Kitchen Display System Installation

In this article

System requirements

KDS licenses

System setup

LS Central KDS Web Service setup

Troubleshooting

The Kitchen Display System (KDS) works with LS Central for restaurants and hotels.

Note: The KDS does not work with the Offline Call Center.

System requirements

Kitchen service machine

  • Software
    • Operating system: Windows 7.1 or newer
    • Software: .NET Framework 4.5 or newer
  • Hardware: Minimum requirements
    • Processor: 2 GHz or faster
    • 2 GB RAM
    • Hard disk: 5 GB free space

Display station machines

  • Software
    • Operating system: Windows 7.1 or newer
    • Software: .NET Framework 4.5 or newer
  • Hardware: Minimum requirements
    • Processor: 1 GHz or faster
    • 500 MB RAM
    • Hard disk: 2 GB free space

LS Central KDS Web Service

  • The KDS configuration is stored in the Dynamics Business Central database. The Kitchen Service calls the LS Central KDS Web Service to fetch the configuration. No database connection is needed.

KDS licenses

No license is needed for the KDS, it is included in the LS Central license.

System setup

Every KDS setup needs to go through the same basic steps. Get the latest version of the KDS setup files from the LS Retail Portal (login required), go to the LS Central Downloads page (select the appropriate release folder, and there open the Setup xx.0 folder where the KDS setup files are located).

  1. Install the Kitchen Service application.
  2. Install Display Station application on all Display Station machines.
  3. Be sure to insert the appropriate default data before starting to configure the layout. See Insert default data.
  4. Configure the following layout in the LS Central to get a functioning KDS:
    • Display profile
    • Functional profile
    • Button profile
    • Visual profile
    • Style profile
  5. Configure the Kitchen Service settings in LS Central.
    Note: First time use in LS Central requires initialization of the SOAP URL in the Kitchen Service Configuration.
  6. Configure the Kitchen Service settings to communicate with LS Central with the KDS Utility and restart the Kitchen Service.
  7. Configure the Display Stations startup on each computer where they should run using the Display Station Utility.

See samples for suggested KDS setup for single or multiple servers.

Install the Kitchen Service application

Complete the setup from the setup file LS.KitchenService.Setup.exe. This will install the Kitchen Service and start it.

To create a shortcut to the KDS Utility, select the check box Create a desktop icon for the KDS Utility, if it is not already selected. The KDS Utility is needed to configure the Kitchen Service with the URL to the Dynamics Business Central KDS Web Servvice and credentials, if necessary.

By default the service starts listening on TCP/IP port 17750 and waits for the correct configuration from the Hospitality system. If you are upgrading from a previous KDS version, the new version will use the same configuration file as the previous version. If the previous version was using the NAS it must be overwritten with the KDS Utility.

Install the Display Station application

Complete the setup from the setup file LS.DisplayStation.Setup.exe.
This will install the Display Station. See for more information.

Set the Kitchen Service Configuration

This configures the connection information for the Kitchen Service, so it can connect to the correct Business Central Web Service. And other settings for the KDS to run optimally.
See Kitchen Service Configuration for details on how to configure.

Configure the layout of the KDS

All data setup for the KDS system is done in the Hospitality system. All Display Station configurations are set there, as well as the Kitchen Service connection properties. See KDS profiles for a good starting point.

Data structures

Below you can see the data structures of the Kitchen Display System and their relations.

Initially, the KDS configuration in LS Central is empty. It can be populated with predefined demo data in an xml file, KDS.xml, which is included in the KDS installation package.
See Import demo data for details on how to import the demo data and insert the default lookup values for the style types and header/footer column types.
The demo data should help you understand the structure of the setup and be a good starting point for the real setup.

LS Central KDS Web Service setup

In order for the Kitchen Service to be able to communicate with the Hospitality system, it must know the URL of the Web Service it should connect to. The Web Services are run in the Dynamics Business Central service tier. See How to: Set the Kitchen Service Configuration for more information.

See KDS Utility for information on how to set the Kitchen Service settings.

Troubleshooting

See Kitchen Service Troubleshooting if you are having problems getting the KDS to run properly.