Restricting cover capacity for COVID19 requirements could mean for some restaurants to control what time the customer books and the table turn time.
By following the steps below to re-configure your settings, you can add in new booking timeslots that have a set turn time and a booking capacity. It works similar to creating a sitting time.
For this example, we are setting up Mondays to be bookable only at 2pm 4pm, 6pm, 8pm. Each booking time will have a 120min table turn time (105 mins customer / 15min clean down). It will also have a cover capacity of 20 covers at each time.
1. Turn off your 'display table turn times' here. (We will add this manually later so the customer is still notified)
2. Set your 'default table turn time' here to 90mins so the timeslot doesn't become 'manager only' and delete any advanced table turn times you have added here.
3. Add in manually as text that your table turn time is 105mins in the following settings so customers are made aware of this when booking. (For example: Please note we require your table to be returned/vacated within 1 hour 45mins.)
Add to " Additional booking email message " here so it appears on the customers booking confirmation
Add to " Messages for customers" here so customers see this when booking online. You could also add as a staff message here so they know its 105min + 15min cleaning, not 90min allocated to the booking.
Add to " Booking Reminders" here so customers are reminded about it again.
4. Add in your set timeslots you want customers to only be able to book on certain days in "Partial Open Times" here. (Example below shown for Monday's)
Things to be aware of when adding in the booking times;
When adding the times in you need to add the 'open time' as the customer booking time.
Set the 'last order time' 15 mins after the open time.
The 'close time' needs to be set at the time that is 15mins before the next open time to allow the 90min table turn time to exist and not turn the timeslots to a manager only.
5. Lastly, you can then add the new cover capacity for these times in your advance setting - "Override max covers per timeslots" here. You could set it so each time slot is different or that the very time slot on that day is the same. We have set it to 20 covers for every timeslot.
If you find you are making the cover capacity smaller than your usual set time, you might find you get this error message in red (Unable to apply cover restriction because table is booking in this time period). This means you have a booking in place that doesn't comply with the new setting.
You will need to locate that booking and move it to another time slot or edit the booking to comply. You could move to a future day that doesn't have the restriction then add the override setting and then move the booking back by manager overriding this with a username/password.
Using the partial open days and override max covers settings together work wonders for events, especially for example Christmas. See how simpleERB can help you at busy seasonal time here or help you at Christmas here (as it is always just around the corner!)