Menu Designer
The back office's Menu Designer, part by part, the menu list, Designed or Auto, the category tabs and the grid of buttons, how to add a menu, and which menu each POS, the kiosk and the QR page show.
On this page
A menu is what the cashier taps on the POS: a row (or a column) of category tabs, and in each category a grid of buttons. The Menu Designer is where you lay them out.
A menu's categories are not the same as your item categories (Menu, Categories). An item category is how the business groups dishes for its reports. A menu's category is a tab on the POS, arranged as you like: one dish can sit in several of them, and a category can hold buttons that are not dishes at all, such as a button that opens another category.
A menu is made one of two ways:
- Designed: you lay out the categories and the buttons yourself.
- Auto: it follows Items and your item Categories by itself. Every active item category becomes a tab and every active dish a button on it. There is nothing to lay out.
A new restaurant starts with one menu, Main Menu, the default, and it is Auto. See Menu Designer: Designed or Auto.
Before you start
- Anyone whose access group may view the menu sees Menu Designer in the menu. Changing a menu needs the right to edit menus. The owner's Administrator group has it. Without it the screen can be looked at, but its buttons (+ Menu, Menu settings, + Category, Category settings, Save category) are not shown.
- Moving a dish in a category that fills itself also needs the right to edit Items, because it changes the dish's display order there.
- Add your dishes on Items first. A button can only hold a dish that exists.
Open Menu Designer
- In the back office's menu, under MASTERS, click Menu, then Menu Designer.
- The default menu opens, on its first category.
The screen, part by part
Menu Designer
What the cashier taps. Click an empty cell to place a button; drag a button or a category tab to move it (on a touch screen, hold it a moment first).
- Menu Designer: under MASTERS, in the Menu part of the side menu.
- The menu list: the menu you are working on. The default menu says (default), an Auto one · Auto. Choosing another menu with changes not saved asks Discard unsaved changes? first.
- Designed / Auto: how this menu is made. The blue side is the one it is. Pressing the other asks before it switches. See Menu Designer: Designed or Auto.
- + Menu: makes a new menu. See Add a menu.
- Menu settings: where the POS puts this menu's category tabs, and which name its buttons show. See Menu Designer: Menu settings.
- + Category: adds a category, which is a new tab. Not on an Auto menu.
- Category settings: the category on screen: its code, name, grid size, tab colour and picture, and whether it fills itself from an item category. Not on an Auto menu.
- Save category: saves the category on screen. It reads Save category when the category has changes, Save tab order when only the tabs were dragged, and Saved (grey) when there is nothing to save.
- The category tabs: one per category, drawn as the POS draws them, here across the top. The chosen one is white. The small number is how many buttons the category holds, and auto marks one that fills itself from an item category; the POS shows neither. Click a tab to work on that category; drag it to move it.
- Delete category: deletes the category on screen. See Menu Designer: categories and buttons.
- A button: a dish with its name and price, as the POS draws it. Click it to change it; drag it to move it.
- A pale cell: marked auto, a dish the category placed by itself from its item category. See Menu Designer: fill a category automatically.
- An empty cell (+): click it to put a button there.
- The lines under a category that fills itself: its item category, how many dishes and free cells it has, and how many screens they take.
- The grid's size: rows by columns, how many buttons, and unsaved changes (amber) until Save category is pressed. tab order not saved shows when only tabs were dragged.
- Where the POS puts the tabs: which POS show this menu, and where their tabs run. An amber Different tab layouts. warning follows when another active menu says otherwise.
A button that is not a dish shows what it is in small capitals: GO TO CATEGORY, FUNCTION or BLANK. See Menu Designer: categories and buttons.
Add a menu
Most restaurants need one menu. Add another when some POS should show a different set of categories, such as a bar POS with only drinks, or a kiosk with a shorter menu.
- Click + Menu. The window New menu opens.
- Type a Code, such as BAR, and a Name, such as Bar Menu. Both are needed.
- Under How the menu is made, choose Designed or Auto.
- Under Category tabs, choose where the POS puts its tabs. It starts as the POS puts them now.
- Click Create. The big green SAVED says the new menu has its first category (Designed), or The new menu is Auto: it follows the item master by itself (Auto).
Category tabs
Across the topA row of tabs above the dishes, as the POS has now.Down the leftA column of tabs beside the dishes, with room for many more of them.Down the left, text onlyA list of names beside the dishes, with no pictures: the most categories on one screen.4- Code: a short code for the menu. No two menus may share one.
- Name: the menu's name in every list.
- How the menu is made: Designed gets a first category, Main, 5 by 5, to fill. Auto gets none of its own: its tabs are the active item categories, and an item with no item category goes on a tab named [None].
- Category tabs: where the POS puts this menu's tabs. See Menu Designer: Menu settings.
- The line under it: what the POS will do with it, worked out before the menu exists.
- Create: makes the menu and opens it.
A restaurant's first menu is its default. A restaurant with no menu at all shows No menus yet. and the button Create the first menu, which starts New menu with MAIN and Main Menu filled in.
Which menu each place shows
A menu reaches the POS, the kiosk and the QR page only where it is chosen:
| Where | The box | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| A POS (Main, Sub or Waiter): Outlet, Outlets, Edit, POS terminals, Edit on the POS, Settings, General | Menu | All menus (as now): every menu's categories, with the default menu's tab setting. Or one menu: only its categories, with its own tab setting. Typing a code or searching still finds every dish. |
| A kiosk: the same POS list, Edit on the kiosk, Kiosk tab, Ordering | Menu | All menus: every menu's categories, as the default menu's tabs set them. Or one menu: only its categories. The kiosk may show another menu than your counter. |
| The QR page: General Setup, QR Ordering, a profile | Menu | No menu: every dish with Show on QR menu, grouped by item category. Or one menu: only the dishes in its categories (buttons, and what a category fills from its item category), one category after another, and only those marked Show on QR menu. |
A POS on All menus draws every menu's tabs in one place: where the default menu says, or, when no active menu is the default, where the first active menu in display order says. The line under the grid names which, and the amber Different tab layouts. warning names any active menu set otherwise.
A change saved here reaches a POS at its next contact with the cloud.