DISH Reservation - FAQs

For big groups of guests your restaurant might not have tables of a sufficient size. As DISH Reservation does not automatically know, which of the tables you could move together, you can define table combinations. For example, you could define that for reservations with between 5 and 8 people, table 1 and table 2 should be combined. In this way, when a reservation 5-8 people is made, our system would automatically assign the reservation to table 1 and table 2. Find out how to set up table combinations in our video tutorial.

If you don't set up table combinations, but we know that you have enough capacity, your guest can still make a reservation request, which you would need to review and confirm. This is to allow you to see whether you can seat the guests, for instance by moving existing reservations to other tables.

 Tables are assigned automatically and we are trying to have the least amount of empty seats on the selected table. Nevertheless, if there are multiple tables of the same size, then users with DISH professional have the feature of assigning priorities. If you prefer to give you tables in the entrance area to the guest first, then give those a high priority. If there are tables which would be equal in group size, the priority is considered to decide which one to select first. Find out how to change your table booking priority in our tutorial. 

 No, this is currently unfortunately not possible.

Yes, you can. To do so, log in to your DISH.co account. Click on your name which you will find on the top right of your screen. Select "My Establishments" from the drop-down menu that will appear. Then click on "My Team", and then on "+ Add Person". Type in the contact details of your employee and confirm. He or she will then receive an email with information on how to register.

Yes, you can. While giving your employees access to the reservation tool, you can define their "roles" and decide which pages of the reservation tool they can see. You could for instance decide that your waiters can only create, confirm and decline reservations. They would only see the related pages on their account.

 There are three scenarios in which this could occur.

  1. Please check if you defined a group size "up to which you would like reservations to be automatically confirmed". If for example you set this number to 4, it means that reservations for 5 people or more would not be automatically confirmed. This would trigger a reservation request, which you would have to confirm first.
  2. It could be that you have no available free table or table group for the group size of the reservation. For example, you might receive a reservation for 10 people, but only have 2 tables for 5 people and have not set a table group for this tables. In this case, a guest can make a reservation, which you would need to confirm. This is to allow you to check if you can really seat this person. Check out our tutorial on "How to set up table groups" here.
  3. If all tables are occupied, but seats are still available (because tables are not fully occupied), a guest can still make a reservation. The system would convert this into a reservation request, so that you may verify whether you can really seat the person or not.

Yes, you can. On the left menu, right at the bottom, you will find a pause button. Click there to pause your online reservation for the day.

To see if a time slot can be offered to your guest, DISH Reservation looks at two things: the reservation hours you set and the default duration for your reservations. If you set the reservation hours to end at 11 pm, and the default reservation duration to 2 hours, then the last reservation possible on that day would be at 9 pm. If you want to your guests to still make a reservation at 9.30 pm, you would need to make the reservation hours end at 11.30 pm.

This is because of a technical limitation set by Google. In order to receive reservations via Google, we need to set the minimum to 30 days.

It actually is possible to make reservations less than 30 days in advance. For that, you need to set the notice time for the reservation to less than 30 days.

At busy hours, you might want to accept less reservations than usual. To avoid that your kitchen cannot handle the amount of guest coming in at the same time, you can configure booking limits. With booking limits, you can limit the number of guests that can reserve a seat during a specific time interval on any given day. For example, you can define that from 1pm to 2pm you would only want to take online reservations for a maximum of 20 guests. To see how to set up booking limit, check out our video tutorial.

Yes, you can. To do so, you need to follow two steps. First, go to settings/hours and set your "meal periods", e.g. lunch and dinner (view our tutorial for more info).

Once this is done, edit the default duration for a reservation in the "capacity section" that you will find in Settings/Reservations. Simply set the default duration of a reservation per meal period, e.g. 1 hour for lunch.

Yes, you can. To do so, go to the "capacity section" that you will find in Settings/Reservations. There, you can then allow your guests to "set the duration of their stay" and define the minimum and maximum duration of their stay.

