Core Product: Aloha Table Service
Complimentary Products: No
Separate License Required? No
Other References: Aloha Table Service Manager Guide, Aloha Table Service Reference Guide, Aloha Table Service Server Guide, Delay Send Feature Focus Guide
View/Download/Print: Course Ordering Feature Focus Guide - HKS312

About Course Ordering

Course Ordering, available in Aloha® Table Service, refers to the practice of delivering a multiple course meal to guests one course at a time. This type of food delivery is very common in banquet environments and fine dining restaurants. The type and number of courses varies based on geographic region. A common five course meal is soup, salad, appetizer, entrée, and dessert, in that order. When serving guests by course, you monitor and regulate the timing of each course. As guests complete a course, you clear and prepare the area for the next course until all courses are complete.

In general, the system orders and sends items to the kitchen when you select an order mode or touch certain buttons on the Front-of-House (FOH) order entry screen, such as Done, WWT, Close, Print, and Reprint. With course ordering, you may need to approach the sending of orders to the kitchen differently, depending on the environment under which your restaurant operates.

In this document, we discuss the various methods of using Course Ordering. You can choose the method that best suits your environment, or you can change your existing method to take advantage of features available in the Aloha Point-of-Sale (POS) system, such as using pivot seating and delaying the sending of courses based on increments of time.

There are basically three course ordering environments:

Environment 1: The restaurant follows a predetermined schedule for the dining flow, such as in a dinner theatre that serves dinner at 6:30 and starts the play at 8:00. After assigning a course number to each item, the server sends the entire order to the kitchen with a cut between each course on the chit. The kitchen staff controls course timing.

Environment 2: The server manually regulates the dining flow of guests. After assigning a course number to each item, the server either sends the entire order to the kitchen, with a cut between each course on the chit, and then informs the kitchen staff when to prepare the next course, or sends the items to the kitchen one course at a time. Sending items to the kitchen one course at a time requires you to disable auto-ordering. We discuss how to disable auto-ordering on page 11.

Environment 3: After assigning a course number to each item, the server uses a Hold button to delay the sending of each course by an increment of time. This is the most popular method for course ordering. The server can adjust the hold time for a course, if necessary. To delay the sending of courses based on increments of time is only possible if you configure the system to use the Delay Send feature in conjunction with Course Ordering. If you operate in this environment, refer to the Delay Send Feature Focus Guide for more information.

Configuring Course Ordering

• Adding buttons for Course Ordering
• Assigning priorities to items
• Configuring the chit paper cut for course ordering
• Disabling auto-ordering
• Refreshing POS data

Using Course Ordering

This section discusses how to assign courses to items on a guest check and operate the system in a Course Ordering environment.

Course ordering rules

• You can only assign course numbers to unordered and/or held items, not items that are already ordered (sent to the kitchen). If you select the Course button for a check that does not contain unordered items, an error message appears.
• You can assign course numbers on menu items only, not modifiers. All modifiers inherit the same course number as their respective menu item.
• If you touch the Repeat or Quantity buttons to copy an unordered item, the system assigns the new item with the same course number. If you touch the Repeat and Quantity buttons to copy an item that is already ordered, you must assign a course number to the new item.
• You can assign up to 99 courses. If you assign a course number greater than 99, an error message appears.
• You cannot assign course numbers to refill modifiers.

• Assigning course numbers to items
• Controlling course timing

Troubleshooting Course Ordering

Learn possible solutions to problems you may encounter with course ordering.

Revision History

View the development history of the Course Ordering feature.