|
|
|||
 Client SpotlightHeadquartered in Mikwaukee, Wisconsin, Outpost Natural Foods is a locally-owned cooperative specialty grocer that offers a unique and fun shopping experience. They educate the community about healthy eating choices and celebrates the cuisine of Wisconsin. Read more... |
 Development News
As part of our continuing effort to increase performance speed, we have added a new server for managing hosted user sessions that significantly improves the systems response time and eliminates logouts due to heavy traffic. |
||
 Introducing the New FOOD-TRAK Test Drive!This new site has been designed specifically to explore and train within a sample database for up to 20 minute sessions. The FOOD-TRAK Test Drive is the perfect tool to train new users, get comfortable with a new version or explore additional features or modules that you may be considering for your own operation. Read more... |
 Tech CornerWhen viewing any webpage for the first time, your browser automatically stores most data from the website in its cache. The next time you visit that same webpage, your browser loads the information from the temporary files in its cache rather than downloading it again. Read more.... |
||
Client Spotlight
Outpost Natural Foods is a locally-owned cooperative where diversity is celebrated and education is a part of everything they sell. They are located in the greater Milwaukee area with nearly 500 workers, over 21,000 co-op owners and numerous awards for their business innovation and concern for the community. Outpost Natural Foods educates the community about healthy eating choices and celebrates the cuisine of Wisconsin primarily through their award-winning quarterly food and dining magazine, Graze. FOOD-TRAK has become an integral part of their business, specifically through tracking food costs and setting prices more effectively since its implementation in 2010.
Leslie Peterson, Foodservice Director for Outpost Natural Foods, has provided more structure, greater discipline and efficiencies to procedures since introducing the FOOD-TRAK Food and Beverage Management Software in their 6 stores and commissary kitchen. The software processes all of the business Outpost does on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis and in turn, generates reports that allow management to see everything they need at once. "Simple keystrokes allow you to have all of the information at your fingertips that you need to run your business," states Peterson. If a question arises from a vendor regarding invoices, they can view real time information to get to the bottom of it. Each year when they start planning with local farms again, they have the ability to review past purchases from that farm. As a chef, Peterson "loves the ability to access the nutritional information for each ingredient and automatically add it to the recipe in the appropriate quantities based on the recipe definition." FOOD-TRAK has proven to be a great record keeping and organizational tool for companies with multiple stores and has saved Outpost a tremendous amount of labor and time.
One of the single greatest assets of the software for Outpost is the FOOD-TRAK Commissary Module. According to Peterson, "the real value of the Commissary Module is that it is so intuitive when fully utilized, and no other software offers what FOOD-TRAK can. In order for our production to scale up with new store openings, we rely on FOOD-TRAK reports to indicate exactly what needs to be produced, which is essential to our bottom line." The Commissary Module provides clients with an intuitive platform where they can develop and maintain a customer database that allows buyers to order both inventoried items and produced goods. This process revolves around placing and filling orders, which provides the ability to price the items using a variety of mark-up schemes. FOOD-TRAK optimizes business performance by controlling and managing the flow of orders coming from commissary customers, the processing of those orders, and the shipment of goods back to the customers through this feature.
FOOD-TRAK has allowed Outpost Natural Foods to track food costs and set food prices more effectively, which fundamentally enabled them to increase margins. "Our margins improved because we could track goods properly and saw a difference within months of implementation," claims Peterson. Accurate recipes have been a key to Outpost's success with margins since implementation. According to Peterson, "Every raw vegetable is hand cut, so we determined the edible portion after the inedible parts of the vegetable were removed to get to the precise, finished product. Sub recipes were created in FOOD-TRAK according to these yields from the purchased weight to the finished product and it was very impressive once we got this specific."
Outpost Natural Foods set strong objectives and went through a lengthy and extensive process in determining their goals for a new food and beverage management software, selecting FOOD-TRAK in the end. Their decision to use FOOD-TRAK's Cloud Service was a key benefit so that they would never have to be bothered with updates or maintenance. Everything from a technology standpoint is taken care of in the Cloud, so Outpost can focus their efforts on maintaining the structure, discipline and efficient procedures that have contributed to their overall success. Now that they have access to real time information, combined with reports containing analysis and summary of their day to day operations in FOOD-TRAK, Outpost has positioned themselves to better manage all of their business processes and continue on their trajectory of success.
Would you like to have your organization featured in the Client Spotlight? Contact us to find out how!
Development News
New - Speed Improvements. As part of our continuing effort to increase performance speed, we have added a new server for managing hosted user sessions that significantly improves the system's response times and eliminates logouts due to heavy traffic. We have also implemented program changes that have reduced the time required to import sales mix by up to 70%!
