Table bookings¶

Guests book a table on your site, and your front of house runs the evening from the Diary. This page walks through setting it up and using it day to day. How it works underneath is in Table reservations.

1. Seat diners at a location¶

Open Settings › Locations, open the restaurant's location and tick Seats diners under What happens here. Save. A Dining room card appears on the location.

2. Set up the dining room¶

On the location, choose Set up the dining room (or Edit dining room). The editor has five tabs; save with Save dining room in the bar at the bottom (or Ctrl/Cmd+S). After a save the bar stays, reading Saved at 14:32, until your next change.

• Tables. Add your areas (say Dining room and Terrace). Switch Walk-ins only on for an area such as a bar that you never book. Then add each table with the fewest and most guests it seats, its area, and whether guests can book it online. Rank breaks ties: when two tables fit, the lower rank is sold first.
• Combinations. Add one for each set of tables you push together, tick its tables and give the party sizes it takes. Single tables are always tried first; then combinations in the order shown, which the arrows change.
• Services. One per sitting, such as Lunch and Dinner: the days, the first and last booking times, when you close, how often bookings start, the usual stay and longer stays for bigger parties, the reset time between parties, and pacing (the most guests that may arrive from online bookings in each interval, so the kitchen isn't swamped). Online covers for the service holds the rest of the room back for phone bookings and walk-ins. The editor warns about stays under an hour for parties over two, which usually overbook the room.
• Booking rules. The largest party that books instantly (bigger parties send you an enquiry), the largest that can book online at all, how far ahead, when online booking closes before the time, when a late party can be marked a no-show, and the late cancellation window.
• Table service. The Menu collection servers order from on the app's Floor: pick a collection such as Menu, and its sections (Burgers, Chicken, Drinks) are the table menu. Empty uses the till's menu. Keep gift cards and merchandise out of it; they're sold at the till. See Table service.

If something doesn't add up (a service that closes before its last booking's stay ends, a combination with one table), the editor lists the problems and saves nothing. If someone else saved the room while you were editing, you're asked to reload rather than overwrite their changes.

Try it before you save¶

Test a booking, beside the editor, shows what a party would be offered on a date, as a guest online or by staff, with the tables each time would take and why the other times are refused: pacing, the online cap, every fitting table taken, the online cut-off, special hours. It uses your changes as they stand, saved or not, so you can see what a new pacing limit does before saving it.

3. Switch bookings on¶

In Settings › Dining in, switch on Reservations enabled. The sidebar gets Bookings › Diary and Bookings › Guests. In the same section, Keep guest details for (months) sets how long a guest's details are kept after their last visit (24 months by default).

Special days and temporary closures on the location (Holiday and special hours, and closing it for now from its Status card) apply to bookings too: a day marked closed takes none.

The diary¶

Bookings › Diary opens on today at your first dining location. Move between days with the arrows or the date, and narrow to a service. Timeline shows your tables against time: each bar is a booking, starting with the number of guests.

The orange line is now. Above the tables, Arrivals shows how many guests arrive in each interval against your pacing (red when it's over, which staff bookings can be). A green dot by a table name means someone is sitting there now. List shows the same bookings by arrival time with the buttons to hand, and is the default on a phone. The diary refreshes itself every 30 seconds. Press B to book, W for a walk-in and V to switch views.

Click a booking to see its details (contact, occasion, request, allergies in red, your notes, how many times they've been before) and to move it on:

• Arrived when they come in, Seat when they sit down (or Seat at other tables, which greys out tables that another booking holds at that time and says until when), and Left when they go, which frees the table.
• No-show becomes available once they are later than the grace period. It is never automatic and nothing is charged.
• Cancel booking frees the tables and emails the guest; add a reason if you like.

Waiting for your answer lists enquiries for big parties. Approve books the best table or combination; for a party bigger than any of them, open the enquiry and choose Approve at chosen tables (tables already taken at the enquiry's time are greyed out). Decline emails the guest.

Book by phone takes the date, number of guests and a time (only times with a table free can be chosen; staff bookings can go over online pacing), the guest's name and a phone or email. With an email the guest gets the confirmation and can manage the booking themselves.

Walk-in seats a party now at the tables you pick. Tables with someone at them are greyed out. A walk-in keeps its tables until their next booking.

Guests¶

Bookings › Guests lists everyone who has booked with an email or phone number, newest first, with a search by name, email or phone. A guest's page shows their visits, no-shows and bookings, and lets you add tags (regular and vip show in the diary), preferences and notes. Write notes as you would say them to the guest: they can ask to see them.

Allergies are kept on a guest's profile only when the guest agreed to it when booking. Otherwise they stay on that one booking and are removed 30 days after the visit. Remove from the profile deletes them and the consent.

The booking form's Send me news and offers by email box is never ticked for the guest. When they tick it and give an email address, they join your general list (found under Customers › Contacts, source Booking), once they click the link in the confirmation email when Confirm newsletter sign-ups by email is on (the default). When you take a booking by phone or in person for a guest who asks for the emails, tick the box: the guest is always sent the confirmation email and is subscribed only when they click it, because staff can't subscribe anyone. Your name is on the record of the request. Without the tick, nothing is recorded. When you forget a guest, their contact stays but no longer points at the deleted profile. See Customer messaging.

When a guest asks for their data, use Download guest data (a JSON file of the profile and every booking); see also Subject access requests. When a guest asks to be forgotten, open the … menu and choose Forget this guest, then type their name. Their profile is erased and their bookings keep only the date, time, party size and status.