New Version v3 (v0.97)
Reservations for Everyone
Smart & Organized
Accessibility
mySeat is designed to be low maintenance and as easy to use as a paper based diary. Create your own outlets and events with custom rules. mySeat is Open Source and works on any webserver/mySQL platform.
It's easy to book, search and organize your reservations with this Open Source Restaurant Reservation System, and with artificial intelligence built in, mySeat handles Timecontrol, Waitlist, Table Management and Validation functions.
mySeat has a Form that simply integrates into your own website, thus allowing customers to book online in realtime. mySeat also features an iPhone/iPod touch interface to book and view reservations whilst you are on the move.
Copyright Š 2006-2010 Bernd Orttenburger mySeat is an Open Source Restaurant Management System released under the Creative Common License
www.myseat.us info@myseat.us
Index 1.
Introduction
2
2.
Main Window
3
3.
Reservation list
5
4.
Actions
5
5.
Navigation bar
6
6.
Overview
6
7.
Create comments
6
8.
Add reservations
7
9.
Auto-Suggest
7
10.
Administer outlets
8
11.
Recent reservations
9
12.
Time control
9
13.
Export function
9
14.
Recommendations
10
15.
Webform
11
16.
iPhone / Mobile version
13
17.
Installation
14
mySeat First Steps A short introduction – updated 29.01.2010 1.
Introduction
mySeat is a piece of software that allows you to collect table reservations for restaurants. The software calculates the tables and seats that are free, “pushes” tables together, and places bookings on the waiting list when the restaurant is fully booked. For cancellations you can score reservations from the waiting list to the reservation list Lookup guest comments and preferences and for long stay guests you can setup a series of multi-bookings. mySeat also has an integrated management tool, which allows the user to assign table numbers and status. mySeat is provided free of charge under the Creative Commons Licence.
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 2.
Main Window 2
1 Switch outlets
Current day, outlet, open times and information about the outlet
Calendar to navigate to your desired date
3
Indication of occupancy & second seating e.g. None, Low, High & Fully Booked 4
Information about the day
Type name in here to search for booking
Information about availability Button to view all outlets for that day Button to increase capacity
6 5
‘Add’ button for new reservations
8
List with confirmed 1st seating reservations
9
List with confirmed 2nd seating reservations
10
List with non-confirmed reservations on waitlist
Box with timecontrol hints
7 Click on these icons to: 1. View cancellations 2. Print list of bookings for the day 3. view statistics 4. Export bookings to excel 5. View mySeat manual 6. Access system admin page
1 2 3 4 5 6
11
Most recent reservations
12 Login information
13 Click here to logout of system
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 3.
Reservation List 6
5 2 4 3 1
1
If the reservation time is in red, the reservation was booked after an availability comment was done. This helps to verify reservations.
2
If the date of the reservation timestamp is in red, the reservation was done long ago. (configure the time in the config.php file). This helps to find reservations easily.
3
If the booking name is in blue, the guest also has a reservation in another restaurant. This helps to prevent tautologous (repeating the same thing in different words) bookings.
4
This symbol indicates a recurring reservation (Multi-Booking).
5
Click the plus ‘+’ symbol to open drawer containing guest’s details and history.
6
Click the header to sort reservation list in ascending/descending order.
4. 1
Actions nd
Place the reservation on 2
st
/ 1 seating.
1st Seating 3
1 2
3
Change the status of reservation from NYA (Not Yet Arrived) to: Confirmed, Not Confirmed, Arrived, Seated at Bar, Departed & No Show.
2
2nd Seating
Delete / Cancel reservation. 1
4
Allow reservation from the waitlist.
5
Move the reservation to another outlet on the same day.
Waitlist 4
5
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 5.
Navigation Bar 1
1 2
3
4
5
6
Here you will find cancellations for the selected day and outlet. Note: This button has an on/off functionality! Click on this icon to open the print view window, then press the print button in your browser to print the reservations list for that day.
3
Show statistics for the selected day and outlet.
4
Export reservations to an Excel spreadsheet.
5
Click on this icon to view mySeat manual
6
Click here to login to the System settings.
6.
2
Overview Page By clicking on on a detail-single-view page of the outlet you are directed to a page where you can see all outlets of the actual shown day on one page. To go to an outlets detail-single-view page, just click on the name of the outlet in the headline. The overview page is fully functional, except for the entering of reservations (this is for security purposes). To enter a new reservation go back to the outlets detailsingle-view page.
7.
Create Comments If you click on the red or blue dashes points or the comments themselves, an input form will appear allowing you to create or edit comments on the selected date.
1
2
3
Comments about the day: Information about highlights and specials e.g. Italian week, Cheese menu, Wine dinner, special events and holidays Comments about availability: Important information about availability e.g. No passer By, No more 6 persons covers etc.
1 2
3
Increase availability: Clicking the ‘Capacity’ button opens a drawer that allows you to increase the number of seats and tables for the selected day. Examples: For 2 covers add 2 seats and 1 table For 4 covers add 4 seats and 1 table For 2 + 4 covers add 6 seats and 2 tables
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 8.
Add Reservations
Required Required Required
Required
All entries will be validated and mySeat will warn if the restaurant has already opened. Time:
The time must be inside the opening times shown within the header
Name:
This field must be filled in. The field has auto-suggest and auto-correction functionality
Covers:
Will warn of large bookings, advising you to choose from a common menu (configured in the config.php file).
Type:
HG = House Guest, PASS = Passerby, WALK = Walk in Guest
Phone Number:
If the guest type is passer, a phone number is required.
Note:
Enter additional information and wishes about the reservation and guest.
