Lay out the seating plan and its map

Seating plan, in Restaurant Reservations, is a venue's sections and tables. A section is a room or an area of the venue, such as Main room, Terrace or Bar. Each section has its tables, in the order free tables are given out, and a map: the room drawn from above, with every table where it stands. The book's Tables view shows the same map during service, with each table's party on it.

Members who can edit change the seating plan. Team admins also join tables into combinations and import a plan. A member who can only view sees the maps and changes nothing.

Sections and tables

Choose Add section in the page bar and enter its name. A section's name changes where it is shown. Its Online reservations switch, under its tables, says whether diners can be given its tables when they reserve online. Its More menu has Move section up and Archive section.

Choose + Add table in the page bar to add a table by its name (such as 12 or Window 2), its shape and how many people it seats, smallest and largest party. Add and add another keeps the drawer open. A table added this way is not placed on the map yet.

A table's row under the map changes its name and seats in place. Drag a row by its grip to change the order free tables are given out in, or use Up and Down. A table's More menu moves it to another section, changes its shape (round, square, rectangle, booth or bar seats), offers it online or stops offering it, and archives it.

A table that is not offered online is drawn with a dotted edge on the map and says Not online on its row. Bar seats are for walk-ins: they are never offered online, alone or in a combination, and their row says Walk-ins only.

Drawing a room on its map

Each section's band shows its room as a map, with tools above it and a strip under it for what is selected.

Adding tables and fixtures

The tools add a thing in the part of the room in view, clear of the others:

• Round, Square, Rectangle, Booth and Bar seats add a table of that shape with the next free number as its name and the shape's usual seats. The table is selected and its name is ready to type. Bar seats adds a row of five stools, one for each seat, named Bar (then Bar 2 and on), to place along the bar. They are for walk-ins, seated from the book. They start at 60 cm a stool; drag a corner or type their size to fit them to your bar, and the stools spread along the row and grow or shrink with its depth. Change their seats to add or take away a stool. Their name is above the stools.
• Wall, Half wall, Bar, Door, Host stand and Label add those fixtures, and More adds a window, a pillar, stairs or a plant. A fixture holds no reservations. The bar, the host stand and stairs show their name on the map, such as Bar.

Drag a tool onto the map to add it where you drop it.

A venue's existing tables that have never been placed are drawn in a grid with a dashed edge, and the strip says how many are not placed yet. Drag each where it stands, or choose Arrange in a grid to save the grid as their places.

Moving, sizing and turning

Press a table or a fixture to select it. Shift adds to the selection, and Shift with a drag on empty room selects everything the box touches. Drag empty room to move the map, use the zoom controls at its bottom right, or zoom with Ctrl or Cmd and the mouse wheel or with two fingers. Fit shows the whole room.

• Move: drag the selection. It lines up with other tables' edges and centres, and with a 10 cm grid. Hold Alt to place it freely.
• Resize: drag a corner of one selected thing. Round and square tables keep their sides equal; hold Shift to keep a rectangle's proportions. The chairs follow, and bar seats' stools spread out or close up.
• Turn: drag the handle above the selected thing. It turns in 15° steps; hold Alt to turn it freely.
• Arrange lines up or spaces out the selected things, or lays the selected tables out in a grid.

Each change is saved when you let go. Tables are drawn with their chairs, up to 12; a larger table shows its number of seats.

Every table's name on a map is the same size: as large as the table with the least room for its name allows, and larger as you zoom in. A long name on a small table makes every name smaller.

The strip under the map

With one thing selected, the strip under the map names it and offers Change table 5… (or Change wall…), which opens a drawer of its facts. Enter, a double press and the table's right-click menu open the same drawer. Selecting alone opens nothing, so pressing from table to table never puts a form in the way.

