In today's blog, we explain how to set up screen layouts and buttons grids for the Point of Sale (POS) device within Dynamics 365 for Retail. The idea is to capture your business functions on the screen layouts – and maybe even have a little fun in designing it to your exact specifications.

The first steps are determining your screen layout size and setting up your welcome screen. This feature enables you to create the overall design for your POS device. Here's how it works…

Setting Up Screen Layouts

To begin the process of setting up your screen layout, navigate to Retail > Channel setup > POS setup > POS > Screen layouts.

1. Click +New, and in the Screen layouts popup window, enter Screen layout ID and Name. Leave Default start screen as Welcome screen.

2. Under LAYOUT SIZES, click +Add. Under Name, select PC1366x768. Note that we chose this size for our example because it fits the POS terminal we're configuring - other layout sizes fit other POS terminals (tablets, PCs, etc.)

3. Click Save.

4. With your newly-created layout screen highlighted (as shown below), click Layout designer.

The Layout Designer feature provides insight into the design of the screen. Once logged in, you will see a blank page, like the one shown below.

From here, you can add several screens. The main concept is to create a transaction screen where you can perform tender actions. You can also add functions to help you capture customer information and perform customer orders. By selecting desired the options on the left-hand side and dragging them onto the Layout Designer, you can build the POS screen and its functionality, as shown in the example below:

Setting Up Button Grids

To begin the process of setting up your button grids, navigate to Retail > Channel setup > POS setup > POS > Button grids.

1. Click +New, and in the Button grids popup window, enter Button grid ID and Name. In the General section, leave the default settings.

2. Click Save.

3. Click on Designer to reveal the page below. Click Open and enter your credentials. It is important to note that every time you enter a button grid you will be prompted to log in with your credentials.

4. Once you've logged in and entered the Button grid design screen, click New design, as shown:

In the Button grid setup popup window, enter the number of columns and rows you desire for the Welcome and Transaction screens.

5. Right-click on any button to reveal a popup window in which you define button properties. In the Action dropdown menu, customize each button to a function you require, like Add Coupon Code, Add Loyalty Card, Create Retail Transaction, Issue Credit Memo, Bank Drop, and many others. You can also select images, font size, back color, button size, and more.

Here's an example of an in-progress button grid:

Connecting It All

Once you've created your transaction screen and button grids, it's time to link your button grids to your screen layout. To do so, go back to your Screen layouts window and scroll down to see the Button grids field.

Button grids are used to outline business functions that will be used in the POS. They can also be tailored towards your company's business actions.

Once you've entered your button grids, images are another available feature for the design your POS. These images will appear on your log-in screen and on your POS unit background. Here are some example images that can be shown:

Here's the screen from which you can select images:

POS Functionality Profiles

POS Functionality Profiles are also available to help standardize and differentiate functionality that is available to a regular or standard POS device versus a kiosk that requires different functionality. These Functionality Profiles help to easily provide the functionality needed at different points in the retail process.

Summary

Before designing your screen layout and button grids, it is considered an important best practice to first outline the business functions that will be used on your POS unit. It is important to determine tender actions, customer actions, loyalty actions, and discounting. Take into consideration all business process flows that will affect your POS functionality. This will provide the overall infrastructure and give you the foundations to build out a successful POS.

We hope this little tutorial was helpful. Follow our blog for more Dynamics 365 posts!

Happy D365'ing!