Yes, they can. To activate, simply go to the administration section that you will find in settings/reservations. Then confirm the following question: "Would you like to allow your guests to select the area they are seated in themselves?" 

Absolutely. You can decide to stop or receive less online reservations for specific days, recurring days, services or restaurant areas. To do so, simply go to settings/reservation limits and activate your first limit.

You can stop or reduce availability for online reservations on the following parameters:

- Specific Day (e.g. 1st of July / 1-5th July / Terrace or Bar )

- Date Range (e.g. 1-5th July)

- Area (Close terrace, bar or any area)

- Service hours (breakfast from 8-11 am, weekends)

- Regular Days (on weekends, every Monday)

For this check out our tutorial on:

At busy hours, you might want to accept less reservations than usual. To avoid that your kitchen cannot handle the amount of guest coming in at the same time, you can configure booking limits. With booking limits, you can limit the number of guests that can reserve a seat during a specific time interval on any given day. For example, you can define that from 1pm to 2pm you would only want to take offline reservations for a maximum of 20 guests. To see how to set up booking limit, check out our video tutorial.

Limits that you set will be active on Google from around 3 am of the following day. For the online widget, limits are active immediately. 

Yes, you can. With the limit function in place, you no longer need to work around by closing your restaurant to avoid receiving online reservations. 

This is currently not possible. We are doing our best to make this available soon.

Follow this guide to place a reservation link at the top of your Instagram and Facebook accounts. This will help you turn your social media visitors into guests who make reservations at your place.

  1. Copy the short reservation link from DISH Reservation
    • Access DISH Reservation
    • Go to Integrations
    • Select Standalone Page
    • Copy reservation widget link (ex. https://reserve.dish.co/12345)
  2. Paste the reservation link into your profile on Instagram (from your mobile phone)
    • Login in to your Establishment’s Instagram Page.
    • Tap on Edit profile.
    • Tap Bio and type "Reservations:" (optional)
    • Then tap Add external link.
    • In “URL” paste your reservation widget link
    • In Title add Reservations (optional)
    • Tap Done in order to finish the process.

Need more help? Follow the steps on the screen:

You are all set! You can now receive reservations via Instagram

  1. Copy the short reservation link from DISH Reservation
    • Access DISH Reservation
    • Go to Integrations
    • Select Standalone Page
    • Copy reservation widget link (ex. https://reserve.dish.co/12345)
  2. Paste the reservation link into your “About Us” Section on Facebook
  • Login to your Establishment’s Facebook Page.
  • Click on Add Bio in the Intro Section.
  • Paste the reservation widget link (ex: Reservations: https://reserve.dish.co/12345)
  • Save your progress.

Facebook users can now easily reserve via this link!

If you wish to remove the "Reserve" button on Facebook, you can easily follow this steps:

  1. Login to Facebook.
  2. Switch to your establishments Facebook Profile.
  3. Click on “…”
  4. Click on Edit Action Button.
  5. Click Delete Button.
  6. Save you progress.

With this, your reserve button will no longer be available on Facebook and on Instagram.

Need more help? Watch this video:

 No, your guests do not receive a SMS. However, when reserving a table via Google, your client receives an email confirming that a reservation was made. 

A person can reserve a table for a maximum of 12 people via Reserve with Google. 

 Your guests can reserve a table up to 30 days in advance.

 Google has not activated this function in these countries.

Once you completed the onboarding wizzard, it takes Google up to 5 business days to activate "Reserve a Table" on Google.

If the "Reserve a Table" button does not appear on Google, it could be that the restaurant details (name, address) you entered for your restaurant on DISH.co do not match the name of your restaurant as entered in Google My Business. Please make sure the details match, either by changing the name or address for your restaurant on DISH.co or by changing it on Google My Business. Check out our tutorial on how to to activate "Reserve a Table" on Google My Business here.

