Creating Pre-Order Menus

Pre-Ordering is known to improve operational efficiency by allowing your team to plan stock, staffing, and preparation in advance. It also opens up opportunities for pre-sold items and extras during the booking journey, generating extra revenue and reducing on-the-day service pressure.

Requirements

To enable pre-order functionality at your site, it’s essential to have the correct set up completed from the start. Using the wrong software version or leaving configurations incomplete will delay testing and postpone release to your customers.

Versions

System	Minimum Version	Description
Aztec	3.25.0	Versions earlier than 3.18.0 do not facilitate delayed ordering. Further fixes since
ZCF	4.41	Zonal Connect Framework
iOrder	N/A	iOrder is a digital ordering solution that allows customers to browse menus, place orders, and make payments directly from their own devices. iOrder is where you build customer facing Product names

Pre-Order Send Setup

Pre-order can be sent up to send to POS and to the Kitchen in different ways. For the majority of sites, they like to have pre-orders on the POS with as much notice as possible. This allows servers to review pre-orders, as well as insuring that pre-orders have sent to the POS correctly.

Our recommendation for configuration is as follows:

1. Defining a send time and pick-up time:

   • Send Time: 4am – 7am. Within this time window, pre-orders will attempt to send order to the site POS from 4am on the dining date of the booking

   • Pick Up Time: 23:59. All pre-orders will display on POS with a pickup time of 23:59

2. Delayed Order Send time: 5 mins before pickup time

Using a delayed ordering send time, pre-orders will automatically send to the kitchen 5 minutes before pickup time set above (23:59) unless manual intervention has happened. If no manual intervention happens the order will be sent to the kitchen without a table number. This is why we recommend this pickup time being set to 23:59 to prevent orders sending directly to the kitchen without Tables Numbers.

Creating a Pre-Order Menu

To create your menu, you will first need to create the details tab for the menu setup.

Follow these steps to create a basic menu:

1. Select Add New Menu

2. Enter an Internal Name

3. Enter a Display Name

4. Enter a Description

5. Select the companies and/ or sites applicable to this menu

   If you do not select a company or a site, the menu will be enabled for all sites and companies within your estate

6. Select from the Channels you want the menu to display

   Zonal recommends testing any menu before making it live to customers. If you don’t have time to test right away, deselect all channels so your work is saved but not publicly visible. You can return later to enable the channels once you’re ready. When enabling channels, you can temporarily disable the Widget and API journeys, allowing you to test the menu internally through the Host apps

7. Click Save Changes

Follow the below steps to complete the Pre-Order configuration within your Events Menu:

1. Select the Pre-Order tab.

2. Define if you require Adult / Child Pre-Order

   If enabled, pre-order menus will only be shown to the specified adult/ child cover in the guest portal when making their selection.

3. Select the menu from the Available pre-order menus

   

   This section will show a list of all available pre-order menus from iOrder that can be assigned to this Menu for pre-ordering. In the image shown you can see there are menu names followed by an iOrder menu ID. You need to select and transfer the menus required to the "Selected pre-order menus" box.

   If the menu you require is not displaying, check in iOrder against the menus ordering channels.

4. Define your Guest Portal Organiser Settings

5. Click Save Changes

Now you have created your Pre-Order Menu, it's now time to test your pre-order.

Field Settings & Information