A table's drawer has its Name, Seats, Shape, Size, Rotation and Offered online, each saved as soon as you leave the field, then Duplicate, which adds a copy beside it with the next number, and Archive table, which takes it off the map and out of the section's rows, to the Archived band, where Restore brings it back; a table that future reservations hold cannot be archived, and the message says how many. Bar seats' drawer has no Offered online. When other tables of the same shape are another size, the drawer says so and offers to make them all the size of this one, such as Make all round tables 90 cm × 90 cm. Nothing changes until you choose it.

A fixture's drawer has its Kind, its Text (for a label, the bar, a door, the host stand or stairs), Size and Rotation, and Remove. Text replaces the name the bar, the host stand and stairs show, such as Cocktail bar in place of Bar; with Text left empty, the name shows again. With several things selected, the strip counts them and offers Align, Space evenly and Archive tables.

The keyboard

Tab moves through the tables and fixtures on a map and selects each in turn.

• The arrow keys move the selection 5 cm, or 50 cm with Shift.
• R turns it, Shift+R turns it back.
• Cmd+D or Ctrl+D duplicates the selected tables.
• Cmd+C or Ctrl+C copies the selected tables and fixtures, and Cmd+V or Ctrl+V pastes them, on this map or another section's. The copy goes over what was copied, moved right and up by a quarter of its size, and is selected; each further paste goes a step further. The right-click menu has Copy and Paste too.
• Delete or Backspace archives tables and removes fixtures.
• Enter goes to the selected thing's name or text in the strip.
• Escape clears the selection.

Undo

Undo and Redo in each map's tools, or Cmd+Z or Ctrl+Z and Shift with it, undo and redo the map's changes: moves, sizes, turns, adding, duplicating, pasting, archiving and removing. The message after a change also offers Undo. Undoing a table you added archives it; it is listed under Archived until you redo it or restore it. A change to a name, seats, shape or online in the strip is changed back in the strip.

The room and its units

Under the section's tables, Room size sets how big the room is drawn: type it as 12 x 8 m, 40 by 26 ft or auto. An automatic room is as big as its tables and fixtures need, and at least 12 by 8 m. A table dragged past the edge makes the room bigger.

Background picture puts a drawing or photo of the room under the map to trace over. Choose it from Your images or upload one. Diners and the book never see it, and Remove picture leaves it in Your images.

A venue in the Americas shows lengths in inches and feet; other venues show centimetres and metres. A length can be typed in either: 90, 90 cm, 0.9 m, 36 in or 3 ft 6 in. A number with no unit is in the venue's units.

Combinations

A combination is two or more tables of one section pushed together for a larger party. A team admin chooses Add combination in the page bar, or selects the tables on the map and chooses Join tables, which opens the same drawer with them ticked. Leave the party sizes blank to seat from the largest table's fewest people up to all the tables' seats together. The map draws a dashed line between a combination's tables, and dragging one of them moves them together; hold Shift and press one to move it alone.

A combination's More menu offers it online or stops offering it, and archives it.

Archiving

Archive table and Archive section are in their More menus. A table or section that future reservations hold cannot be archived: the message says how many, and those reservations are moved to another table first. An archived table keeps its past reservations and is left out of what diners can reserve. Archived sections and tables are listed under Archived, with Restore.

The map on the book

On Today, choose Tables to see each section's map above its tables. Each table says who it is for:

• Free, or Free until 19:30 when a reservation is due at it later.
• The time, the name and the party size when a party is due within 30 minutes, or Arrived when they have arrived. The table has a red dashed edge.
• The name, the party size and the time they sat down when a party is seated. The table is filled in; on bar seats, the stools are.
• Late in place of the time when a seated party is running late: still at the table after the time it was held for them. The table also has a red edge.

Press a free table to seat a party there: the Seat drawer opens with that table chosen. Press a seated table for Finish, Change table… and Open reservation. The rows under the map show the same tables, with Seat a party here and Finish. The map keeps its zoom and place when the book refreshes, and prints with the page.

To write a plan with an assistant, from photos of your rooms, see Import a seating plan by pasting JSON.

If the seating plan does something this page does not explain, Contact support.