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Back Office Kitchen Routing Setup in Restaurant Solution

November 18, 2024

Description

How to set up kitchen devices and kitchen routing groups in Restaurant Solution

What's in this article?

Kitchen Routing controls how menu items are routed to kitchen devices (kitchen printer or KDS). Menu items are associated with a kitchen routing group. A routing group can include more than one kitchen device. For example, you may have a grilled chicken salad entrée that needs to be routed to your salad station to assemble the salad and to your grill to cook the chicken. Once you have created kitchen routing groups, you can associate your menu item with a routing group. See Back Office Menu Item Setup in Restaurant Solution for more information. When you install and configure your hardware, you will indicate which hardware is associated with a kitchen device. 

1. Set up a kitchen routing group
  1. In Back Office, select Settings > Kitchen Routing. 

  2. Click Add Routing Group. 
  3. Type a name for the routing group. For example, you could have a group for grill items or a group for drinks.

  4. Click Save Changes. Continue to create groups a needed. When your groups are created, continue to the next step to set up a kitchen device.
2. Set up a kitchen device

Kitchen devices are assigned to routing groups. 

    1. Set up a kitchen group, as described above.
    2. From the Kitchen Routing Setup screen, click Add Kitchen Device.

      "Add Kitchen Device" button selected in the Kitchen Routing Setup
    3. Type a name for the kitchen device. 
    4. Choose the Device Type you are installing, either a printer or display.

      NOTE: If you are setting up an Expo Station, see Back Office Expo Station Configuration in Restaurant Solution

    5. Do one of the following:
      • If installing a KDS display screen, you may choose to set threshold times in seconds. Orders that pass the threshold levels change color on the kitchen display so that your staff can monitor aging orders.

      • If installing a printer, choose option settings for the device and then click Save Changes.

        table listing Options and their descriptions
        OptionDescription
        Label PrinterPrint the chit as a label. May be selected with either consolidated or one item per chit options or by itself. For example, a coffee shop might print a label for each drink in an order.  
        Consolidate Items on ChitCombine like items together on the chit.  Indicates whether the device will print items as a single item to a chit or consolidate same items on the chit. For example, you may want to consolidate grill items (3 hamburgers, 4 fries) rather than list the items in the order that they were entered on the ticket.
        One Item Per ChitPrint a chit for each item
3. Associate a kitchen device with a kitchen printer group

Once you have created both kitchen routing groups and kitchen routing devices, you can associate the kitchen devices that the group will route to and the order modes. For example, you may have a routing group to send menu items to the grill, to the salad bar, and to both the grill and the salad bar. 

IMPORTANT!
At least one device must be associated with a printer group or the chit will not be sent to the printer group and printed.

  1. Select a kitchen printer group from the group list on the left side of the screen. 
  2. For each kitchen device that should be associated with that group, select the order mode(s) to associate with the printer group.
    Sample printer associated with a kitchen printer group
  3. Click Save Changes.
4. Assign menu items and modifiers to a kitchen routing group

Associate the item or modifier with a kitchen routing group. To create new items or modifiers, refer to Back Office Menu Item Setup in Restaurant Solution for more information.

  1. In Menu > Categories & Items, click Edit Multiple Items button to work with many items at one time.

    Categories and items screen
  2. Click Search Category and select a specific category from the dropdown list, or type a text string in Search Name/Description and click the search icon to the right to locate the items to update.

    Edit Multiple Items window with search category menu
  3. Select the checkbox next to each item to change or click Select/Unselect All to easily select or clear every item appearing in the list.
  4. Select the Routing Group from the dropdown list to assign the items to it.

    Kitchen routing group selected
  5. Click Save Changes. Then click OK to confirm the update to multiple items. 

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