Table QR codes

Every table can have its own QR code. A guest who sits down and scans it holds the table for a set time, 90 minutes unless you choose otherwise, and the table drops out of the times offered on your booking page for as long as the hold lasts. The guest is never asked for their details. Your team sees the hold in the diary on that table and can end it early.

Table QR codes need table allocation switched on for the venue, because a hold is only useful when bookings sit on real tables. Until it is on, a scan opens a page saying the code is not in use.

Printing the codes

1. Go to Bookings then Bookings settings and choose the venue.
2. In the Table allocation card, under Print table QR codes, choose Every area for the whole venue, or one area to print just its tables. Each row shows how many tables it holds.

The download is a PDF with six codes to an A4 page, grouped by area. Each code carries the table's name, the party sizes it seats and the line "Scan to hold this table". Print it, cut the codes out and put each one on its own table. A table that is not in use is left off the sheet.

Each code opens an address of the form app.captifi.io/t/ followed by 32 random characters. The address names no table or venue, so nobody can work out another table's code from one they have seen.

What the guest sees

The page that opens is plain and short, in the guest's language:

• "Table T4 is taken" when the table was free. It is now held for the guest until the time shown, and nothing else is asked of them.
• "Table T4 is already taken" when someone scanned it earlier and that hold is still running. Scanning again changes nothing.
• "Table T4 is booked" when a booking sits on the table at any point in the hold time, a party already seated included. No hold is made and the guest is asked to speak to a member of staff.
• "Table T4 is reserved" when the table's area is booked for a private hire at that time.

When the venue has a WiFi network name set, the page also tells the guest which network to join.

A scan never changes or cancels a booking. A table with a booking later in the evening can still be held, as long as the booking starts after the hold would end.

Choosing the hold length

Set QR hold length, minutes in the Table allocation card, anywhere from 5 minutes to 12 hours, and choose Save table allocation. It applies to scans made after you save; a hold already running keeps the end time it started with.

Holds in the diary

The diary lists the day's holds under QR holds and walk-ins, above the bookings: the table, QR scan or Walk-in, and the time the hold starts and ends. A QR hold also shows Scanned from and a short code for the phone or connection that scanned it, so several holds made from one phone stand out.

To free a table early, for example when the guests leave, choose End hold on the QR hold, then press and hold Free the table. The table is offered again on your booking page at once. Holds also end on their own at their end time.

Only QR holds can be ended this way. A booking or a walk-in leaves its table when it is completed, cancelled, marked a no-show or moved; a private hire is released from its enquiry.

Replacing a code

If a code is lost, copied or misused, the account holder can replace it. Under Areas and tables, choose the QR code button on the table's row (New QR code), then press and hold Replace the code. The old code stops working at once, so download the codes again and put the table's new code on the table. Team members cannot replace codes.

Limits

• One phone or connection can hold up to three tables at a venue at a time. A fourth scan tells the guest to ask a member of staff to seat them.
• Guests on the venue's own WiFi often share one connection, so the venue's WiFi can hold up to 40 tables at a time. This applies where the venue's CaptiFi equipment reports its connection to CaptiFi; elsewhere the three-table limit applies to WiFi guests too.
• A code answers up to 10 scans a minute, and one connection up to 40 scans in 10 minutes. Past either, the page asks the guest to try again in a minute and no hold is made. At a very busy moment the page may also ask the guest to scan again.

Link previews in messaging apps, and browsers that load a page before it is opened, read the page without holding the table. A guest who opens the code in an app's own browser, such as the Snapchat camera, does hold it.

Team permissions

Ending a hold needs Manage table bookings. Downloading the codes needs View guest data. Replacing a code is for the account holder only.