How to use the Headquarters application to add new stores to your single-store business

Microsoft Retail Management System 1.2 consists of two major applications: Store Operations and Headquarters. Store Operations is a point-of-sale and back-office application that caters to the daily retail needs of managing inventory, tracking and ordering items, and performing sales and transactions. Headquarters serves as a head-office application that centrally manages a wide range of stores by tracking inventory, sales, and customers.

This article will walk you through the steps necessary to upgrade your existing retail store by adding new stores and Headquarters to your retail business solution. The article applies to Microsoft Retail Management System version 1.2.

Getting started

Many small businesses that use Microsoft Retail Management System with the Store Operations application are very satisfied with the plethora of options that it provides for single-store management. But when your business starts to grow and you need to add and manage new stores, the Headquarters application helps you seamlessly do this. When expanding your business, you may need to create a new database in Microsoft Retail Management System and install the Headquarters application to facilitate a single point of management for all your stores.

As a first step, you need to install the Headquarters application on a computer in your main office or in one of your existing stores. For scalability and performance reasons, it is highly recommended that you use a Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database for storing data at your business’ Headquarters location.

If you need more information about hardware configurations, please visit the Microsoft Business Solutions Web site or contact your vendor. The processes outlined on this page will help you to flawlessly upgrade your single-store business by adding more stores.

Note: Before you start implementing any of the steps outlined on this page, create a backup of your existing store database.

Creating a Headquarters database

After installing the Headquarters application, follow these steps to create a Headquarters database:

1.Open the Headquarters Administrator application.

2.From the File menu, select Connect and enter the appropriate database credentials.

3.Enter temp in the SQL Database field because you have not yet created a Headquarters database.

4.Click OK.

5.From the Database menu, select Create to call up the Create Database wizard.

6.Specify the database name (for example, HQ) and specify the initial size for the database.

7.Click Next.

8.In most cases, you will accept the default settings for File Growth and Maximum File Size in the wizard. However, if your business requires special needs, please talk to your vendor.

9.In step 4 of the wizard, navigate to the DBFiles directory in the Headquarters Installation folder and select rmshqdb.bck.

Note: By default, this location is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Retail Management System\Headquarters\DBFiles.

10.Click Next and then click Finish. You have successfully created a blank Headquarters database now.

Importing Store Operations data

The next step is to import your existing store database into the Headquarters database. There are two ways of doing this. If you just have a single store, you can import your existing store database into the Headquarters database. Alternatively, if you have multiple stores, you can create a unified template database and import it.

Note: This article focuses on importing a single-store database into the Headquarters database. For more information about creating a unified template database from multiple stores, please refer to the Partner Implementation Guide for Microsoft Retail Management System 1.2.

1.Open the Headquarters Administrator application.

2.From the File menu, select Configuration. Enter the SQL database name (for example, HQ) and specify the database server credentials. Click the Test Database Connection button to verify connectivity to the database and then click OK.

3.From the Database menu, select Import Store Operations Data.

4.Click Yes when you are prompted with the warning, “Importing Inventory Data from a Store Operations database will overwrite your HQ database. This cannot be undone. Do you want to continue?” (This import is indeed safe because HQ is currently empty.)

5.You will now be prompted to enter the credentials for the Store Operations database. This will be the database of your existing store. Enter the credentials and click OK.

Note: If the existing store database is on a different store and/or network, you may want to make a backup of the database and restore it on the computer where the HQ database has been installed. After the database is restored, you should connect to the same server as the HQ database.

6.Click Yes when you are prompted with the warning, "You are about to overwrite data in [source] database with data in [destination]. This cannot be undone. Are you sure you want to continue?"

7.You then should be presented with the message, "Database was successfully imported."

Adding more stores

The next step is to add a store to your chain:

1.Open the Headquarters Manager application and log in with the following credentials:

User = administrator

Password = password

2.From the File menu, select Maintenance Mode.

3.Click Yes when you are prompted with the warning, "You are about to switch into Maintenance Mode. In maintenance mode, changes made to database records only affect the Headquarters database—changes are not sent to the stores. Do you wish to continue?"

4.From the Admin menu, select Stores.

5.Click the New button in the Stores dialog box.

6.Click Next. Navigate through the wizard and enter values for Store ID, Store Name, Address, Connection Schedule, Quantity, Reorder, and so on. Click Finish. Repeat the steps to add more stores.

Exporting a database to additional stores

The next step is to export the database using Headquarters Administrator for the new stores you’ve created. The Headquarters Administrator application provides an easy way to export the current database by selecting Export from the Database menu.

Because your additional stores may be geographically dispersed, the Headquarters Administrator application allows you to create a local copy of the exported database and back it up. You can then transfer the backup file to the local store server by e-mail, floppy disk, or CD-ROM. Then you can restore the database from the backup.

1.Open the Headquarters Administrator application and connect to the HQ database by selecting Connect from the File menu.

2.From the Database menu, select Export.

3.Click Next. Select the destination store from the list of stores to export the database to. The store selected will be the store you are creating a new Store Operations database for. Click Next again.

