How to setup Reservations and Availability.
Step 1. Go to "Settings", then "Floor Rules" in the admin panel.
Here you would set the typical seated duration time for each party size you can accommodate in the restaurant.
Disregard the pre-seating and seating status sections.
Scroll down the screen to the "Rules" section.
- Best to Only set the settings shown below. You can always come back once you have had chance see the system in operation.
- Clicking on the "?" flags will generate a pop-up that will give a good description of the purpose of the setting. Click again to close the pop-up.
*Click on the disk image on the bottom right of the screen to save your changes.
Step 2. Go to "Reservations", then "Main Reservation Settings" in the admin panel.
Here you will define the basic notifications for your restaurant.
- Set up the basic options shown in the image below.
- Reservation Notification Email: This should be a common email address that all managers have access to. Like management@xxxrestaurant.xyz
- Restaurant Reservation Phone Number: This should be the main phone number that guests call to make a booking. Ideally the number should have SMS capability to receive text messages.
- The Special Request Options are activated by moving the cursor to the right of the icon you wish to activate. Click once the pointer appears on your mouse and the orange slider switch will turn on. Click on the switch to turn it off.
*Click on the disk image on the bottom right of the screen to save your changes.
Disregard "Online Reservations" and "Deposits and Fees" sections at this time.
Step 3. Go to "Availability", then "Hours" in the admin panel.
Here you will set the hours for the opening and closing timeslots for each day.
- Use the slider to close Sunday if you are not open.
- Click on the hours to change the time.
- Click on the "+" sign to create split periods if you close between lunch and dinner.
*Click on the disk image on the bottom right of the screen to save your changes.
* Disregard the "Online Reservation Hours" at this time.
Now, go to the "Cover Pacing" section.
-Time slot (in minutes): Here you define if you want to show booking intervals of 15 or 30 minute increments.
- Maximum number or guests (covers) per slot for both online and host created bookings: This setting is based on the through put capacity of your kitchen. Typically, this is viewed as the average number of meals that can be produced in each 15 or 30 minute period set above. In the screen shot below there are 20 covers set for both categories. This does not mean the restaurant is accepting 40 covers per time slot. The Host generated number is absolute. The online number is a portion of the host created number. In this case, the online number could be set to 15 which means that 5 covers are save for in-house use.
- Maximum number of online or host created reservations (parties) per slot: In some cases you want to limit the number if reservations (bookings) per slot, regardless of the number of covers.
- Cover Limits: This would set a total capacity limit for the restaurant. This would be calculated based on the remaining duration time of seated guests, plus pending reservations and people on the waitlist.
- Reservation Seating Optimization: Do not activate.
- Cover Pacing Exceptions: This is where you could increase the cover limit set above to 30 or 35 on Friday and Saturday as you have more kitchen staff. You may only increase the covers for V-day. Simply click "Add New" and follow the prompts.
*Click on the disk image on the bottom right of the screen to save your changes.
Step 3. Go to "Floor Plan" in the admin panel.
Here, you define any other rooms you have like a private dining room or an overflow area.
- Displayed are the table and cover totals for the different rooms. In the case of the Bistro (110/120), this means that 10 covers are not being made available to book online. Each table can be included or excluded from availability.
*Click on the disk image on the bottom right of the screen to save your changes.
Now, click on the supper club.
- The drag & drop feature of table creation makes it easy for anyone to create their own floor plan.
- Click on a table to see how it can be re-shaped and turned.
- The min/max settings for each table are defined in the pop-up on the right.
- Slide the online reservations switch to on if you want the system to use the table in the availability calculations.
*Click on the disk image on the bottom right of the screen to save your changes.
You are now finished with the reservation basics.
Click on the back arrow in the top left corner.
Then click on the 3 horizontal lines in the top left corner. This will open up the admin panel.
Slide your cursor to the top of the panel and click on the box with name of your restaurant. This will take you to the main system page where you can make reservations to test your settings.
Click on the "gear icon" in the lower left of the main screen to go back to the admin panel at any time.