How To Use Table Management
Once you've created your floor plan, now you can use it to track your served, waiting, and booked customers. In this article, you'll learn:
- How to add a reservation
- How to add a walk-in
- How to serve a walk-in
- How to check-in and seat a reservation
- Completing and removing a party
- What the colors mean
- How this works with the regular Waitlist and Reservations pages
After you've just set up your floor plan and you navigate to the Floor Plans tab, it'll look something like this:
On smaller screens, you'll have the option to show/hide the left section that shows your waitlist, reservations, and served parties:
Add a Party
To get started adding someone to your floor plan, you can hit the big green + button.
If you're on the Serving or Reservations tab, you'll be adding a new reservation.
From the Waiting tab, you can add a new walk-in.
Adding a Reservation
In the Add reservation form, you'll need to set the date, time, and table, along with the customer's name, phone, and party size. The correct service should automatically be selected for the given date & time.
After you've added a reservation, this newly booked party will show in your Booked list:
Adding a walk-in
If you would like to add a new walk-in, click into the Waiting tab and click the big green + button:
Here, you just need to set the phone, name, party size, and the expected wait time. The service should be auto-selected if you have only one available at the current time.
You can modify the service duration, which you may want to do if it's a larger party.
You can also choose the table you're going to seat them at now or later when you actually bring them to their table.
You'll end up with one waiting party here:
Serving a walk-in and assigning them to a table
Now, to serve this party, click on the entry. If you haven't already assigned them to a table, you should edit the party and select a table now. If you've already chosen a table, you can simply hit the green Serve button.
If you want us to automatically prompt you to choose a table when marking a walk-in as served when you haven't already selected a table, go to Settings > Reservation Options and enable the Serving Tracking feature (and hit save!)
You'll be asked to assign a table after marking the party as served:
Checking in and serving a reservation
To check-in and serve a reservation, it works similarly. Click on the entry:
When the party arrives, click the Check-in button.
When you're ready to seat them, click the Serve button.
Viewing and managing your floor plan
Now you can go to the Serving tab to see all the currently seated parties:
Completing and removing a party
Parties will NOT be automatically completed and removed from the floor plan after the assigned duration. You'll need to manually mark a party as having finished by selecting the table or the entry and clicking Complete.
What do the colors mean?
Tables are color-coded to help you get a sense of how your service is proceeding.
- Green: all good!
- Yellow: this is a checked-in reservation that has not yet been seated and it is past their reservation time
- Red: for overdue reservations that have not checked in yet
- Blue: tables will be blue when there is an upcoming reservation at this table, but they are not yet here. Additionally, there may be time to seat another party at this table.
How this works with the regular Waitlist and Reservations pages
Good news, the floor plan works seamlessly with the regular Waitlist and Reservations pages.
If the little sidebar that shows your Serving, Waiting, and Booked parties next to your floor plan is too small, just head over to the Waitlist or Reservations pages to manage and view these entries as usual.