When are online and in-person orders displayed to my kitchen on my Fresh KDS?

[mksavage]

The title of this post has been edited from the original: In-Person Orders going to the very end of Online Orders

We are accepting orders through the Online Store and in-person. When the Online orders come in, they show up on our kitchen ticket screen (we use Fresh KDS) chronologically by pick-up time. The problem is, when an order is placed in-person, it goes to the very END of the line, after all of the Online orders, instead of slotting into the appropriate time chronologically.

For example, say it is 8am and we have we have 10 orders for pickup at 9am -- if someone walks in at 8:10am, and places an order, it shows up after the 10 orders for 9am. So, the line cooks have to constantly be flipping to the very end of the screen of orders to see if any in-person orders have come in.

Is there any way to have the in-person orders show up chronologically among the online orders, based on what time they are placed?

[Valentina · Accepted solution]

Great question, @mksavage! 🍳☕️

When customers have scheduled online orders ahead of time, these orders should not show up on the Fresh KDS until the kitchen needs to know about them - which is the amount of prep time before the fulfillment time. On the flip side of this: online ASAP orders should show immediately.

For example, if your prep time is set for 30 minutes, all orders for pickup at 9 should start showing up on Fresh KDS at 8:30. Any new in-person or ASAP online orders will appear at the very end of the queue, if ordered during the prep time for the pickup orders scheduled for 9. The reason for this being that there are already orders that are in the process of being fulfilled at that time.

In your example, the kitchen should not be seeing those 9 AM pickup orders on Fresh KDS at 8:10 if your prep time is less than 50 minutes. If your prep time is set for something longer, like an hour, that would explain why these orders are appearing at the end of your queue. I hope this helps shine a light on how these settings interact with one another!
 

A tip: I'd recommend setting your prep time as closely as possible to the amount of time it takes your kitchen to fulfill an order. If your prep time is set for a drastically longer amount of time than it actually takes your kitchen to fulfill an order, your in-person customers placing orders within that prep time period may be waiting longer than necessary for their orders to be fulfilled.