Reservations

What it is#

Your ordering page gets a second address: your-restaurant.flavoso.com/reserve. There a guest picks the party size, the day and the time and leaves a name and an e-mail address, optionally also a phone number, an occasion (a birthday, say) and a note.

On a computer your restaurant's card is on the left, with logo, address and directions, today's opening hours, the phone number and the way to the menu, and the steps are on the right. On a phone everything is stacked, and in the window embedded on your website there are only the steps.

Every day of the coming weeks is in the day bar, including the ones where nothing is possible: rest days and special days are marked “closed”, fully booked days “full”, and today “over” once nothing can be booked any more. That way a guest knows whether another day might work or whether they had better call.

Only times inside your opening hours are offered, from opening time in the chosen grid up to the last booking before closing, and only where a table is still free for exactly that party size. The times are grouped by time of day, lunch and evening apart. If you have not entered any opening hours, the page offers no time at all but your phone number. If something is missing or does not fit, the reason sits right at the field, and everything else stays filled in.

Reservations belong to the Pro plan, together with table QR and the kitchen screen.

Switching it on and setting it up#

In the dashboard under Settings, tab Reservations. Right at the top is the switch “Online reservations” with one sentence that sums up where you stand, for instance “Guests book online for up to 8 people, 2 hours to 30 days ahead. You confirm every booking yourself.” While it is off, the booking page says nothing is available right now; entering bookings by hand always works anyway. Like the ordering page, it also only takes bookings once your legal notice and privacy policy are entered; until then guests see “This page is being set up”, you see it as a preview. Existing reservations can still be viewed and cancelled.

Below it are four areas, Acceptance, Times, Tables and Guests, and finally “Share”. Every change saves at once. If opening hours are missing or the lead time is longer than the booking window, that appears as a short line under the switch, with a link to the right place.

1. 1

   Switch it on

   Set the switch “Online reservations” to on.

   Dashboard, Settings, Reservations

2. 2

   Check the opening hours

   Without opening hours the booking page offers not a single time. Special days and holidays apply to reservations just as they do to orders.

   Dashboard, Settings, Hours

3. 3

   Choose acceptance

   “I confirm myself” or “Confirm automatically”. Confirming yourself means the guest reads “we will get back to you”, and you confirm or decline in the board. Automatically means: if a table is free, the reservation stands at once. Next to it the largest party online; larger parties read “please call”.

4. 4

   Set the times

   As sentences with a choice: how long a table counts as taken (90 minutes is usual), in what steps times are offered (counted from opening time), how short-notice and how far ahead a booking may be, and when the last reservation before closing starts. Under “More” there is a longer duration for larger groups, say 150 minutes from six people.

5. 5

   Check the tables

   The Tables area shows how many tables with how many seats there are and leads to “Edit tables”. Enter the number of seats on every table there; Flavoso works out from that which party fits where. Whether tables may be combined, and how many, you decide in the Tables area. That is also where you set what guests may choose when booking: nothing, an area or a table. It takes effect as soon as your tables are on a floor plan.

6. 6

   Guests

   Whether the phone number is required (otherwise the e-mail is enough) and whether the guest gets a reminder before the booking: 2, 4, 24 or 48 hours ahead, or none at all. The default is one day ahead.

7. 7

   Hand out the link

   Under “Share”, copy the booking link and put it on the flyer, into your Google listing and into your social media profile. Or put the embed code on your own website.

How occupancy is calculated#

In tables. A party is only bookable online if it fits at a free table. Two tables for four do not make a table for eight, even when eight seats are free.

You enter a table's seats under Tables and QR. A table without a number counts with the default you set in the Tables area under “More”.

Combining tables is allowed as soon as you switch it on, and only up to the number you pick next to it. Before that a larger party reads “please call”, with your phone number, and you decide on the phone.

How many people can book online at most is written as a sentence under the largest party online. Enter more there than your room can hold and the sentence tells you right away.

Seats at a time is an additional cap for the whole evening, for instance when the kitchen reaches its limit before the room does. Without tables it is the only limit there is and therefore sits right in the Tables area, with tables under “More”.

A reservation occupies its whole duration, not just its start time. A party from 19:00 to 20:30 therefore also blocks 19:30 and 20:00.

Larger groups stay longer. If you set a separate duration from a certain party size under Hours, “More”, such a group occupies its table that much longer, online and on the phone alike.

If two guests book the last table in the same second, exactly one of them gets it. The other reads that the time has just been taken and immediately sees the times that are still free. If somebody sends the same form twice, there is still only one reservation.

The states and what the guest sees#

Every reservation has exactly one state, and what you can do with it follows a fixed rule, the same in the board, in the app and through the API. What is not possible right now is not offered at all.

