Fixing Performance Issues

 

ROBOTILL is a fast and robust point of sale system. It uses Microsoft SQL Server as the database server. Even with several POS Computers (tills) and back office computers connected at the same time it should still be fast.  We have customers with years of sales history (huge databases) with no performance issues. 

If you experience performance issues or the system is unstable, then you could look at the following:

Network Problems

The most common problem is that the server computer (main PC where your database is) is fast, but that additional computers connecting to the server are slow at times. 

The fact that the ROBOTILL applications on the server computer is fast, but slow on the other computers, point to a network problem. It is the same applications and the same database. The only difference is that the other computers need to connect via your network.  

Try the following:

• Restart your router and all computers. 
• Move your computers closer to the router or extend its range.
• Change the router.
• Get a local IT support company to check your network.

Connecting over the Internet

ROBOTILL is designed to connect over a local network. If you are connecting to a cloud server or you connect to your server over the internet (using an IP address instead of the server name), then you might experience performance issues. 

Consider connecting over a local network using a local SQL Server (that will be installed by ROBOTILL if you follow the standard install instructions).

PC Hardware 

Check all your computers and see if they have the minimum requirements. Keep in mind that it is the minimum requirements and more is recommended. You cannot use entry level computers and expect everything to be super fast. 

If you are using computers that are close to the minim requirements, you could try the following:

• Close all other applications while you are busy working in ROBOTILL (even having your email open in your browser can use up a lot of resources). 
• Make sure you have enough disk space. When you are running low on disk space, Windows will take longer to read or write to the hard drive. 

Windows Updates and Anti-Virus

If your computers is suddenly slow, it could be that it is busy with a major Windows Update. You can schedule the updates to run after hours - but make sure your computers stays up to date.

Make sure your anti-virus is also up to date. Hackers can use computers for botnet attacks. That means everything might look normal on your PC but in the background it is working very hard executing commands for the hackers. 

Do not turn off your firewall. Some users will turn off their Windows Firewall because they struggle to connect an additional computer to ROBOTILL. If you struggle to connect a PC, contact ROBOTILL Support. 

Upgrade to the latest version

Upgrade to the latest version of ROBOTILL. ROBOTILL is continually busy making improvements to their point of sale system. Sometimes these improvements will include performance improvements. We regularly release new versions.  

Printing Problems

For some transactions, ROBOTILL can send a print job and continue with the next transaction. There are however others where ROBOTILL will need to wait for the print job to complete. If you have problems with your printer it can slow ROBOTILL down. 

If for example, ROBOTILL is slow every time a sale is completed, try turning 'default printing' off (see #1 in https://poshelp.robotill.com/Configuration.aspx#General). If it is no longer slow, you know it is a problem with your printer that needs to be sorted out.