Setting up the showroom iPad: OrderPilot in Shopify POS

The iPad comes off its stand. Your customer is sitting on the floor sample, and the associate opens Create Quote to choose a fabric grade and leg finish. Nobody has to carry a handwritten specification to the back desk before the customer can see the price.

Getting to that moment means settling a few ordinary things first: the tiles on the device, the staff member signed in, their permissions, and the receipt that will print. Prepare each iPad and rehearse a complete quote before Saturday. The customer should see a sales conversation, not the first attempt at setup.

Know which tile starts each job

OrderPilot's POS tiles give staff clear entry points for quoting, ordering, continuing a sale, and printing. Arrange them consistently across the showroom devices so an associate covering another station does not need to search again.

Add the app's tiles to the POS home screen on every device the team will use. Then open them; seeing a tile is not the same as proving the signed-in staff member can complete the job behind it. Leave the detailed tap sequence to the Academy and keep the setup review focused on the result.

This work fits into the first-week setup plan. The catalog and customer-facing paperwork should already be useful enough for a practice quote, rather than waiting for the iPad rehearsal to expose missing product choices.

Prepare the device where staff will actually use it

A showroom iPad needs a dependable working place as well as a mobile role. Decide where it charges, how staff carry it to a seating group, and where they return it between appointments.

Use Shopify's hardware information when choosing a compatible stand, printer, or payment accessory. Test the equipment with the exact device and location before relying on it. A stand that looks tidy at the counter can still be awkward when the associate wants to turn the screen toward a customer on a deep sofa.

Walk the normal selling route and check the connection at the seating group, fabric library, and order desk. This is a practical rehearsal, not a claim of offline OrderPilot operation. Give the team a known fallback for a connection problem so nobody starts recreating the same quote in several places.

Keep the screen readable without putting it between the customer and the swatches. The iPad is there to preserve the choices, not to win the conversation. A linen sample remains rather good at showing linen.

Use the current staff identity on shared iPads

Salespeople can share a device while using their own staff identities and the configured POS access. Make switching staff part of the handover, and test the OrderPilot permissions and PIN behavior for each person who will use that iPad.

Review Settings › Staff & roles with the person responsible for store access. Decide who may change prices, apply discounts, and take payment, as well as which records and locations they can access. A device being logged in successfully does not establish that every action should be available to the person holding it. When a salesperson lacks discount permission, they should not be able to apply the discount through the restricted action. Have that person try the relevant screen during rehearsal and read the unavailable-action explanation. Then teach the store's escalation path: who can approve the request and where the customer waits while that happens.

Avoid leaving a manager's identity active as a way to make the next person's shift easier. The register should reflect the staff member doing the work. It should also preserve the store's separate decision about who gets sales credit.

Separate the working list from sales credit

Mine and All help an associate find their work, while Sold by identifies the people credited on the sale. Neither should be treated as a substitute for checking the record itself.

Open the Orders list and find a practice quote in Mine. Then use All within the person's permitted scope to locate a record someone else can hand over. Teach staff to look at the customer and configuration before opening the conversation, especially when several quotes involve the same sofa model. On the record, review Sold by, fulfillment details, and activity. If one associate starts the quote and another completes it, the history and attribution should tell the store what happened without relying on the most recent login alone. Vendor costs are not sent to OrderPilot's register screens, whatever the staff role. That keeps cost figures off the customer-facing selling surface. The separate question of who should see furniture cost at the Admin desk belongs in the store's broader access policy.

Rehearse signing without rushing the agreement

Customers can sign through a QR code on their own phone or use Sign on this iPad. Give them the agreed specification and terms before asking for the signature, and leave room for them to read.

The signing choice should fit the customer's situation. A phone link lets the customer hold the agreement on their own device. Signing on the iPad keeps the task in the showroom. For a customer who wants paper, Print to Sign supports a paper-signing workflow; record the signed copy and preserve the supporting document.

Rehearse the handoff with staff acting as the customer. Can they read the selected fabric and finish? Can they return to the sale after signing? Does the associate know where the signed record appears? Those are the useful setup questions. The customer-beside-you quote guide covers the selling conversation around them.

Print a receipt from each selling location

The receipt should carry the correct showroom identity and readable short terms, with the full terms available through the QR. Print a sample rather than judging the result from a preview. Read the receipt at normal distance. Scan the QR from the printed paper, and open the full terms. Repeat at another location if staff use the same devices across stores. A working printer can still produce the wrong showroom's details when the location arrangement is wrong.

Keep a simple ownership rule for paper problems: who checks the printer, who maintains the location's terms, and who resolves an incorrect document. The associate should not have to diagnose the whole setup while a customer waits beside the counter.

Understand what POS Pro does and does not establish

Shopify's own POS draft-order feature requires a POS Pro location, according to its draft-order documentation. That is a Shopify feature requirement, not proof of the subscription rule for every OrderPilot tile.

OrderPilot's inspected POS screens do not impose a separate POS Pro check. Shopify still controls the surrounding platform features and staff-access arrangements. Choose the subscription against the store's actual workflow using Shopify's POS comparison and the furniture-showroom POS Pro guide, then test the required actions on the intended location.

Keep Shopify Plus separate in that discussion. OrderPilot's native Take Deposit action on POS depends on Plus deposit terms. Without Plus, the Admin deposit-order route provides the deposit link before placement. A subscription decision should name the action staff need, rather than treating all things called “draft” or “deposit” as the same feature.

Run a practice quote before the first customer

Use a sample Madison sofa and a test customer in a controlled training environment. Keep this first rehearsal unpaid so the team can concentrate on finding the product, choosing the options, and explaining the result.

1. Open Create Quote under the salesperson's own identity.
2. Add the sample customer and configure the sofa's size, fabric, and leg finish.
3. Review the price and confirm whether the piece comes from stock or needs ordering.
4. Set delivery or collection and inspect Sold by.
5. Open the signing choice and show the QR to the colleague acting as the customer.
6. Save, return to the list, and find the same quote again.

Have a second associate continue the record. If they need the first person's memory to understand it, improve the captured information or the training before live use. Sample data entered in a live store can still synchronize or send messages, so control the environment and notification settings deliberately.

Your final “iPad ready” list is short: tiles on each device, correct location, individual staff access checked, permissions rehearsed, printer and terms QR tested, and a saved quote another person can continue. Once those work, move to running the complete showroom sale on Shopify POS.

Sources

1. Managing draft orders on Shopify POS — Shopify Help Center.
2. Plans for selling in person — Shopify.
3. POS hardware — Shopify.