Intro to OpenTable Connect OpenTable Connect is for restaurant use to edit availability and view reservations booked by the OpenTable system.
Log In To log into OpenTable Connect you need to visit connect.opentable.com You will then be prompted for your site username and password.
Your Restaurant Once you have logged in, you will be required to select your restaurant, you can search in the box by name. Please note on the right hand side of the restaurant name there is the restaurant ID number. This is useful to note down in case you need to contact the OT support team.
Reservations Once you have logged in, the website will open on the home screen & reservations page (front of house screen). This page will show you all of the OpenTable reservations for the day selected. Each booking can be clicked on and the individual details can be viewed. Here the main feature which is useful for IRC sites to use, is the noted drop down menu. This can be updated so the site knows the booking has been noted on RESv5. Guest notes can also be viewed here, such as requested conservatory or gluten free, these can also be added to RESv5.
Date Selection To select a different date to view reservations you can either click on the arrows to scroll or you can click directly on the date to open the monthly calendar. (This is located at the centre-top of the screen). The monthly calendar will also give you an overview of total covers bookable by OpenTable and how many have already been booked for that session.
Printing a report for the selected day Back in the home screen, once you have selected a date to view upcoming bookings, you can print a report. Click on the print logo and then a preview of the booking report will pop-up. Press print on the pop-up.
Blocking reservations for the selected day Back in the home screen, with the correct date selected you can also block reservations for the selected day. This is done simply by clicking on the 3 dot symbol in the top right hand corner. Then choosing the block reservations option. This will then prompt you to confirm the block for the required day. To unblock reservations for the day, click the 3 dot menu and press resume reservations.
Editing remaining availability for the selected date Back in the home screen, with the correct date selected you can also edit remaining availability for the selected day. This is done simply by clicking on the 3 dot symbol in the top right hand corner. Then choosing the adjust availability option. This will then prompt you to edit the available cover numbers for each session of the selected day.
Menu Options As well as the home screen for reservations, there is also a menu option with other areas that you can edit. If you click the menu symbol on the home page, this will give you 3 other options. - Front of House (home screen) -Availability Planning -Settings
Availability You can change availability for the site by clicking on Availability Planning on the menu page. This will open the availability screen. The page will automatically open on the schedule section, which shows the settings for the general schedule of open table bookings at the site. (highlighted in blue) There is also a section for special days.
Editing the schedule To edit the main schedule for the site, once in the schedule page, click on the session you would like to edit. Selected here is Lunch, as an example, once you click on the session, you can see it is highlighted in blue around each square for each day. This will also bring up the session details on the right hand side.
Editing the session details Once you have selected the session, the session details will appear on the right. Here you can name the session, edit the min and max party size bookable and also edit the maximum covers taken within the session time.
Capacity Settings There are more in-depth editing options available on the session details menu. If you scroll down there is another option to delete the session and also a button for capacity settings. If you click here, you will be taken to the capacity page. Here you can set the maximum capacity accepted at each time slot using the slider. If you click custom time you can set different numbers of covers at each time slot on the session. For example, 10 covers at 6.30pm and 7 covers at 7pm.
Editing the session time Editing the session timings is very simple. All you need to do is click and drag either the start or end of the session boxes to change the start and end time of the session. There can be a gap between lunch and dinner or they can be right after each other.
Adding a new session You may want to add a new session, for example if your site starts to serve breakfast. Simply click the add button in top right hand corner of the schedule screen. This will add a new session at the start of the day. You can then move the timings and edit the session details to your liking as before.
Removing/adding a session from a specific day To remove or add a specific session, such as dinner, from a specific day, you simply click the minus or plus sign on the session box of the specific day. This site prefer not to take OT bookings on a Saturday evening, so they have removed the session from this day.
Adding a special session on a specific day of the week An example of this would be where you would like the Saturday dinner session to only allow 20 covers maximum, rather than 40 covers on all of the other dinner sessions. This is a little trickier to do. First you need to remove the current session from your chosen day, using the minus sign. Then add another session, using the add button, this will automatically appear at the earliest timeslot for all days. Cont..
Adding a special session on a specific day of the week Remove the sessions using the minus signs for the days you don t want the specific session. You will then be left with a session on your chosen day. Drag the session to the times you would like and use the session details bar to change any covers or booking preferences.
Special Days On connect you are able to create availability for specific dates rather than just days of the week. In the availability section, click on the special days link, highlighted here in blue. This will show you a list of any special days you have created, allow you to create a special date or close a range of dates. In this example, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year s Day, have been created as special days and the whole day has been closed.
Creating a Special Day To create a special day, in the special screen, click add and then select the date from the calendar pop-up. This will open the date and you will be shown the option to simply close the day or create specific sessions for the day.
Creating a Special Day To close the date, simply click on the closed button. To edit by adding a session, such as breakfast, click on add a shift. This will give you the option to add the standard sessions for the day or to create a new session. To create a new one, click on add new shift under custom shifts on the drop down. This will then add in the new shift and using the shift details as before you can customize the timings and the cover sizes of the shift.
Closing a date range If you need to close a range of days, this is done on the special day area. Choose close date range in the top right corner. Select the start date and end date on the pop up calendar to choose the date range to close off. You can name this for example, refurbishment and then select save.
Special Days To delete a special day or remove a closed date range. Got to special days and click on the selected day in the list. Select open from the tab for a closed date range or closed day. For a special day that is open but using special sessions, click on the shift and press customize, you will then see the option to revert to normal schedule. Click this to make the day a normal schedule day instead of a special day.
Publish updates After every update, you must publish the changes, whether you have changed the shift, added a special day or blocked reservations. You will be prompted to do this by a green button in the top right hand corner. Press this to publish updates and confirm the update on the pop up screen.
Problem reservations If you make a change and publish the updates, this can cause problems with reservations already booked in. For example, if you close a day that already has bookings in. When you publish updates it will inform you of the problem reservations, click resolve now to view them. They will also appear in the main menu under problem reservations. Here you can view them if you need to call and inform the guests the restaurant has to be closed for example.
Restaurant profile and editing The last option on the menu is the Restaurant Settings option. Here you can view the restaurant profile. If you need to make amends to any images/opening times/info on the OpenTable website for your restaurant or any changes to how you receive booking notifications, please contact the team at resv5@individualrestaurants.com There are small changes you can make in the restaurant profile section, but most need to be made by the support team. Please contact us as well for any password changes or updates to logins.