The Hospitality Service Flow defines certain aspects of the service flow of the restaurant. It also includes an alert mechanism that can help the waiters give a better service. You may need just one service flow in your business or you may even need to set up specific service flows for each hospitality type.
The flow specifies:
- Whether the system is supposed to track kitchen order status, transaction status, dining table status, allocation/reservation, or coursing status.
- When alerts are set due to a status being on for a certain time.
For dining table service the flow specifies:
- When the table becomes occupied (on ordering or when guests are seated).
- When the table is cleared (on payment or when the bill is printed).
- Whether the table status becomes Free or To Be Cleaned when it is cleared.
- Whether allocation/reservation tracking is active.
Dining Table status changes on timing and dining table alerts are updated automatically by running the job Serv. Flow Status/Alert Upd.
Reservation Status changes on timing are updated automatically by running the job Dining Reserv. Entries Automatic Status Update.
See Setting up Service Flows for more information. See Statuses for detailed information on how statuses change.
Hospitality uses a fixed set of statuses for its dining table management and Kitchen Display System. These statuses are a part of the service flow and can be customized to a certain degree:
- Kitchen Order Status - Shows the progress of the order within the kitchen or production area (Not Sent, KDS Error, Sent, Started, Finished, Served, Posted). If you are using Kitchen Printing or KDS, the flow needs to track Kitchen Order Status.
- KOT Status - Shows the progress of individual Kitchen Order Tickets within the kitchen or production area (Not Sent, KDS Error, Sent, Started, Finished, Served, Posted). If the flow tracks Kitchen Order Status, the flow also tracks KOT status. KOT status can be sent to eCommerce.
- Transaction Status - Shows the status of the transaction (Open, Bill Printed-Not Served, Paid-Not Served, Bill Printed-Served, Paid-Served, Voided). If you are managing dining tables, the flow needs to track Transaction Status. It is used together with the Dining Table Status to handle the flow for the dining table.
- Dining Table Status - Shows the overall status of the dining table (Free, Seated, Occupied, To Be Cleaned). For specific transaction or dining table statuses, you can set how they change the overall dining table status. You can even let the To Be Cleaned status change to Free after a certain time.
- Reservation Status - Shows the status of a dining reservation (Open, Late, Arrived, Seated, No-Show, Canceled). You can let the Open status change to Late or No-Show after a certain time, and the Late status change to No-Show after a certain time (job Dining Reserv. Entries Automatic Status Update). Excluded from this change are walk-in entries and waiting list entries.
- Coursing Status - Shows the status of a menu course within a Coursing KOT (No Items, Announced, Fired, Started, Finished, Plated, Served, Posted, Voided). You give each status a description and an abbreviation.
The service flows contain the pop-up menus that appear when you press dining tables and reservations in the Allocation panel.
Dining table alerts
The system can alert the waiter when the current kitchen order status, transaction status or dining table status for a dining table has been on for a certain time. When an alert goes on, the dining table button receives a thick border with striking color.
- Kitchen Order Status Not sent – you can use this alert to remind the waiter to send items that have not been sent yet to the kitchen. Each time the waiter exits the Sales POS (may have added items), the system checks whether there are items not yet sent to kitchen. If there are, the system tries to insert the alert. If there is an alert already for Not Sent, the alert does not change. If there are no items to send, the alert is removed.
- Kitchen Order Status Sent – you use this alert to notify the waiter that the order has not been started in the kitchen. It is set if the kitchen order status stays Sent for a certain time.
- Kitchen Order Status Served – you can use this alert to remind the waiter to go by the table to check if everything is alright. It is set if the kitchen order status stays Served for a certain time (no items are added and the bill is not printed). If the alert goes on, the waiter presses the table and selects the button displaying the alert text. The system resets (or removes) the alert. If an item is added to the order, the alert is removed. If the bill is printed or transaction paid, the alert is removed.
- Transaction Status Bill Printed-Served or Bill Printed-Not Served – you can use this alert to remind the waiter to go to the table to receive payment after the bill has been printed. It is set if the transaction status stays Bill Printed-Served or Not Served for a certain time.
- Dining Table Status Seating – The alert goes on when a certain time has passed since guests were seated and no items have been ordered. The alert is removed when items are ordered or seating removed.
See also
Setting Up Dining Table Alerts