This is topic RTS software & email in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 12-26-2003, 12:57 PM:
 
A feature I have requested for a couple of years now for RTS is this.

A way for me to confidentially send email from home to specific employees at the theatre. And for them to reply in a confidential manor.

Example: Send an email to the manager (with a file attached) or other specific employee, that only he/she will ever see. And for them to be notified of that email when they log on to RTS. And for them to reply to me or to send me an email in a way no one can dig around and find it.

And it be done in the following situation. I have RTS replace the desktop, and have the computer locked down so the employee's can only see what I want them to see in RTS and nothing else on the computer, hopefully. I do not want the employees to have general internet access. I do not want them to be able to send or receive email to anyone they desire. Only to address's I allow. So that would mean, they could not know the theatres email address. Since RTS can't do this, has anyone came up with another way to do it?

Don't know about anyone else, but I for one don't want my employee's wasting away the hours looking at porn on my time. Then have their parents or the law come done on me about it.

An off shoot of this (which was a feature in the DOS version) is to be able to leave a message from one employee to another within the theatre network.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-26-2003, 05:58 PM:
 
If I were you I'd post this on the RTS forum. It is at:

http://boards.rts-solutions.com/6/ubb.x

I haven't looked at it lately so don't know what kind of participation it's getting, but it's worth a shot.
 

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Posted by Andrew McCrea (Member # 674) on 12-26-2003, 06:44 PM:
 
I know a system like this is possible. McDonald's is pilot-testing an exact system that incorporates exactly what you described. This system has only been intoroduced at the Grant Park and Keewatin stores in Winnipeg, Manitoba. These locations (I use to be at GP) were hand selected at the head office in Oakbrook and are the only ones in the entire world (out of 30,000 stores) to test it.

Staff can e-mail eachother (using an EC code) or managers. My code was EC000142. We'd also punch this in and clock in with our fingerprints. Now we're clocking in with our hand prints. We also retrieve our schedule on this system and are able to do tutorials on how to run different stations. These tutorials are done using flash.

An interesting system. Just thought you should know.

Ps- We have no access to loggin on to websites or "Outbound internet", however, we can access our schedules, etc. thorugh a website, where we enter our EC code and password.
 

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 12-26-2003, 08:21 PM:
 
Thanks Mike, I did post it on RTS's site. Seems Rob is keeping the forum a secret. Not many hanging out there.
I found out about it from a mention by you.

Andrew, very interesting. The schedule idea is great. Something else for me to bug RTS about.
Thanks.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 12-26-2003, 09:50 PM:
 
Rob isn't keeping the new RTS forum a secret. For example, it became known to most of the US and a few other countries when the fact of its existence was posted on this board.

As for whether a suggested feature is a good idea or not; some of them, in my personal opinion might be. Others, again in my opinion, seem pretty far out there. There's a lot of what's in that system that I don't use. The email idea has merit, in that I could send a memo to the staff and possibly get some receipt back that it had been received. That WOULD be useful to me.

However, Rob and his gang have a whole lot of us out here, tossing our dream lists at him. He gets a lot of "great ideas" from me, too... and I still don't understand why he hasn't added them all in yet!.

He has to balance the time and money involved in coding these things in against the effect of those changes on the existing system, its potential benefit to the customer base as a whole and whether that might make a change in price appropriate. Offhand, I'd guess that putting that extensive a communications medium into the system would involve quite a re-write... or the integration of entirely separate modules that the system would have to be capable of toggling through.

Personally, I think they've done a pretty darned good job, given what they've asked me to pay for the product.
 

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Posted by Lance C. McFetridge (Member # 95) on 12-27-2003, 08:31 AM:
 
I was sent an email notifying me of the new website mentioned above. For all RTS users there is a great deal of information there as well as a ton of ideas. I totally agree with Jack
lance
 

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 12-27-2003, 01:00 PM:
 
Main reason for my post about this was to see if anyone else had come up with a way to do email as I had described.

My crack about the "secret" board mainly comes from the fact it is not mentioned anywhere on the normal RTS site. In news or otherwise. And I imagine, the majority of RTS customers have never heard of this board or at least not participated in.
I've installed RTS for a few theatres, and in almost all case's, it was those folks first experience with computers.
So I doubt they frequent here. I've told those folks about the new "help" board, and was news to them.
That's why my crack about secret came about.

And yes I realize my request's would require some major coding. It's just that, a suggestion. But a feature I for one would actually use. Instead of the 10 features in RTS I or many other small theatres don't use.

Anyway, I didn't intend to come off as picking on Rob. They have a good product.
Simply my 2 cents.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 12-28-2003, 04:54 AM:
 
Brad, you might consider giving them a little slack, then. That forum of theirs actually just got put up. You haven't missed much... it's brand new, and you're among the first to discover it.

