Documentation about ordering system

Hi JP,

At the moment, the only video we have is the introduction to the new feature, which you can view here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn-2ExJBmtE&list=PLEndQUuhlvSqy2KjpKfGpd-vAUJLfdYMI&index=5

The ordering feature is also enabled on the plugin demo page, here: https://www.fivestarplugins.com/five-star-restaurant-menu-demo/

You can enable and test out the feature by going to the Ordering area of the Settings page. And, if you have any specific questions about the feature, just let me know.

Thanks. I assumed the ordering system was entirely premium and never realized I could test this with the base plugin. That already answers many questions. I have a few left though.

1) Can you auto accept orders?

2a) Can you ask the customer if they want takeaway or delivery?

2b) If delivery, have an option to specify the delivery area by zipcode and let customers enter their address.

2c) If delivery, add an automatic delivery charge?

3) Is there an order ahead option that allows customers to enter a date and time?

4) The ‘Add to cart’ button is shown everywhere if you enable the ordering options. Is there a way to choose where you want that button? Reason is that a restaurant usually has a web page with their regular menu for restaurant guests (no ordering needed) and a separate page for their online ordering menu. Also, the takeaway and delivery menu is usually a limit version of their regular menu, because not all dishes are suiatble for transport and they don’t have a license to sell alcohol for take away. It could be an option in the menu and section shortcode.

Bugs
* It does not accept email aliases like ‘[email protected]’. The + sign is stripped out, so in the backend you get ‘account [email protected]’. This causes the customer to never receive their email confirmation. (restaurant reservations doesn’t have this problem).

* The {accept_link} redirects to the front end menu page rather then the order list in the backend (restaurant reservations redirects to the reservations list in the backend)

PS looks great by the way and much easier then WooCommerce!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by John-Pierre Cornelissen.

1) I’m not sure what you mean by this. When someone places an order on your site, it automatically shows up in the ORDERS tab in the plugin admin. There is no functionality to reject or accept orders. If you’d like, you can set a schedule (as well as exceptions) for when the ordering should be available.

2) For this, I would recommend that you make use of the Order Note area in the cart. Perhaps just make a mention on your page that you would like people to specify in the Order Note whether they would like pickup or delivery. Since there is no direct functionality for choosing pickup/delivery, 2b and 2c would not be possible.

3) There is not. Currently, you could also ask that your customers specify in the Order Note section the time they would prefer to pick it up. You could, for this, also add some text to your Menu page explaining how your restaurant works for pickup and at what times it would be available.

4) There is no way to have the ordering on one menu and not on another. We’ll look into adding an option, at the menu level, to disable the ordering. In the meantime, you can, if you’d like, make use of the scheduling options to only show the ordering/add-to-cart buttons at specific times.

We’ll test the email aliases and accept link issues that you mentioned and, if necessary, include fixes for those in a future update.

Thanks!

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by jaysupport.

1) Yes there is. When an order was placed, I (as the website owner) recieved an e-mail with
“Click on the following link to accept the order: Accept Order”
And the customer received their e-mail only after I accepted.
This is also what triggers the progress bar (if you enabled that).

2 + 3) The delivery note is not the best workaround because there is nothing to enforce customers to enter their address. People tent to forget the obvious.
A choice for pickup or delivert and date/time entry would be great enhancements. Here how this could look in the sidebar https://horeca-webservice.buurtbrengers.nl/

4) I thought about adding an option to enable ordering at the menu level but there are a few situations where it doesn’t work.
– There are shortcodes to add a menu, a section and an item. If there is an option at the menu level, you still have order buttons when you added a section or item. Example: in my designs I often use an accordeon for the menu courses and in each toggle I add the shortcode of the corresponding section.
– You’ll have to duplicate the menu if it’s the same for dine-in and ordering.
Hence my suggestion to not add it as a setting in the backend, but as a setting in the shortcode/block.

Thanks
JP