How to: Set Up a Dining Area for Multiple Seatings

The program checks the rules in What the program checks, and the POS does not start if they are not met. Steps seven and eight are the service flow and the POS menus. The program does not check them, but without them the POS does not show the multiple-seatings information: the table buttons and pop-up menus lack information, because the standard menus use tags that the program does not fill in for multiple seatings.

To set up a new hospitality type and dining area for multiple seatings

Create a dining table service hospitality type. See Setting up Hospitality Types. On the Hospitality Type Card, set Guest Handling to Request No. of Guests (No. Mandatory) and Guest Registration to Mandatory Guest ID Requested at Seating.
Set up the dining table types for your dining area as required for multiple seatings. See Setting Up Dining Table Types.
Create the dining area and its dining tables the same way as for any dining area. See Setting Up Dining Areas.
On the Dining Area Card, in the Seating Capacity group, turn on Use Seating Capacity, and set Cover Exceeds Capacity to Not Allowed. The Cover Exceeds Capacity field can only be edited when Use Seating Capacity is on.
In the Dining Table Handlers group on the View Settings FastTab, set Dining Table Selection Handler to Multiple Seatings on Dining Table. The program then sets the other seating fields for you:
- Dining Table Overview Handler: Multiple Seatings Info.
- Dining Table List Overview Handler: Multiple Seatings Info.
- Availability Calculations, on the Allocation and Reservation FastTab: Multiple Seatings on Dining Table. Availability and allocation then count seats instead of whole tables.
It also switches off the fields in the Dining Table Caption group (Time Info (%T), Guest Count (%G), Amt. Info (%A), Status Info (%S), No. of Orders (%O), and Guest ID (%C)), sets Seating Time Info and Serving Time Info to None, and does not let you change them. Multiple seatings shows this information in glyphs and with POS tags in the dining table button menu instead. See POS Menus for Multiple Seatings.
On the Dining Area Card, in the Multiple Seatings group on the View Settings FastTab, fill in the three template menu fields (Multi-Seating Overview Group Menu ID, Multi-Seating Allocation Group Menu ID, Multi-Seating Reservations Group Menu ID). See The Multi-Seatings POS Panels.
Create the service flow. See Setting up Service Flows. On the Hospitality Service Flow page, set Table Becomes Occupied to When Guests Are Seated or On Ordering or Seating. Multiple seatings needs the Seated status, which On Ordering does not use.
Change the POS menus to fit multiple seatings, so that staff see seats, groups, and the commands for a seating group. Copy the menus you want to change to the menu profile that the multiple-seatings terminals use, and change the copies. See POS Menus for Multiple Seatings.
On the Hospitality Type Card, choose Validate Setup (Flow and Layout View) to run the check described in What the program checks. If a rule is not met, the message names the field to correct.

To change an existing dining area to multiple seatings

The Dining Table Selection Handler field can only be changed while every dining table in the dining area is Free or To Be Cleaned and no group is seated at any table. If a table is in use, the program does not change the field and names the first table that is in use and its status. Change the dining area when no table is in use, for example before the restaurant opens or after it closes.

Before you change the dining area:

Free every dining table in the dining area. Seated and occupied tables must be cleared first.
Consider de-allocating any allocated reservations in the dining area. This can be done in the POS for each day.
If your dining area includes combined tables, delete them, as multiple seatings do not support combined tables.
Make sure every dining table has a dining table type with a seat capacity greater than 0. See Dining table types and multiple seatings.

Then:

Do steps four to eight of the procedure above, with the Dining Table Selection Handler field as the first field you change.
On the Hospitality Type Card, choose Validate Setup (Flow and Layout View).

Changing these fields does not itself change existing reservations or allocations. The same rule applies when you change the Dining Table Selection Handler back to Single Seating on Dining Table: every table must be free. The program then sets Availability Calculations to Single Seating on Dining Table, and changes Dining Table Overview Handler and Dining Table List Overview Handler from Multiple Seatings Info to Full Info. If either is already Full Info or Seating Info, it stays as it is.