If guests can book a room to sleep at your place via Google, you won't be able to activate the "Reserve a Table" button. You will have to choose whether your guests can "Reserve a Table" or book a stay. You can select this on Google My Business. This case might occur if you have a hotel with a restaurant attached. Check out our tutorial on how to to activate "Reserve a Table" on Google my Business here.

Also, for Google to display the "Reserve a table" button it needs to recognise you as an establishment, where reservations are considered useful. That means, the button will appear for Cafés, Bars, Restaurants, Beer Gardens, etc. but not for e.g. sportsclubs or hotels. You can check on Google Maps as what type of establishment Google considers you.

Tutorial - How to integrate the reservation tool into Google My Business

Yes, you can. You can configure additional text in Settings/Notifications, which will be automatically added to every confirmation e-mail to your guests. You can not send an customise inidividual e-mails. To cancel a reservation, you can simply click on the cancel button. This will open a window, where you will be able to add a text to the cancellation email the user would receive (to see how this works, click here).

Yes, you can. When clicking on the cancel button in your reservation overview, a window will open in which you can decide not to inform the client about the reservation.

No. Your reviews are not displayed on Google. You can display them on your DISH Website or any website you are using.

If you click on publish my reviews, your reviews can be shown on your website.

 If you are using a website of DISH, you can simply publish feedback entries, which you would like to have on your website. If you have an own website, you can simply HTML copy code into your website. You find the code in the HELP section.

No, your reservation is still valid. You can overbook a table if you want to, and you don't need to move or cancel your reservation. You can simply keep the reservation. With this message, we simply want to highlight that you overbooked your table in case you didn't notice.

Unless your guest clicks on "Remember me", when making a reservation online, we are only allowed to keep the guest information for 2 weeks after the reservation. If the same guest does multiple reservations, but does not activate the "remember me" button, we would create a new guest entry for each new reservation, and delete the old data after the reservation happened. This is how double entries can happen.  

SMS are no longer the best way to deliver important notifications concerning your reservations. They are short, expensive and limited in their possibilities. That is why we have switched over to push notifications.  

You keep all the advantages of SMS, and in addition can: 

  • Easily see any upcoming reservation in your new notification centre 
  • Instantly see last minute changes to your reservation 
  • Add an unlimited number of staff members to be notified 
  • Directly accept a reservation request via a link in the notification 
  • Get more information, e.g. view guest feedback and details of change requests 

To get push notifications you need to:  

  • have an active DISH Professional Reservation or DISH Premium subscription 
  • be registered as a user with the role “Owner” or “Reservation Manager” to get notification permissions. Learn how get or give permissions here 
  • download the free DISH App on Google Store (Android) or App Store (iOS) 
  • allow the DISH App to send you Push Notifications  

Push notifications are available on smartphones and tablets. They are not available for laptops and desktop computers. 

Which push notifications you can receive, depends on the role that you have been assigned to on Dish.co. If you want to receive all notifications, simply ensure multiple roles have been assigned to you.  

Find out how to assign a role here 

Overview of what notifications you can receive based on the Role 

 

Owner 

Reservation Manager 

Feedback  Manager 

New Reservation 

Yes 

Yes 

 

No 

 

New Reservation Request 

Yes 

 

Yes 

 

No 

 

Cancelled Reservation 

Yes 

 

Yes 

 

No 

 

Changed Reservation 

Yes 

 

Yes 

 

No 

 

New Guest Feedback 

Yes 

 

No 

Yes 

Team Member accepted invitation to join as a user 

Yes 

 

No 

 

No 

 

 

If you want someone from your team to receive reservation related push notifications, you need to ensure he or she:  

  • has a user account on Dish.co connected to your establishment 
  • has permissions to receive push notifications, by being the “Owner” or having the role “Reservation Manager” assigned. “Feedback Managers” only receive feedback related notifications.  

