K-Signal
K-Signal automatically updates the information in the screens when other members of staff are working on related information, for example stock figures in sales orders. This allows stock levels and other volatile data to be shared between users without the need for them to refresh their screens and poll the database again. This also means that users can, for example, keep the sales order or sale invoice screens open all day and monitor progress without having to refresh them.
Areas of the System where K-Signal is active
Key stats (i.e. stock levels, invoice counts, sales orders) will update automatically, alongside sales and purchase order data, without the user having to refresh, as follows: in the following screens without the user having to refresh:
-
[ Sales Order | List ] -
[ Sales Order | Detail | Main ]stock levels, invoice stages -
[ Sales Invoice ]invoice stage counts, invoices per stage, line and quantity counts, fulfilment %; -
[ Stock | List ]stock levels -
[ Purchase Order | List ] -
[ Purchase Order | Detail ]stock levels;
Technical K-Signal Information
- K-signal uses port UDP 19467 to broadcast specific information to other instances of Khaos Control on the same network.
- All clients are intended to receive the data, although only relevant data is processed. All clients will listen for these K-Signal packets if the feature is enabled.
- The packets contain groups of information depending upon what has changed, packed as efficiently as possible. Steps have been taken to avoid individual changes resulting in a high number of packets being required. The data is restricted to low level ID data, which then triggers a refresh in the relevant area only when applicable, otherwise the data is ignored.
Ensure that the above port is open and configured on your firewall to allow the data to be broadcast to other users in Khaos Control. If there are issues opening this port internally or if it is used by another service, please email Support so an alternative port can be configured for use by K-Signal on your system.
Notes
- Before you can use K-Signal it must be setup. This is controlled by a system values option and is not enabled by default as your IT resource may need need to configure your firewall in order for this to work correctly. Please email Support once you receive the update so this can be enabled for you.
- This functionality will not impair system performance for the following reasons:
- Only messages relevant to the screens that a user currently has loaded will be picked up and processed by each client. If a record is updated that no-one else is using, then nothing will be processed by the client machines, although the data will still be written to the database, as normal;
- The packet sizes for the data that is being passed are tiny, which means that they will not impact performance, either of Khaos Control, or of the network.
- Automated processes that are importing orders into Khaos Control will feed into K-Signal responses to client machines " where relevant.
- Stock level uploads will be unchanged by this functionality and will continue to work as currently.
- K-Signal will update background windows, as well as the window currently focused on.
- K-Signal needs to be enabled in order for KPI Dashboards to update dynamically.