Author:
Reservations author, a minimum of at least 3 characters is required.
Multi-Booking
Repeats reservation form the set date till the date set by the datepicker.
There are additional fields for Address, Postcode, Email, etc. The status of inquiry is for special events with prepayment. (Paid by, Payment). You are also able to enter number of parking spaces required and number of people who are on house/free of charge (Discount).
9.
Auto Suggest After entering 2 characters in the Name or Author field, auto-suggest displays existing guests from all outlets as a suggestion.
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 10.
Administer Outlets 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
After logging in, you will notice that there is an existing outlet called Demo, you can make changes to this outlet. DO NOT DELETE THIS OUTLET AS IT IS THE DEFAULT ENTRY, WITHOUT IT MYSEAT WILL CEASE TO FUNCTION! For special events it is recommended that you create extra outlets. 1
2 3
Name of the outlet, if you have more shifts then create more outlets e.g. one outlet for Lunch and another for Dinner. It is best to add Lunch or Dinner to the outlet name e.g. Bistro Lunch, Bistro Dinner Short description of the outlet for staff to give as information to guests (dress code, style, location etc). Enter seats and tables. This is an important entry! Add all your seats and tables together, take 10% off and enter the values. mySeat has built in artificial intelligence, which automatically pulls tables together when large bookings are made, there is also no risk of overbooking or having empty tables.
4
Open and close times. Reservations can be booked inside of these times. Note: the closing time should be that of the kitchen not the restaurant.
5
For seasonal restaurants or special events. For special events there is a ticket system.
6
For days off the code is 0 = Sunday, 6 = Saturday. Please separate each entry with a comma.
7
Enter a password to secure reservations on the specific outlet to a limited number of staff. Leave blank if no password is required (default).
8
This option enables booking over the Internet via a webform
9
This option enables a messagebox with hints for next best reservation time
10
This option adds the second seating function to the chosen outlet
11
This option calculates the total price in the print view for special events
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 11.
Recent Reservations
At the bottom of the main window you will find the Recent reservations box. To look up a reservation, simply click on an entry.
12.
Timecontrol
If the message box with the hint for best reservation time is enabled, mySeat automatically calculates the best time for the next reservation in order to prevent guests arriving concurrently.
13.
Export Function
Click on the Export icon in the small navigation bar, you will then be asked to input your username and password to access the Export function. The Export dialog box should now appear (see screenshot below). Fill in the dates of the reservations you require, click the checkboxes of the outlets you require and the Type of Guest (HG = House Guest, PASS = Passer By, WALK = Walk in Guests Click the Export button to export the results to Excel.
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 14.
Recommendations
Tips Input names in the order last name, first name & title. Use the Info field for guest history, specials, dietary requirements etc. When inputting your initials into the author field please use first character form forename and first two characters from surname. mySeat is based on internet technology (pull-technics). If you have the main window opened for long periods of time, please press Control, F5 to refresh the page and update the reservations list. To decrease capacity, please create a reservation called ‘BLOCKED’ with the number of covers you would like to decrease.
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 15.
Webform Installation With the webform, it is possible for guests on your homepage to book tables. The HTML page is located in the folder ‘webform’. The page has an integrated design, so there will be no separate parts of the page loaded (except availability.inc.php). Open webform/index.php in your webpage editor to adapt the page to your homepage. For information see the source code. At the beginning of the source code you will find important settings that you will need to adjust before starting to edit the webform. To adapt the page to your homepage please change the CSS and HTML part of the page. The PHP part serves the business logic side and should not be changed.
Ideally, the mySeat main system (/mySeat) and the webform (/webform) should stay in the same directory. The webform for reasons of easier integration is equipped with a translation system. Please feel free to improve/adapt the translation source code if you do not require the language to be English. In order to offer more security, you should open up the file config.php in your web editor and change the coding $webform_switch = 0 to $webform_switch = 1. This enables a page to appear that requires a username and password before you can access the main window. Remember that using the webform makes it imperative that the page is reachable via the Internet and thus mySeat needs more security. Note: the webform can not be operated over a local network! In the system admin section users are now subdivided into ‘User’ and ‘Admin’. User: Can access the main page Admin: Can access the main page and system page Note: If you upgrade an existing mySeat system, in phpmyAdmin make sure that at least one user in the field ‘status’ is set to “admin”. Otherwise you will no longer be able to access the system page!
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 15.
Webform (cont’d)
screenshot of webform source code “index.php”.
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 16.
iPhone / Mobile Version There is a iPhone/Mobile version of the webform, which is reachable under your home directory /iphone (e.g. www.mydomain.com/myseat/iphone) The functionality is limited to booking, viewing reservations and assigning table numbers.
mySeat First Steps A short introduction 17.
Installation
mySeat requires: Webserver preferably Apache mySQL Database Version 5.0 and up PHP Version 5 and up For a local installation on a single computer we recommend XAMPP -> http://www.apachefriends.org/ Download the newest version to your PC and decompress the files. Put them all in a new folder of your webserver (this should be /htdocs/myseat). 1. You could put your favourite theme (Themeroller) in /css. 2. Create a database with phpmyAdmin. 3. Edit database connection theme and other details in /config.php. 4. Be sure your Webserver is running. 5. Upload the 'mySeat' folder to your webserver. 6. Go to: yoursite.com/mypath/myseat/install/install.php. 7. Enter your email, username & password. 8. Follow instructions. 9. Go to 'System' page and edit the demo-outlet. 10. Add your other outlets and users. 11. Delete install.php file after successful installation! 12. For the webform, edit the settings in webform/index.php line 33 to 66. 13. For the webform, customise the style to your homepage in webform/css_webform.