Control the Number of Online Orders You Can Receive
Aloha Online Ordering enables you to control the number of online orders or the number of items submitted by online orders for a specified time frame. Aloha Online Ordering refers to this feature as capacity management. You can configure the feature by order mode, within specified intervals, and assign the feature to individual stores. Additionally, for operations using capacity management in Aloha Takeout, you can use the settings in ATO rather than those configured in Aloha Online Ordering. When choosing between the capacity management of Aloha Takeout and Aloha Online Ordering, keep in mind that Aloha Takeout calculates capacity management according to both in-store and online orders, whereas Aloha Online Ordering calculates capacity management according to online orders only.
Configuring Capacity Management Using Aloha Takeout
When using the capacity management controls of Aloha Takeout, the system considers all orders, both in-store and online, when determining if a consumer can submit an online order for a particular time. If you do not plan to use Aloha Takeout as your capacity management tool, skip this section.
📓 For more information on configuring capacity management within ATO, refer to the NCR Aloha Takeout Order Scheduling Feature Focus Guide.
After defining the capacity management settings in Aloha Takeout, you control the activation of Aloha Takeout capacity management through company settings.
- In Web Admin, select Configuration > Company Settings Setup.
- Select UseATOCapacity.
- Click Edit Setting.
- Type True.
- Click Update.
- Select DisableAdvancedCommands.
- Click Edit Setting.
- Type False.
- Click Update.
Configuring Capacity Management Using Aloha Online Ordering
Instead of using Aloha Takeout for capacity management, you can define capacity management settings in Aloha Online Ordering. You can set capacity restrictions for web orders based on the number of items, the number of orders, or a combination of the two.
To configure capacity management using item count:
- In Web Admin, select Designs > Capacity Management > Capacity Multipliers and Portion Counts.
- Select the item for which to define a limit.
- Click Edit on the right side of the screen.
- Under ‘Count Multiplier,’ enter the value for the selected item. The system uses this value in calculating the allowed items in accordance with your capacity restrictions. For example, for most items, you enter a value of ‘1;’ however, some items, due to the preparation effort require a value of ‘2’ or higher. If you set the capacity restrict to ‘10’ items for every ‘30’ minutes, the system uses the value of the item in the calculation. You might receive orders for eight items with a value of ‘1,’ and then one order for an item with a value of ‘2.’ You are now at your capacity limit of ‘10’ for the thirty-minute time period.
- Click Update.
To configure capacity management using item or order count:
Using this option, you place a count and a limit on the raw number of orders and items to go against the count multiplier. Once your online ordering site reaches the maximum number of orders or items for a store location, the site restricts the specific time frame from the promise time selection page.
- In Web Admin, select Designs > Capacity Management > Capacity Configurations.
- Select Add Capacity Configuration. The Add Capacity Configuration screen appears.
- Type a name for the capacity configuration.
- Type a description for the capacity configuration.
- Enter the interval in minutes for the capacity configuration. For example, if you set the interval for 30 minutes and the order count to 4, the system only allows 4 online orders every 30 minutes.
- Specify an item count to define how many items for order the system allows within an interval.
- Specify an order count to define how many orders the system allows within an interval.
- Select the days of the week for which the capacity configuration applies.
- Select a start time and an end time for the capacity configuration.
-OR-
Select All Day to apply the capacity configuration to the entire day. - Select each order mode to which to apply capacity management. For example, you may want to exclude your catering order mode from the capacity management settings.
- Select each menu type to which to apply capacity management. For example, you may want to exclude your catering menu from the capacity management settings.
- Under ‘Available Sites,’ select each store to which capacity management applies, and click Add Selected. The system moves the selected store to ‘Selected Sites.’ To apply capacity management to multiple stores, click Add All, or left-click a store, press the Ctrl key, select the next store to add, and click Add Selected.
- Click Save.