• Request: only if you confirm every booking yourself. You confirm or decline, until its time is over. The guest reads “We have your request” on their page.
• Confirmed: the table is booked. “Arrived” works from one hour before the start. The guest reads “Your table is booked”, on the day itself “Today is the day” and shortly before “Almost time”.
• Seated: after “Arrived”. Next comes “Left”, or you undo “Arrived”. Both are an offer, not a duty: if you never press them, a reservation simply shows as over once its time has ended.
• Left: the party is done. Undoing works until twelve hours after the end. The guest reads “Thank you for visiting”.
• No-show: only from the start, never before. “Came after all” undoes it, until twelve hours after the start. The guest reads a neutral “This reservation has expired”, never a reproach.
• Declined: a request you have no table for. Final. The guest reads “Sorry, no table available” and your message, if you wrote one.
• Cancelled: final, no matter who cancelled. The guest reads whether they cancelled themselves or you did, and your message, if there is one. There is no second cancelling and no switching back; if the guest comes after all, you enter a new reservation.

The evening in the board#

Under Reservations the day is at the top, with arrows for the day before and after, “Today” and a date picker, and next to it the day's figures: reservations, guests and open requests. Below that the next two weeks are a bar; only reservations that still stand are counted there.

Open requests sit as a strip of their own above, whatever day they are for, with Confirm and Decline right beside them.

You can switch between List, Timeline and Floor plan, and the browser remembers your choice. The list is grouped by time. The timeline shows one row per table across the evening, from opening to closing, every reservation as a bar as long as its duration and in the colour of its state, and right at the top a row “No table”; with a floor plan the rows are grouped by room. On a phone it scrolls sideways without the page sliding along. The floor plan is described further down, in the section “Floor plan”.

Every card shows the time, name, party size, the tables or “No table”, the state, the occasion and a sign for the guest's request, with a padlock for the team note. If the guest pressed “I'm coming” in the reminder, the card carries “Coming” with a tick. If the same guest (same e-mail address or phone number) did not show up before, that appears as “1× no-show”.

Every card has one main button that fits its state: Confirm and Decline for a request, Arrived shortly before the time, Left for a seated party. Everything else is in the “…” menu, and it lists only what is possible right now. It closes after every action.

Declining, cancelling, no-show and deleting ask first. When declining or cancelling you can add a message to the guest that appears in their mail and on their page. When cancelling you choose who cancels: “We have to cancel” sends the guest a cancellation, “The guest cancelled” is for the call in which they cancel themselves and only sends them the confirmation of their cancellation.

A click on the card opens the drawer, on the right on a computer and from the bottom on a phone: all details, call and write an e-mail, the tables, the actions and the history. It shows when the reservation was created, who confirmed it, when tables were changed and which mails went out, the reminder and whether the guest confirmed.

Edit changes date, time, party size, duration, name, phone, e-mail, the guest's request and the team note in the drawer. If the time or the party size changes, the guest gets a mail that their reservation was changed; you can untick that. If a table is already taken at the new time, the drawer tells you.

Cancelled, declined and no-show bookings sit muted in a section of their own under the list, which you can open. The search above the list covers all days, by name, phone, e-mail, number, guest's request or team note. New things appear by themselves, without reloading.

Assigning tables#

The table button on the card or in the drawer opens the table picker in a window of its own. It shows all tables with their seats, grouped by room when there is a floor plan. A table somebody already has at the time of this reservation is shown locked, with the name and time of whoever has it.

While you pick, the picker says what the choice means: “4 people · 4 seats chosen”, “2 seats missing” or “6 more seats than needed”. If you pick more tables than you want to combine, or a single chosen table would already be enough, a hint appears. The suggestion above picks with one click the tables Flavoso would take.

“Apply” saves and closes; Escape or a click beside it closes without saving. A taken table is only ever chosen on purpose: “Allow taken tables” makes it selectable, and the table is then booked twice.

The server checks too: a table has to belong to your restaurant, and a taken one only goes through if you chose it that way. If a table is deleted, it also disappears from the reservations that had it.

Floor plan#

If there is a floor plan under Tables (see the chapter “Tables and QR codes”), the board has a third view: Floor plan. At the top you pick the room, below it you set the time with the slider, in quarter hours from opening to closing. “Now” jumps back to the clock.

Every table shows how things stand at that time, in colour, with the legend above it: requested (dashed), reserved, seated, free soon in the last half hour of a seated party, and overdue when a party is still not there ten minutes after the start; overdue only shows at the current time. Under the name it says who is coming, for instance “19:00 · 4”, and on a free table “until 20:00” if somebody sits there later. If two parties are at one table at the same time, it gets a red outline.

A click on a table shows its reservations for that day next to the plan, below it on a phone. Each one opens the drawer, and “Move” takes it to another table. Under “Put a reservation here” are the day's parties without a table; one click seats one of them at this table.

Parties without a table at the chosen time are shown above the plan. Tap one and then the table; on a computer you can also drag it straight onto the table. Tables that are taken at that time or too small fade out meanwhile. You can still tap any of them: if it is too small, Flavoso asks first, and if it is taken, the question names who has it before you book it twice. The server checks the same things as with the table picker.

With rooms, the table picker and the timeline group their tables by room as well. If a guest chose an area when booking, it shows on their card and in the drawer, for instance “Asked for: Terrace”, until they have a table there. If they get a table in another room, it turns yellow.

