The first step in setting up your Availability is creating your Seating Area(s).

When your account was initially set up, our team would have added Seating Areas for you. However, you can edit your existing seating areas or add any new ones.

To do this, select the Availability tab from the menu bar on the left of the screen.

The new tab will display the list of your existing seating areas which you can edit, or you can click on the Add New Seating Area button in the top right corner to create a new area.

When creating a seating area, the settings you’ll see are as follows -

Seating Area Name - The internal name for a seating area.
Seating Area Abbreviation - An abbreviated version of the seating area name, limited to 5 characters. This is for internal use only and will display on your reservations dashboard.
Order - The order you want your seating areas to appear. This reflects both on the reservations dashboard internally and the online booking calendar.
Warning Threshold Orange - (Optional) If you set a number here, as soon as you have this number of seats remaining on a seating area, an orange indicator will appear for it on your Reservations Dashboard.
Warning Threshold Red - (Optional) If you set a number here, as soon as you have this number of seats remaining on a seating area, a red indicator will appear for it on your Reservations Dashboard.
Available Online (Y/N) - If you want guests to be able to book this seating area online or if it should only be managed internally. This setting can only be changed by Dineplan Support. Please email support@dineplan.com to request assistance with this.
Online Seating Name - The name for the seating area that guests will see when booking online (this is usually the same as your Seating Area Name, but doesn't have to be).
Seating Description - (Optional) The information provided here will only be included in the confirmation email the guest receives, they will not be able to see this in the online booking process. It's purpose is to give guests more information about the area e.g. Outside seating is weather dependent.

Lastly, each seating area can be customised with its own colour. This makes it easier for staff to quickly see which area a booking belongs to on the reservations dashboard.

You can change the Background and Font colours of your seating area.

This affects how they will be displayed in your Seating Area list -

As well as on your reservations dashboard -

Once you are happy with the setup of your Seating Area, select the green Save Seating Area button at the bottom of the page. Your seating area will now be created and appear in your list of available seating areas.

Keep in mind that once the Seating area has been created, you will still need to open it in your Shifts to tell the system when the seating area is bookable. If your account is tables based, you will also need to create tables for your seating area.

When adding/editing a seating area, be sure to check any of your existing Exceptions and update them to include the new area if that should also be closed e.g. while you're closed for renovations.

If you have any questions or need guidance on setting a Seating area up, please email support@dineplan.com for the team to assist.

Related Articles:

Adding/Editing Seating Areas

Set up a new seating area, or edit an existing area.