest Ordering & Payment System". This was the code name for the software before it was named "NorthStar Order Entry".

Term

Guest UI

The guest-facing User Interface of the iPad solution. 

Term

Info icon

The info icon is displayed as a lower-case in a circle. Tap the info icon to bring up a secondary screen with additional information and/or actions available.

GUI

JSON

JavaScript Object Notation. Part of the menu push from ECM to the iPad Server.

File Extension

Kitchen Volume Time

That is a measurement for how busy the kitchen is. It is currently used for delaying online orders from being sent to the kitchen. Example: A restaurant is really busy and has a Kitchen Volume time of 20 minutes. If an online order is placed at 2pm to be picked up at 3pm, it will not be sent to the kitchen until 2:40pm because the volume time says it takes 20 minutes to process an order.

ECM

Magensa

A fraud-prevention service. Their systems work with OpenEdge to resolve the encrypted credit card swipe that comes from MagTek MSRs.



MagTek

The manufacturer of the Lightning-connected MSR for Order Entry.

3rd-party integrator

Media

The pictures associated with menu items, components and other features that make up the guest UI (user interface).

Term

NorthStar Data Collector

This service is used with QSR kitchen service to allow QSR hostess to integrate smoothly with the iPad solution.

Service

NorthStar Remote

The Windows service that downloads new menu data and installs it. Remote is responsible for downloading menu data and installing it, then notifying the Order Entry service that it is ready to apply.

Service

NorthStar Listener

The Windows service that communicates with ECM. When new menu data is published, Listener notifies Remote that it is available. Listener also performs software upgrades.

Service

NorthStar Reporting

The Windows service that generates report data. This service then feeds the data to the reporting tool that is built into the iPad app. This service must be running for the Gops.Reports tool to function correctly. 

Service

NorthStar Order Entry

The windows service that the iPad app communicates with.

Service

NorthStar Scheduler

A Windows service. The NorthStar Scheduler is used to provide scheduled tasks and for scheduling advance orders. For advance orders, a pickup time is set on the session. There is a setting for a cook lead time (usually 15 minutes). When an advance order is set to be picked up at 4:30 pm today, the scheduler will be set to send the order to the kitchen at 4:15 pm (if the lead time is 15).

For online orders, we support the same concept, however, because it is not supported on the third-party website, the online orders are always scheduled to send to the kitchen right away. So when an online order comes in, the order is scheduled in the NorthStar Scheduler to be sent to the kitchen right away.  

Note: When issues occur with the NorthStar Scheduler, it tends to be due to a database connection issue. When this happens, the service needs to be restarted for orders to be scheduled, Online or Advance.

Service

OData

Open Data Protocol. A way our customers can pull Order Entry data for reporting purposes. Our plan is to set up our own reporting software, however, until it is fully developed we are looking into this method to provide to customers who want to use CTUIT and other data mining reporting service. 

Term

PIN

Personal Identification Number. All caps.

Term

OpenEdge

OpenEdge (previously "PayPros") is a credit card processor that can be used with Order Entry.

Log

QSR Kitchen Connector

This tool is used to connect Order Entry to QSR products. It converts output data from Order Entry into data that QSR can read.



Qualifiers

Qualifiers are the items required to make up a combo.

Term

Session

When a table is seated, it creates a session. This session encloses an entire transaction from start to finish. During end of day, Order Entry moves all sessions from that day into an archive file. (File location: c:\program files\custom business solutions\gopsservices\session\ - .GZ file.)

Term

.SDF database file

A database file downloaded from ECM. This file contains all of the restaurant data for each site.

File

SQL server/SQL

A data management tool/protocol that is used to store data for Order Entry.

Service

Staff UI

The staff-facing user interface of the iPad solution. 

Term

Unfinished transactions 

This item appears on the Daily Sales Report. Unfinished transactions are checks that were left open and had no payment applied when the end-of-day process ran at the site.

Unfinished transaction amounts count towards gross and net sales totals as far as reporting but are subtracted from the revenue and payment total calculations.



Vantiv Integrated Payments

Vantiv (previously "Mercury") is a credit card processor that can be used with Order Entry.