🌟Enterprise: All About Time Slots

How are time slots used and what are its configurations?

K
Written by Kim Pamela Co
Updated over a week ago

The Enterprise Plan has a feature called Time Slots, wherein you can now allow customers to schedule orders in advance!

⚠️ This is a Enterprise Plan only feature. This plan is not available in Restaurant Alert + Deliver's Shopify App listing.


How does it work?

When customers check out their cart, the date and time picker will be seen below the fields for the customer’s address. Here, they will be able to pick a time slot from the available choices.

Based on the time slot chosen by the customer, the staff will be alerted to the new order either immediately or based on the lead time set up within the E-Store App settings.

Within the In-Store Merchant App, each order will have an indicated time slot for your staff’s reference.


Configuring Time Slots

You have the following settings to configure:

  1. Date Availability - which days of the week will be shown as available options

  2. Time Slots - which time slots of the day will be shown as available options

  3. Future Orders - how many days into the future can customers choose time slots from

  4. Lead Time - how many minutes in advance should customers place their orders for a particular time slot

  5. Alert Settings - how your branch gets alerts for new orders via the In-Store Merchant App


1. Enable/Disable Time Slots

The Time Slots feature is a helpful feature for many food merchants as it allows customers to schedule their orders in advance, and allows merchants to set their customers expectations as to when they may receive their orders.

This is an optional feature that you may toggle through the App settings on your Shopify Store.

2. Date Availability

This affects which days of the week will be shown as an available date in the date and time picker for time slots.

Every Day of the Week - Selecting this means customers can order all days of the week, and they will be shown availability per day.

Specific Days of the Week - Selecting this means that customers can only order on specific dates. You will be provided with checkboxes to select which days of the week you operate/are available to receive scheduled orders.

ℹ️ FAQ: Can each branch have different available dates?

Answer: Yes! Date availability is set per location. If you have multiple locations, one branch could have different available dates from the other.

3. Time Slots

This affects which time slots of the day will be shown as an available date in the date and time picker for time slots.

Same Every Day of the Week - Selecting this means that the time slots provided in the date and time picker will apply to all available days of the week.

Different Each Day of the Week - Selecting this means that the time slots provided in the date and time picker are specified to each day of the week.

⚠️ The time slots must be a range of time. The date & time picker won’t accept options like “afternoon” or “evening.”

ℹ️ FAQ: Can each day of the week have different available time slots?

Answer: Yes! You can set different time slots per day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) Unfortunately, we cannot yet specify time slots for calendar dates.

ℹ️ FAQ: Can each branch have different time slots?

Answer: Yes! Time slots are set per location; therefore if you have multiple locations, a branch could either have no time slots, enabled time slots, or different time slots from other branches.

4. Future Orders

This feature allows you to dictate how many days into the future (from the present date) customers can order for.

E.g., Assuming that today is January 1st, and your Future Orders are set to 3 days into the future, the date and time picker will only allow customers to schedule orders on January 1 (present date), January 2, January 3, or January 4.

5. Lead Time

This feature prevents customers from choosing a pickup slot too close to the point of order. The lead time is usually the average time the store needs to prepare the order.

E.g., Assuming that the time now is 3:00PM, and your lead time is set to 30 minutes, a customer ordering on your site right now can only pick a time slot from 3:30PM onwards.

6. Alert Settings

This affects exactly when your branch’s In-Store Merchant App will be notified of a new order that has come in.

Instant Alert: If you select the Instant Alert option, this means that upon check out of all orders on your Shopify store, even advanced orders, instant alerts will be sent to your branch’s In-Store Merchant App immediately.

E.g., Assuming that the time now is 3:00PM and your scheduled alert is scheduled for 60 minutes before an order’s time slot,

If a new order has been made on your store right now for 7:00PM today, your store location will instantly get the alert for this order in their In-Store Merchant App now, at 3:00PM.

Scheduled Alert: If you select the Scheduled Alert option, this means your branch’s In-Store Merchant App will only get the new order’s alert a specific number of minutes before the time slot of the order. This is especially helpful for advanced orders. You can set the scheduled alert by doing the following:

E.g., Assuming that the time now is 3:00PM and your scheduled alert is scheduled for 60 minutes before an order’s time slot,

If a new order has been made on your store right now for 7:00PM today, your store location will only get the alert for this order in their In-Store Merchant App at 6:00PM.


More on the Enterprise Plan

More on our other Pricing Plans

Did this answer your question?