Projects:Store Server BackOffice Enablement
Introduction
This project covers the topic if/how users can access the back office ERP user interface in the store server itself. This is an important topic as being able to access the back office ERP assumes that the 'things' a user does are replicated to the central server. This replication requires however custom code which needs to be explicitly developed. Therefore we should be careful and only allow specific functions to be used, or alternatively let the user always work through WebPOS which has a standard process of replicating data to the central server.
There are two different approaches to this case:
- only allow system admin access, for all other access the user should use the WebPOS/Mobile front end, or
- allow back office ERP access but only for specific menu items/functions which are explicitly flagged as being enabled for the store server.
For both approaches changes need to be made.
For the first approach the system should prevent non-system-admin access in the store server, very similar to the current safe.mode.
For the second approach a flag has to be added to the OB menu item to flag it as store server enabled. Also when the applicable menu-items are determined the system should only use the store-server enabled ones in case of a store server.
Approach
The store server is considered to be a local cache of data used for offline situations and to balance the load on multiple servers. The decision is therefore made to only support system admin access.
The idea is allow a preference on system level. If it is set (to Y) then only system admin access is allowed. The system admin can remove the preference (or set to N) to enable full access.