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For restaurants and hospitality

The rota, the private dining room and Thursday’s delivery, on one calendar.

A restaurant’s week is shifts, bookings and suppliers, usually kept in three places. ManageCal keeps them in one, so the kitchen and front of house read the same week without reading each other’s business.

The problems

Three things that go wrong on a busy week.

01

The private dining room is promised twice

An enquiry comes in by phone, another by email, and two people each pencil in the private room for Saturday afternoon. The clash is found when the second party is already on its way.

Make the private dining room a sub-calendar that does not allow overlaps. The second booking is refused when it is saved, and the person saving it sees what it collides with. The terrace and the bar can follow the same rule, or not, room by room.

SaturdaySpaces
12:0014:0016:0018:0020:0022:00
Private Dining
12:00Birthday lunch
14:00Wine tastingRefused
19:00Company dinner
Terrace
17:00Drinks reception

The tasting is refused on save, and can be offered the terrace instead.

02

The rota is a photo of a whiteboard

Shifts written on a board and photographed into a group chat are out of date the moment someone swaps. Put each section on its own sub-calendar, one event per shift, with the staff member’s name in a field shown in the event title.

Fixed shifts repeat weekly on the days you choose, and a one-off change is made to that one shift without touching the rest of the week. The kitchen reads the kitchen, the floor reads the floor, and a manager reads both side by side.

FridayRota
09:0011:0013:0015:0017:0019:0021:0023:00
Kitchen
08:00Prep (M. Rossi)
15:00Service (chef team)
Front of House
11:30Lunch (3 servers)
17:00Dinner (5 servers)
Bar
16:00Bar (2 staff)
03

The deposit and the allergies are in the notes, somewhere

A private booking carries details the whole team needs on the night: how many guests, which menu, who has an allergy, whether the deposit has been paid. In a free-text note they get missed.

Give each one a field. Guests is a number shown in the title, so the week view shows the size of every booking at a glance. Deposit Paid is a checkbox, so one filter shows every booking still waiting for money.

Birthday lunch (18)Sat 17 Oct · 12:00 – 15:00 · Private Dining
Host
L. Fischer
Guests
18
Menu
Set menu B
Dietary Notes
2 vegetarian, 1 nut allergy
Deposit Paid
Yes

Filterable by Menu and Deposit Paid

A starting set-up

A calendar a restaurant could start with.

One calendar for the site, with the rota, the spaces and the running of the place in separate folders. A group with several sites can keep one calendar per site in the same workspace.

Staff in the title
Who, renamed Staff and shown in event titles, puts the name on every shift in the grid.
Spaces refuse overlaps
The rota does not: two people on the same shift is the point of a shift.
Deliveries repeat
A Tuesday and Friday delivery is one weekly event on two days, not a hundred entries.
RestaurantSuggested set-up
Rota
  • Kitchen
  • Front of House
  • Bar
Spaces
  • Private DiningNo overlaps
  • TerraceNo overlaps
Operations
  • Deliveries
  • Maintenance
  • Time Off
Custom fields
  • StaffText
  • GuestsNumber
  • MenuChoice
  • Dietary NotesText
  • Deposit PaidCheckbox
  • SupplierText
Who sees what

A manager, a server and an events coordinator, on the same Saturday.

Everyone reads the rota. Only the people who handle private bookings see who booked the room and what they are paying; the rest see that it is taken. Management meetings stay with management.

General managerAdministrator
Sat 17
10:00Supplier review
12:00Birthday lunch (18)
17:00Dinner (5 servers)

Every calendar and every detail.

Events coordinatorModify · Read only
Sat 17
12:00Birthday lunch (18)
17:00Dinner (5 servers)

Runs private dining and reads the rota.

ServerRead only · No details
Sat 17
12:00Reserved
17:00Dinner (5 servers)

Reads the rota. Knows the private room is busy at lunch, not for whom.

Private DiningFront of HouseManagement
Questions

What restaurants ask before they start.

Can staff swap shifts in ManageCal?

Someone with Modify my events can change the shifts they created, and a manager with Modify can change any shift. There is no swap request or approval step: a change is made by someone who has the access to make it.

Does ManageCal take table reservations from guests?

No. It is an internal calendar for the team, not a booking page for guests. Private dining enquiries are entered by whoever takes them, which is where the double-booking check earns its place.

Can we see the size of each private booking without opening it?

Yes. Make Guests a number field and show it in event titles, and every booking reads with its headcount in brackets after the name.

Will a weekly delivery keep its time when the clocks change?

Yes. Repeating events are worked out in the calendar’s own time zone, so a seven o’clock delivery stays at seven o’clock through daylight saving.

How much does it cost for the whole team?

One price per workspace, not per person: Team is $20 a month for up to 40 people and Business is $50 a month for up to 100. The Free plan covers 5 people. Prices are indicative while ManageCal is in development, and nothing is charged yet.

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