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Kitchen Display

The Kitchen Display is a screen for the people cooking. Orders arrive on it as cards, the kitchen works through them, and each one is cleared with a single button.

The Kitchen Display with one order card waiting to be prepared

The header carries a clock and a count, such as 1 in queue, so a cook sees the backlog without counting cards. With nothing waiting the screen reads No orders to prepare.

The empty Kitchen View with 0 in queue and the message No orders to prepare

Open the screen

Section titled “Open the screen”

Two ways in.

From the admin, go to DevDiggers Plugins → MultiPOS for FluentCart → Outlets and press Kitchen View on the outlet’s row.

The Kitchen View button on the restaurant outlet’s row

Or open the URL directly. It is yoursite.com/kitchen?outlet_id=<id>, where the path comes from Kitchen Display URL Path under Configuration → General.

The Kitchen Display URL Path field on the General tab

Each outlet keeps its own kitchen queue, so a kitchen only ever sees its own orders and no branch can plate another branch’s tickets. The outlet_id in the address says which queue this screen is.

Open yoursite.com/kitchen without it and the screen works it out. With one enabled outlet it opens that outlet’s queue. With several, it asks Which outlet’s kitchen is this? and lists every enabled outlet, so the cook picks once and bookmarks the page.

The Kitchen View page asking which outlet’s kitchen this is, with a link for each outlet

The button appears only on an outlet whose Operation Mode is Restaurant/Cafe, such as Harbor Lane Café on the demo. A Grocery/Retail row has no kitchen.

Leave it open on a screen in the kitchen

Section titled “Leave it open on a screen in the kitchen”

That is what it is for. The page checks every two seconds and adds new cards on its own, so nobody has to refresh it. A notice reads New order arrived to prepare when one lands, which is the cue to look up.

What puts an order on it

Section titled “What puts an order on it”

Two routes, and both are in the terminal rather than here.

  • Holding a cart in restaurant mode, with Auto-Send Held Orders to Kitchen turned on. The kitchen gets the ticket the moment the order is taken, before anyone pays.
  • Ticking Send Order to Kitchen at payment. The card appears on the payment screen in restaurant mode, above the keypad.

The Send Order to Kitchen card on the POS payment screen

Both switches live under Configuration → General → Kitchen.

The Kitchen section of the General tab

Nothing else routes an order here. A retail sale, a website order and an unheld cart all stay off this screen. That is the point: the kitchen sees food to cook and nothing else.

What a card shows

Section titled “What a card shows”

One order card on the Kitchen Display

Part What it is
Title Order #123 for a paid order, Hold Order #1 for a held cart
Table The table name, when the order has one
Customer The customer’s email address
Items Each line with its picture, name and quantity
Info Whatever the cashier typed when holding the order
Ready Clears the card

The pictures are the product images from FluentCart. They earn their place on a kitchen screen, where someone is reading at arm’s length across a hot pass.

Info is the free-text label from the hold box, so it is worth telling cashiers what to put there. no onions, table by the window is a kitchen instruction. Cart 4 is not.

Ready

Section titled “Ready”

Ready removes the card.

The Ready button on a kitchen order card

The browser confirms first, because there is no undo:

Are you sure to remove this order from kitchen?

That is a plain browser box rather than a MultiPOS one, so it looks different in each browser. Accept it and the card goes, with a Order is successfully removed from kitchen. message.

Press Ready with the kitchen device offline and it refuses: Cannot make request, check your internet connection!

Press it when the food goes out, not when it starts. The screen is a queue of outstanding work, and a card cleared early is an order nobody is watching.

Clearing a card removes it from the kitchen queue only. The FluentCart order is untouched, and so is the held cart in the terminal.

Who can see it

Section titled “Who can see it”

The screen needs a signed-in POS Cashier or Administrator, or a FluentCart manager when FluentCart Pro is active. The order list comes from the POS’s own data.

  • Signed out: The kitchen address sends you to the WordPress sign-in page, then straight back to the kitchen.
  • Signed in without POS access: A customer account, say, gets This account cannot open the kitchen screen. Sign in with a POS cashier or store manager account., with a link to sign in as someone else.
  • A cashier who does not work at that outlet: The screen says You are not assigned to this outlet. in place of the queue, with a hint to ask a manager. Add the outlet to the cashier under Cashiers, or sign the kitchen in as someone who works there.

Sign the kitchen screen in once with a cashier account and leave it open. A tablet left on all day outlives its sign-in, and the screen reloads itself once to pick up a fresh one. If the connection drops for a moment, the cards already on screen stay put rather than vanishing.

Where to go next

Section titled “Where to go next”