How offline-first works
The internet is an optimisation in IBEX, never a dependency. Here is what that means day to day.
Every terminal holds its own local copy of the menu, staff and open orders. With the router unplugged, each device keeps working on its own:
- Taking dine-in, takeaway and delivery orders and payments.
- Signing in with a PIN, card or fingerprint — for staff this terminal already knows.
- Printing receipts and kitchen tickets.
What syncs later
Changes made offline wait in an outbox and upload automatically — once, with no duplicates — the moment the connection returns. The till shows when it is offline and how many changes are waiting, and warns you before a sign-out or an app update while changes are still waiting.
What needs the internet
- Orders from your website and from ordering platforms.
- Online payments on your website, and their refunds.
- Signing in someone this terminal has never seen.
- The rider app: Picked up from restaurant, Confirm delivery, Can't deliver and Return to dispatch are saved only with a connection — the rider app keeps no offline queue.
Wi-Fi up, internet down
A terminal does not wait for the tablet or PC to say it is offline: it checks the server itself every few seconds, so on a Wi-Fi with no internet behind it, it switches to working on its own within seconds. A button that has to reach the server gives up after 10 seconds, and the printers and print rules are remembered on the device, so it prints after a restart even when no server answers.
Keep the devices working together: the restaurant hub
On its own, a device cannot see the others' work during an outage — a round sent from a waiter's phone does not reach the kitchen screen. A branch with a Windows PC that is always on can make it the restaurant hub: the IBEX POS server running on the restaurant's own network. The branch's tills, kitchen screen and waiter phones (the installed apps, not a browser) then keep working together with the internet down, staff sign in with their PIN or card, and the hub uploads everything within seconds of the internet returning.
- An admin opens Admin → System Settings → Restaurant hub and presses Create hub code (valid 24 hours, shown once).
- On the PC, unzip the IBEX POS Windows package and run
install-hub.batas administrator; type the code and the cloud address the card shows. - Reserve the PC's address on the router, open the hub's status page (
http://<hub address>:8010/hub/) and scan its QR code on every till, kitchen screen and waiter phone — or type the address under Restaurant hub (optional) on the terminal's setup screen.
A pill at the foot of the screen says where a device is working: Local hub · Internet OK, Local hub · Internet down · N waiting to upload, Cloud (the hub is not answering) or This device only · N waiting.
With a hub, while the internet is down, riders and website and platform orders wait for it, and so do Admin and settings changes — settings, categories, modifiers, combos, staff, printers and devices. Marking an item out of stock, and dish edits from the till's own Edit Menu, still work. Restaurants with Android devices only cannot have a hub; their devices work on their own, as above.
Never re-enter an order you already took during an outage — that creates a duplicate. The order is safe locally and will sync itself.
More detail in the sync outbox and conflict resolution.