Dashboard: the Kitchen Display, stations and the pass

Kitchen Display, in the Delivery and Order Ahead group, shows orders as tickets on a screen. You create stations, route each dish to the right one, and set when a ticket turns amber and red. Cooks bump what they finish; the pass sees everything and serves a ticket only when every item is ready. A bumped ticket can be recalled for 30 minutes, and later courses on the till are held until the table is ready. You need the manage orders permission.

How do you create stations?

In the display's settings, add up to twelve stations with names your team already uses, such as Grill, Fry, Cold and Pastry. A station name is unique ignoring case. Then route dishes: each dish goes to a station by the dish first, and by its menu category second. A dish with no route shows on every station, so a missing route never makes food disappear.

What are the timers?

Set an amber time and a red time for your business, and optionally different ones for a station. A ticket's clock starts when the kitchen should start it: for a scheduled order it counts from the scheduled time, not from when it was placed. A ticket that is late says LATE as well as turning red. If a station's pair of times is not sensible (red must be later than amber), the screen ignores it so that a bad value cannot hide a late ticket.

How does bumping work?

A cook taps a ticket or an item when it is done. A station bump moves only that station's items. For an online order, the customer is told when the last item across all stations is ready. Every tap carries its own reference, so if the connection drops the screen keeps the tap and sends it once when it returns. The screen says Connection lost, showing tickets as of the time, and drops a tap older than ten minutes rather than replaying it onto a ticket that has moved on.

What is the pass?

The pass, or expo, is a view of every ticket with each item's station and state, readiest first. The button to serve a ticket names who is still owed, such as Waiting on Fry (2). It also shows all-day counts: how many of each dish are still to cook. Use it as the head chef's screen.

How do recall and courses work?

A bumped ticket can be recalled for 30 minutes, unless the order has been collected, delivered, cancelled or refunded. A till line that is ready can be sent back for a remake; a served till line cannot. On the web till, a line can be given a course from 1 to 4. When a bill is sent, the kitchen gets course 1 and the later courses are held on the display as cards that can only be fired. The pass or the waiter fires the next course when the table is ready. Courses are online-only and apply to till bills, not to online orders.

What do tickets show?

Allergens and modifiers first: a banner with what the dishes contain or may contain and any note from the place, then the same words under each dish, plus a count of dishes you have not listed allergens for. Extras, sizes and combo names are on lines of their own.

How do you introduce it?

Run the printer and the screen together for a quiet service, agree who bumps, and agree that nothing is bumped that is not on the plate. Mute is per device, so a wall screen and a tablet can differ. Device choices such as text size are remembered in that browser.

Read stations, courses and the pass for the thinking behind the set-up, and the kitchen display guide for the product. The orders page is Order Ahead and delivery orders, and pricing lists the costs.