FocusLink: Venue Timeout

Background

FocusLink is the official connector between Focus POS at the store-level and the Focus Cloud. FocusLink represents a massive leap forward in connecting the ever-reliable Focus POS store-level system to a series of truly cloud-based APIs, databases, and tools.

Problem

When attempting to perform a FocusLink based request, the response body indicated Venue Timeout and the request was not processed successfully.

Resolution

A Venue Timeout occurs when the FocusLink Connector is fully operational, but the underlying store-level POS is not responding as expected.

Most commonly, this issue is related to the POS terminal that is "running" the Focus POS MobileAPI is not running. Resolution involves starting the Focus POS Software on the store-level POS terminal that is responsible for managing the Mobile API. Knowing which store-level POS terminal is responsible can be obtained by calling v2/stores/:venueKey endpoint to obtain the current store status.

Technical Background

The FocusLink Connector creates a purpose-built Secure WebSocket Connection between the store-level POS and the FocusLink API stack. The primary purpose of the FocusLink Connector is to instantly present requests and jobs for the store-level POS to handle.

Requests are presented to the FocusLink API from various sources (FocusOnline, FocusON, FocusKitchen, third-party integrators and various management services). Some of those requests require data from the store-level POS. For example, a third party integrator submitting a menu item to a check requires the item to be printed. That is handled by the FocusLink Connector.