What guests may choose when booking is set under Settings, Reservations, in the Tables area, or right in the floor plan: nothing (you hand out the tables), an area, such as Indoor or Terrace, or a table. An area needs at least two rooms guests may choose, a table needs tables on the plan; if something is missing, a sentence under the choice says why guests do not see anything yet.

On the booking page the choice comes after the time. With areas the guest sees the rooms marked “available” or “fully booked”, with tables the plan of the room: free tables to tap, and taken, too small and not bookable online ones in grey. “Any” lets the restaurant choose. Only what is bookable online and fits the party is offered, and tables are only combined within one room.

If two guests take the same table in the same second, exactly one of them gets it. The other reads that the table was just taken, immediately sees what is still free, and their details are kept. The same goes for an area whose last table goes at that moment.

Phone bookings and walk-ins#

“New reservation” at the top of the board opens the form for calls. You pick date, party size and time from the same grid the guest sees on the booking page, and the matching free tables are preselected. For the exception, a private party for instance, you enter any time under “Other time”; if no table is free at that time, the form warns you, and you can still enter it. There are two text fields: “Guest's request” appears in their confirmation and on their page, the “Team note” is seen only by the team, in the board and in the app.

If you enter an e-mail address, the guest gets the same confirmation as with an online booking, with the link to their reservation and the reminder.

“Walk-in” is for anybody who just walks in: party size and table, the name is optional. The party is seated from now on and occupies its table, so nobody books the same one online at the same time.

The time always counts in your restaurant's time zone, also after the clocks change and also when you enter it from somewhere else.

When the guest wants to change#

On the page of their reservation the guest can choose “Change”: another time, another day or another party size, with the same choice as when booking. The same limits apply as there, and their current place counts as free.

If you confirm every booking yourself, this becomes a request: the existing reservation stays valid, and the card shows something like “Change request: 19:30 instead of 19:00, 4 instead of 2 people” with Accept and Decline. Accepting checks once more whether a table is free. The guest gets a mail either way. If you confirm automatically, the change is applied at once and they get the mail “changed”.

Changing online works until the lead time before the start that you set under Hours. After that, and for groups above the largest party online, the guest can cancel or call. They can withdraw an open request at any time before the start.

If the previous tables no longer fit after a change, they are released, and the card shows “No table”.

Reminder with “I'm coming”#

Before the booking the guest gets a reminder, as many hours ahead as you set, one day by default. It only goes to confirmed reservations, exactly once, and not to anybody who booked after that point.

The reminder has two buttons: “I'm coming” and “Cancel”. If they press “I'm coming”, their card in the board carries “Coming” with a tick. Both open the page of their reservation with a question and one large button; only their click there counts. So no mailbox that opens links on its own triggers anything, not even one that checks them in a real browser.

It is sent without you doing anything: every five minutes Flavoso looks at what is due. There is nothing for you to set up.

What the guest gets#

After sending the guest sees a summary with day, time, party size, name and booking number, plus “Add to calendar” and “View reservation”. They get the same details straight away by mail.

Every mail comes in your restaurant's look: your name as the sender, your logo or your initial at the top, the buttons in your brand colour, the details as a small table, your address and contact at the bottom. It comes in the language they booked in. If they reply, the reply goes to the e-mail address you entered under Contact and legal.

They get a mail at every step that concerns them: confirmed, declined, cancelled by you, the receipt of their own cancellation, changed, change requested, change declined, and the reminder. Arrived, Left and No-show send nothing.

The button in every mail leads to the page of their reservation, in your restaurant's colour and with its logo. On a computer the reservation is on the left with state, date, time, party size, name and number, and below it buttons of equal size: “Add to calendar”, “Change” and “Cancel”. On the right is your restaurant with address, directions, phone and menu. On a phone it sits below.

Every state has its own sentence there: requested, confirmed, change requested, today, soon, now, over with thanks and “Book again”, expired, declined, cancelled by them, cancelled by you with your message, and removed by the restaurant.

The “Cancel” link in the mail opens the page of their reservation with the question whether they want to cancel and one large “Yes, cancel” button. Only that click cancels, never merely opening the address. Cancelling works until the booking starts, after that the guest should call. They get a receipt, and you get a notification.

The calendar entry exists as long as the reservation stands, and the file is named in their language. For a cancelled, declined or past reservation there is a short sentence instead.

At the foot of the page are your legal notice and your privacy policy, as on the ordering page. On top of that, discreetly, “Reservation via Flavoso” on the page, “Sent via Flavoso” at the foot of the mails and “via Flavoso” after your name as the sender; none of it on the Premium plan.

Cancel or delete#

Cancelling and deleting are two different things. An upcoming reservation is cancelled: the guest gets a mail, the table becomes free, and the reservation stays as a record.

Deleting works for reservations that are declined, cancelled, over or no-show, and for anything whose time has passed. The guest's name, phone, e-mail, their request and the team note are removed, and the reservation disappears from board, app, export and figures.

If the guest opens their link afterwards, they read “The restaurant removed this reservation”, with the name, logo, phone and address of your restaurant and a button for a new reservation. Only a link that never existed leads to a neutral page.