Events Workflow
This article explains workflow of events as recorded in the SeatOn application. Every customer's visit to the restaurant is recorded and presented in the application as a single event. Customer can visit a restaurant in three different ways:
- Reservation - customer has announced his visit and made a reservation
- Walk-in seated - customer has not announced his visit, nevertheless, he was seated immediately
- Walk-in waitlisted - customer has not announced his visit, he wasn't seated immediately, but was put to the waiting list instead
Picture below describes the workflow of a typical reservation event:
Steps that occur in a reservation event are:
- Reservation created - customer requests reservation by phone, email or the restaurant website using online reservations. Event is added to the SeatOn application, either through the SeatOn application on Clover or the SeatOn web application. Confirmation email is sent to customer if the reservation was successful. For more information how to set content of confirmation email check the Settings/Notification page.
- Waiting for customer to arrive - Reminder email is sent to customer few hours before the reservation event. For more information how to set content of reminder message, or a moment in time when the reminder message has to be sent to the customer, check the Settings/Notification page.
- Reservation can be resolved in three possible outcomes:
- Customer arrived - event is marked as Reservation Show
- Customer didn't arrive - event is marked as Reservation No Show, table is freed.
- Customer canceled the reservation - event is marked as Reservation Canceled, table is freed.
- Customer pays and leaves - event is closed. Thank you message is sent to customer by email. For more information how to set content of thank you message check the Settings/Notification page.
Online reservations are reservation requests which were created by customers through the restaurant website, using the SeatOn reservation widget. Reservation widget is add-on to your restaurant's web page which adds SeatOn reservation functionality to your website. For more information how to setup SeatOn reservation widget, and embed it into your website please check the Reservation widget help page.
After the online reservation is requested, it must be approved by the regular SeatOn application user on the Online reservations screen of the SeatOn Clover application, or on the Table management page of the SeatOn web application.
Steps that occur in a typical online reservation process are:
- Online reservation request - customer requests reservation through the restaurant website.Verification email is sent to customer. Customer can respond to verification email or not.
- Approve / Cancel online reservation - restaurant employee checks the received online reservation request using the SeatOn Clover or SeatOn Web application in order to approve it or cancel it. Depending on the past customer visiting statistics, or if the verification email was responded to, employee can approve or cancel reservation request.
- Reservation created - if the online reservation was approved, SeatOn reservation event is created and added to the SeatOn application. It is then later handled as the ordinary reservation event described in the Events workflow.
The picture below describes the workflow of a walk-in event:
Steps that occur in a walk-in event could be different, depending if there are free tables in the restaurant at the walk-in moment, or not.
If there are free tables at the moment customer walks into the restaurant, steps that occur are:
- Customer arrives to the restaurant unannounced - event is marked as Walk-in
- Table is available, customer seated - event is marked as Walk-in seated
- Customer pays and leaves, table is freed - event closed, thank you message is sent to the customer. For more information how to set content of thank you message check the Settings/Notification page.
If there aren't any free tables at the moment customer walks into the restaurant, steps that occur are:
- Customer arrives to the restaurant unannounced - event is marked as Walk-in
- There aren't any free tables, customer is added to the waiting list - event is marked as Walk-in waitlisted. Notification SMS message is sent to the customer that he is added to the waiting list. PLEASE NOTE that sending text to customer mobile phones is available only for US and Canadian users.
- A table becomes available, notify customer - notification SMS message is sent to the customer that the table is available. By replying to this SMS, customer can confirm or cancel his visit, but he can also choose not to reply at all. PLEASE NOTE that sending text to customer mobile phones is available only for US and Canadian users.
- Event can be resolved in three outcomes, depending if the customer arrived or not:
- Customer arrived - event is marked as Walkin waitlist Show
- Customer didn't arrive - event is marked as Walkin waitlist No Show
- Customer canceled the visit - event is marked as Walkin Waitlist Canceled
- Customer pays and leaves, table is freed - event closed, thank you message is sent to the customer. For more information how to set content of thank you message check the Settings/Notification page.