Hopefully, it'll become a place that Rob and his group can refer to as they work their way through the list of things the users think might make the system better. In a way though, it's a mixed blessing. We get a single point to vent, and we can compare our experience with the system to others'. If we all aren't careful, the new forum could quickly become a method of "piling on" our various gripes. Hopefully, that won't happen, and RTS will understand we're just trying to help make this an even better system.
 

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Posted by Blake Zaugg (Member # 1455) on 01-01-2004, 01:09 PM:
 
We installed RTS back in May and by October I was starting to gripe about all the things it didn't do, that I had expected it to. The forums are a great addition. I have been quite vocal on their forums about improvements athat were needed. The software has made huge improvements even in just the last few months. It is very good software for the price....but it is a work in progress. The email feature would be nifty, especially to check their shedules, but the scheduler needs a little tweeking first.
I am quite happy with the changes that have been made, now if we could just run our Credit/Debit cards through the system up here in Canada, I would do back flips.
 

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Posted by Jeff Knoll (Member # 1145) on 01-01-2004, 10:23 PM:
 
We have been using RTS for two and a half years now and it is a fantastic application. There are always things that we would like to change about every piece of software that we use - RTS is no exception to that rule. Rob and the gang at RTS have been fantastic at tweaking their software and they have taken many recommendations from users (ask Bill Gates to change Excel...).

The forum is new and already a great asset to the RTS community. It is not very common that you will find open links to user forums on public pages (Film-Tech is an exception) and I am sure that the RTS folks will do an official roll out at some point in the near future.

I do concur with Blake, we NEED the debit and credit facility in Canada. Everyday the use of plastic (especially Interac) is increasing. I would venture to guess that Interac (debit) is rapidly becoming the main form of point of sale payment in Canada. We need to be able to respond to the market demand and NOT slow our lines down to a snails pace by using the stand alone units the banks provide.
 

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Posted by Tim Lockridge (Member # 1346) on 05-01-2004, 04:20 PM:
 
What operating system are using on your computers? If you're using a newer OS (such as XP/2000) you could probably accomplish this with user profiles and individual email addresses for your employees. Your network admin should be able to help you with this.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-01-2004, 05:20 PM:
 
That would address some of what Brad wants, Tim... but not all of it.

Brad basically wants to be able to communicate with specific staff, ensuring that they get his message when they log onto the RTS system. In turn, he wants them to be able to return his messages, but nothing else. Something like a phone line that only calls the operator.

I'm not sure that XP's profiles would address this, though a true network guru might know a way. In any case, the RTS system is not designed to force its users to log into the computer at boot time, then again when starting the software. If I read this right, you'd have to establish a windows user account for each person you'd expect to use the sales station... something that would be very cumbersome.

Brad: As for internet access (if you have this problem now): You can stop that by establishing an IP address in network setup (don't let windows do it for you). Don't enter anything in the DNS configuration and Gateway windows, then (if you're running XP) go into "add/remove programs", click the windows setup tab & uncheck Internet Explorer & Outlook Express. This will take those programs off your desktop.
That should keep your staff off the web & email, unless they have access & can put those items back in.

One of my staff did that recently, then went to one of those "free email" sites. We had popups for various sexual enhancement products appearing over our sales screens until I got in there to fix it.
 

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 05-05-2004, 05:06 PM:
 
Jack, I have gotten along with RTS replacing the desktop. They (can't get to the desktop, in theory) I just allow access to the internet/email to the manager (who I trust) thru RTS Actions>www Browser menu option. It's better than nothing. But I have 3 assistants I would like to give only email access to as well, but wouldn't dare under the current situation.

The problem you outlined with the popups, is exactly what I'm trying to prevent. And so far I have, by RTS taking over the desktop.

I've tried some of the Policy edit procedures, (At my 3 screens, I'm the network admin, as well as repair man, accountant, part time cleanup, etc. ) I'm not savvy enough with XP to pull it off I guess and RTS does NOT play nice with user accounts.

RTS in it's DOS days, had a feature almost exactly like I would like to see. You could leave messages to specific people, and they would pop up when that person logged in to RTS. Even reply if you wish. It was network email. We used the heck out of it. Especially the managers leaving heads up messages for someone he wouldn't see face to face, and didn't want the world to see the message. Worked great. With my VPN from home to the theatre up and running, just network email would fill the bill once again.
 

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Posted by Jack Ondracek (Member # 1466) on 05-05-2004, 07:32 PM:
 

quote: Brad Allen

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RTS in it's DOS days, had a feature almost exactly like I would like to see. You could leave messages to specific people, and they would pop up when that person logged in to RTS. Even reply if you wish.

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