Shifts (Hours of Operation)
A shift is a range of time during which a merchant (ie. individual restaurant location) is operating. Parties, whether reservations or waitlist, can only exist within a shift.
Each shift has its own associated:
- Floorplan rooms
- Recurring day(s) of the week
Shifts control the hours you can build inventory for in the Reservation Availability tool and the hours that your remote waitlist is available for guests. These settings are available to users with the "Admin" permission, if you don't have access to this, you'll need to ask an account Admin to make the change for you.
At this time, Shift changes don’t impact a single day of operations, meaning that if you edit this Friday’s shift, all future Friday’s will be updated to reflect the new time
Skip To:
- Shifts on the Dashboard
- Creating Shifts
- Editing Shifts
- Shifts and Reservation Availability
- Shifts and the Waitlist
- Shifts on your iPad
- Blocking a full day(Blocking waitlist and reservations)
Shifts on the Dashboard
"Shifts" is a section of the dashboard that lets you view and manage a merchant's shifts.
To access this tool, log into the Host Dashboard, and select Host > Shifts
Creating Shifts
The dashboard tool allows you to create shifts by defining:
- Shift Name
- Start Time
- End Time
- Day(s) of the Week
- Floorplan Rooms
To create a shift:
- Click on the blank area of the desired day
- The Shift editor will pop up for you to make edits
- Enter a name, start time, end time, days of the week the shift should be applied to, and rooms that should be available during the shift
- Click ‘Create’ to submit
In the following example you can see 2 shifts created, one for 'Lunch' from 10:45am-2:30pm Sun-Sat, and one for 'Dinner' from 5pm-9pm from Mon-Sat.
When creating a shift, be sure to:
- Keep the shift name brief and useful
- Avoid creating any overlapping/conflicting shifts
- Ensure the desired rooms are attached
- Ensure the shift only recurs on the days it is needed
- Click "Create" when you're ready to make the shift live
Editing Shifts
You can edit any existing shift by clicking on the shift, changing the details, and clicking "Save".
When editing a shift, be sure to:
- Avoid creating any overlapping/conflicting shifts
- Ensure the desired rooms are attached
- Ensure the shift only recurs on the days it is needed
- Click "Save" when you are done making changes
Shifts and Reservation Availability
Inventory and shifts are defined and configured independently from one another, but they work together to determine the limitations and availability of reservations.
Shifts can be considered the timeframe within which inventory can be applied, while inventory itself is the set of limitations placed on incoming reservations.
❗ Note: You are unable to add inventory outside of your shift hours, you'll see a "Closed Shift" message when trying to add inventory outside of your shift hours.
Shifts and the Waitlist
Your waitlist and shifts work together to determine the hours that your guests can join your remote waitlist (via your custom form or Google Waitlist).
Shifts related to the waitlist are the timeframe within which guests can join the remove waitlist, this is different than the behavior in your reservation inventory because there the inventory itself is the set of limitations placed on the time of incoming reservations.
The Guest Experience during an open Shift:
❗ Note: If your guests are unable to join the waitlist, please check to ensure the Shift reflects that you are open for business and that there isn’t a waitlist block in place.
Shifts on your iPad
Once your shifts are saved or updated in the Dashboard you’ll see the shifts identified in the iPad.
If you don’t see the change after a relaunch of the app, you can try to reset the iPad cache to update the view.
“Closed” Shift on the iPad
This is indicative of a shift that is missing in the iPad, you correct this, you’ll need to add a shift for the relevant day. 
Closing a day - Blocking the Waitlist and Reservations
If you're closing for a period of time you can use the "Block shifts" button within the Shifts Tool to block your waitlist and all of your reservation inventory for the day.
To block a day without deleting your shift:
- Click on "Block shifts"
- Select the date you want to close
- Add a message for your guests.
Example: "We'll be closed on 11/24/22 in observance of Thanksgiving" - Click "Block" to save the changes.