Here is how to create a new user account and activate push notifications for a team member:  

To add a new team member, you need to be the “Owner” of the account.  

  • Login on Dish.co 
  • From “Current Establishment” select the establishment you wish to add a team member to
  • On top right, tap your profile name 
  • Tap “My establishments” on drop-down menu 
  • On header tap “My Team" 
  • Ensure your name is mentioned in the “Owner Section”. Only owners can add new team members. If it’s not you, ask the “Owner” to add a team member.  
  • Tap "+Add Person” 
  • Type Name, Phone number and email of colleague 
  • In section “Assign roles to your tools” click on DISH Reservation  
  • Tick the box describing the role you want to assign your colleague 
  • Select “Reservations Manager” 
  • Tap “Confirm” 

Your colleague will receive an e-mail with the subject line “Join [establishment name] on DISH”. Ask him to accept the reservation and login or sign up. After the login or sign up is done, your colleague will be asked to accept the invitation. Once it’s accepted, he can login to reservation.dish.co and access the tools with the permissions you have given him. 

Congratulations! Your colleague can now receive notifications.  

Here is how to add permissions for an existing user account:  

  • Login on Dish.co 
  • From “Current Establishment” select the establishment you wish to add a team member to
  • On top right, tap your profile name 
  • Tap “My establishments” on drop-down menu 
  • On header tap “My Team" 
  • Tap on “Edit” Icon next to your colleague’s name 
  • In section “Assign roles to your tools” click on DISH Reservation  
  • Tick the box describing the role you want to assign your colleague 
  • Select “Reservations Manager” (will give permission for push notifications). 
  • Tap “Save” 

Congratulations! You have given your colleague permission to receive push notifications.  

All push notifications are stored in your Notification Centre in the DISH App. There you can see an overview of all future reservations and reservation requests. You can also view cancelled or changed reservations, change requests as well as notifications for new feedback. All reservation related notifications are kept for two weeks after the reservation ended.  

The notification centre is available in the free DISH App. To access it, simply click on the bell icon on the top right of your DISH App.  

Yes, you can. If you have several establishments and have the permissions to receive push notifications for them, you will receive all notifications on your mobile and tablet device.   

To disable push notifications, follow these steps:  

A) On iOS devices (iPhones or iPads)  

  1. Go to Settings and tap Notifications. 
  2. Select the DISH App under Notification Style. 
  3. Disable “Allow Notifications” 

B) On Android devices 

  1. Open your device's Settings app. 
  2. Tap Notifications
    and then
  3. Tap the app. 
  4. Turn off the app's notifications: You can turn off all notifications for a listed app or choose from specific categories. 

To get push notifications on your phone or tablet you need to have:  

  • An active DISH Professional Reservation or DISH Premium subscription. Free subscriptions do not receive push notifications.  
  • Be registered as a user with the role “Owner” or “Reservation Manager”.  
  • Download the DISH App on Google Store (Android) or on the App Store (iOS) 
  • Enable the DISH App to send you push notifications 

To enable push notifications for new app installations, simply consent to receive push notifications via the pop-up button presented to you when first opening the DISH app.   

To enable push notifications for your existing app, follow the following steps:  

A) On iOS devices (iPhones or iPads)  

  1. Go to Settings and tap Notifications. 
  2. Select the DISH App under Notification Style. 
  3. Activate “Allow Notifications” 

B) On Android devices 

  1. Open your device's Settings app. 
  2. Tap Notifications
    and then
  3. Tap the app. 
  4. Turn the app's notifications on or off: You can turn off all notifications for a listed app or choose from specific categories. 

Yes, this is possible. You can receive push notifications and keep on using the web version of DISH Reservation. All you need to do is this:  

  • Download the DISH App to get push notifications 
  • Keep on using the web version of DISH Reservation for your daily reservation management 

Yes, you will continue receiving email notifications for reservations, reservation requests, changes to reservation and guest feedback.

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