New - Automatic Updating of FMP Software. Manually upgrading your FMP device to a newly released version of FOOD-TRAK® Mobile Partner is a thing of the past! Each time a device running version 6.0 (or higher) connects to the FOOD-TRAK® host system for data updates, a version check is also performed. If a newer version of the FMP application is present on the FOOD-TRAK® server, an option to upgrade immediately is available. If approved, the upgrade is automatically downloaded to the FMP and installed. Host System Compatibility Note: The host system's FOOD-TRAK version must be 4.64.6 or later to take advantage of this new feature.
New FOOD-TRAK Test Drive
Explore a wide variety of functionality within the FOOD-TRAK System, check out the latest version or use the Test Drive as a way to train users on how to use the software. A demonstration database has been provided for each session, which is limited to 20 minutes. No technical support is available for this site as it is strictly to be used as a self-training tool and some features may not be available for technical reasons. Enjoy the Test Drive.
Tech Corner
When viewing any webpage for the first time, your browser automatically stores most data from the website in its cache. The next time you visit that same webpage, your browser loads the information from the temporary files in its cache rather than downloading it again from the Internet in an effort to maximize the speed and performance of your experience. While your cache is supposed to verify the webpage and ensure nothing has changed since your last visit, this is not always reliable. This means sometimes you will view an older version of the webpage that was stored in a previous browsing session.
With the latest update to FOOD-TRAK, some new Java scripts and stored objects affecting several functions will mandate that you overwrite existing versions saved in your browser. To do so, we recommend clearing your cache after these new updates to the FOOD-TRAK system. This forces your browser to reload the webpage and ensures you are viewing the latest content, objects and functions. In addition, Compatibility View Mode must be set in both Windows 7 and Windows 8, while Internet Explorer 10 or higher is required to run Compatibility Mode in order to render the FOOD-TRAK application pages properly.
Please use this guide as a how-to for clearing your cache and enabling compatibility views for the FOOD-TRAK web address.
The FOOD-TRAK University Course IT 100: Introduction to FOOD-TRAK covers workstation requirements, security groups and user setup, resource allocation, session management and site cleanup if you are interested in more in depth training. Please contact your account manager at
(800) 553-2438 to discuss this course and any other that may be relevant to your particular needs.
New 24/7 Client Support Center
As part of our continued effort to provide the best possible support in the industry, we have now launched our new Client Support Center website. Some highlights of this new site include the ability to get questions answered, submit cases, communicate with other users and even submit suggestions for system improvement just to name a few. For many clients, the support center will help resolve issues without needing to contact the support department by phone.
The center is available directly from the technical support page on the client side of the FOOD-TRAK website or with the release of 5.0 clients also have access to the Support Portal directly from the Main Menu. Hosted clients can simply login to FOOD-TRAK and click the Support Portal icon to be directed to the Client Support Center.
To resolve an issue, we recommend starting with the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section in order to get a quick response without having to submit a case. If you do not see your question, you can type your question into the search bar to see if there are any relevant articles or view additional articles in the Topics section at the bottom of the page. If you are still unsuccessful in finding the answer to your question we would suggest you submit a case.
On the right-hand side select 'Add a Case' and fill out the form as thoroughly as you can, as the more detail provided to us the easier it is for us to assist you. Please include a useful description and upload any files such as reports, screenshots, etc. in order for us to provide the best and most time efficient support. Each time a case you submitted is either updated or escalated you will receive email communication from FOOD-TRAK technical support. Please check your emails and/or notifications periodically as there will be instances when we will need further information regarding your case. To respond you can either reply by email, call us or update your ticket on the Client Support Center website by selecting 'View Cases.'
The Client Support Center also has a Community Forum where users can go in and talk to each other, post questions, read questions from other users and share their ideas. Clients can also visit the Help Us Improve section to share ideas on how to enhance the software to better fit their organization's needs or new features they would like to see in future versions of the FOOD-TRAK software.
We invite you to start using this new resource and get familiar with it, so when the time comes you feel comfortable using the Client Support Center as your first choice for obtaining support.
Watch the video!
University Course of the Month
Accounting 300: Receiving with the FOOD-TRAK Mobile Partner (FMP)
This course takes users through the process of downloading Purchase Orders to the FMP, creating Receiver Forms, and uploading those Receiver Forms to the host system when complete. Receiving on the FMP allows you to capture data at the point of activity and receive goods into the system for up to the minute on-hand inventory information. Why wait hours or sometimes days for this information to get into the system when you can record it while it’s happening instead!
Click here to access the FOOD-TRAK University Course Catalog.
Welcome New Clients
Lettuce Entertain You
Chicago, IL
GreenStar Cooperative Markeing
Ithaca, NY