4.Click Connect and select the database you want to specify as the template database. Your template database cannot be your HQ database. You may want to specify your existing store database as your template database. Specify the database credentials for connecting to your template database and then click OK. Now click Next.

Note: The information taken from the template database includes the Store Operations database schema, the cash register and security configuration, and information about your cashiers and sales representatives. All copied data can be edited or deleted later.

5.You now will be prompted to enter the database credentials of the server where you want to create your store database. You can create the store database on your local server and then create a backup of the local copy to restore it at your new store. Enter your local server credentials and then click OK.

6.You next will be presented with the Create Database wizard, which allows you to specify the name and initial size for the new database. Click Next. Accept the default settings for File Growth and Maximum File Size. Click Next and then click Finish.

7.You will be prompted with the message, "The database has been created."

8.Click Next. Click Copy to copy the template data from the source database to the destination database.

9.Click Next and then click OK. Click Next again.

10.Now click Export to export all the items and centrally maintained information from your Headquarters database to your new store database. You will be presented with the message, "The new store data has been successfully exported."

11.Click Next. Now you will be prompted to back up the database that you had created locally. You may also choose to delete the store database from your local system after the backup is complete. Click the Backup button, specify a file name, and click Save. You should see the message, "Backup is complete."

12.Click Next and then click Finish. You have successfully created a backup for your new store database.

Restoring a database at your new store

Transfer the backup file you created in the previous section to your local store computer. You can transfer the file either by e-mail or by copying it to a floppy disk or CD-ROM.

1.Start the Store Operations Administrator program at your new store's computer and connect to the primary server by selecting Connect from the File menu.

2.From the Database menu, select Create. This will restore your database from the exported backup file.

3.Click Next.

4.Specify a name for your database and click Next.

5.Accept the default settings for Database Growth and Maximum File Size. Click Next.

6.Click the Browse button and navigate to the folder or disk containing the backup file. Click Next and then click Finish.

You have now successfully restored the database at your new store. Make sure you update the database settings by selecting Configuration from the File menu in the Store Operations Administrator application on each computer using Store Operations.

Using Global Customers

Now that you have upgraded to a multistore environment, you also may want to make your existing customers visible across all your stores by promoting them as Global Customers.

To do this, perform the following steps at all your existing stores:

1.Start the Store Operations Administrator program.

2.From the File menu, select Connect. Then specify the database credentials for your store and click OK.

3.From the Query menu, select New.

4.Type the following SQL command:

UPDATE Customer SET GlobalCustomer = 1;

5.Click the Run button or press F5.

Then, at all your stores (new and existing), perform the following steps:

1.Open Store Operations Manager.

2.From the File menu, select Configuration.

3.Navigate to the Options tab.

4.Choose Customer Options from the left window and check the Enable Global Customers for Multistore option.

5.Click OK.

Syncing your existing stores and new stores with Headquarters

When a store is created in Headquarters, a 101 worksheet (Synchronize Store Database) that aids in synchronizing the database indexes is automatically created. In addition, each store should process a 401 worksheet (Upload Store Data) to update the inventory and sales information to Headquarters, as well as a 501 worksheet (Request Full Item Count) to reconcile the item quantity differences between the stores and Headquarters.

After the 501 worksheet has been processed for the existing stores, use the Inventory Wizard Task 190 worksheet to reconcile the quantities with the HQ database. You also must upgrade the customers at the existing stores to global customers before you connect to Headquarters for the first time.

Worksheets are issued from Headquarters either through the Worksheet menu or the Worksheet wizard. In addition to managing global customer information, worksheets are used to upload inventory and sales information from stores, download changes to store databases, and transmit purchase orders and inventory transfer requests.

To create a worksheet in Headquarters Manager, perform the following steps:

1.Start the Headquarters Manager application and log in with the following credentials:

User = administrator

Password = password

2.From the Worksheets menu, select Style 401: Request Data Upload.

3.Select the stores from the list that should receive the worksheet. Click Next.

4.If required, change the title and effective date/time for the worksheet. Otherwise, accept the default and click Next.

5.Click Finish.

6.Click the Approve button. Your worksheets will not be processed unless they are approved at the Headquarters Manager.

For your stores to connect to Headquarters, the Headquarters Server application should be running. To connect your stores to Headquarters, follow these steps:

1.Start the Headquarters Server application.

2.From the File menu, select Stop to stop the server.

3.From the File menu, select Configuration and then specify the SQL database for Headquarters (HQ) and the server credentials. Click the Test Database Connection option to verify these credentials, and then click OK.

4.From the File menu, select Start. The server is now ready to accept connections from the stores.

Each store needs to connect to the Headquarters Server application through the Headquarters Client application to process all the pending worksheets for that store. To connect to the Headquarters Server application, perform the following steps at each store:

1.Invoke the Headquarters Client application.

2.From the File menu, select Configuration and then specify the SQL database for the store and the server credentials. Click the Test Database Connection option to verify the connectivity.

3.Click the HQ Server tab and specify the address of the Headquarters Server application.

4.Click OK.

5.Click F5 or the Connect button to connect to the Headquarters Server application.

Congratulations! You have successfully added new stores to your business.

Credit To: N. Srinivasan