In normal operation the Micros PMS notifies the driver of room events such as Guest Check-in and Guest Check-out when they occur. The driver cannot “poll” the PMS but instead subscribes to receive those event types on start-up. It is because of this event driven nature that newly added
points have {stale} status until a message is received from the PMS.
To import room occupancy data to a newly configured station, FIAS supports a Database Sync action which transmits the occupancy state of all the rooms in the PMS to the station.
CAUTION: Performing a Database Sync requires the Hotel's PMS Server to stop communications with all its other connected systems while the Database Sync is in progress. Therefore it should be invoked as infrequently as possible. The FIAS protocol manual makes the following statement:NOTE: A Database-Swap may NOT be requested after every startup. It puts major overhead on communications, especially at larger
installations. It should only be requested if data is really not synchronous any more. NEVER request Database Swap requests
periodically. Note: Newer Micros systems have been modified in a way, so that unnecessary Swap-Requests will be simply ignored
without any notification.— Source — FIAS 2_20w
It therefore makes sense to request a Database Sync only once all of the room points have been added to the
Niagara Station. The driver will discard update information for rooms which do not have a corresponding Boolean point created in the station.
Database Sync can be initiated either:
- By the PMS, for example a front desk operator choosing to push an unsolicited data update to the connected Niagara station
- By
Niagara invoking the Database Sync Action on the MicrosNetwork, or by using the Database Sync button in the MicrosPointManager view
In either of these cases,
Niagara handles the event using the Job Service which produces various metrics summarizing the exchange. This dialog can be found via the station Job Service or by using the Database Sync Result button in the Point Manager view.
NOTE: The Source
can be Local or Server depending upon who initiated the Database Sync.
NOTE: The PMS system needs to be connected for over 1 minute before it will return records.