What the program checks

When starting a POS terminal that handles the dining table service of a hospitality type, the program checks the setup of the hospitality type's dining area. If one of the rules below is not met, the POS does not start and shows a message that names the field that is not correct. The same check runs when you choose Validate Setup (Flow and Layout View) on the Hospitality Type Card, so you can run it before you start the POS.

On the hospitality type, Guest Handling must be Request No. of Guests (No. Mandatory) and Guest Registration must be Mandatory Guest ID Requested at Seating.
Availability Calculations must be Multiple Seatings on Dining Table, or a value added by an extension that supports multiple seatings.
Dining Table Overview Handler must be Multiple Seatings Info, or a value added by an extension that supports multiple seatings.
Cover Exceeds Capacity must be Not Allowed. Seats given to a party over the capacity of the table are taken from the seats that are left for other parties, so Allowed and On Confirmation are not accepted.
Every dining table in the dining area must have a dining table type with a Capacity greater than 0.
The three template menu fields in the Multiple Seatings group on the Dining Area Card must be filled in: Multi-Seating Overview Group Menu ID, Multi-Seating Allocation Group Menu ID, and Multi-Seating Reservations Group Menu ID.
The three pop-up panels must exist in a POS interface profile: the Overview Table Popup panel, the Allocation Table Popup panel, and the Upcoming Reservations Table Popup panel.

Note: With multiple seatings, Max. Guests Per Table on the dining area limits how many guests can be seated at one table in total, across all its groups. It does not cap the size of a single booking.

Demo data example

The demo data has a hospitality type, BIERGARTEN, with the dining area S0005-BIERGARTEN, that is set up for multiple seatings. Use it as a guide.

Dining Area Card field	Demo value
Dining Table Selection Handler	Multiple Seatings on Dining Table
Dining Table Overview Handler Dining Table List Overview Handler	Multiple Seatings Info Multi-Seating Info
Availability Calculations	Multiple Seatings on Dining Table
Dining Table Button Menu ID	#DT-GRAPH-GUEST
Multi-Seating Overview Group Menu ID Multi-Seating Allocation Group Menu ID Multi-Seating Reservations Group Menu ID	#MSEATOVERV-GRTEMPL #MSEATALLOC-GRTEMPL #MSEATRESERV-GRTEMPL
Reservations Show Ahead (Min.) Reservations Show After End (Min.)	120 5
Graphical Tbl. Status Menu ID List View Status Menu ID Timeline Tbl. Status Menu ID	#DT-ALLOC-GRAPH #DT-ALLOC-LIST #DT-ALLOC-TIMELINE

The menus are in the #HOSPMULTI menu profile, and the service flow is BIERGARTEN. See POS Menus for Multiple Seatings.

If something does not work

What you see	What to check
The POS does not start and the message names a field or a pop-up panel.	One of the rules in What the program checks is not met. Correct the field in the message, and choose Validate Setup (Flow and Layout View) on the Hospitality Type Card.
A message says a pop-up panel does not exist when you press a dining table.	The POS interface profile of the terminal does not have the pop-up panel. See The Multi-Seatings POS Panels.
The dining table buttons or the pop-up menus miss the seats and groups information.	The menus of the POS terminal's menu profile were not changed for multiple seatings. Check the menu profile of the terminal. See One dining area, different menus per menu profile.
The program does not let you change Dining Table Selection Handler.	A dining table is in use. The message names the first table that is not free. See To change an existing dining area to multiple seatings.
Tables are offered as free or taken in a way that does not match their seats.	Check that Availability Calculations is Multiple Seatings on Dining Table when the Dining Table Selection Handler is. The program sets it when you change the handler, so it differs only if it was changed afterwards. The program refuses the handler without the calculation, but not the calculation without the handler.