General Help Topics: How are orders sent to my restaurant?

At present, there are three methods for receiving orders that are placed via the eHungry.com application by your customers. There are also several methods for receiving notification of order receipt, and we will discuss those after we talk a little about how the orders themselves are sent to you.

Receive Orders by E-Mail

Please note this option is FREE! Anytime a customer places an order, one of the options you have is to receive an instant e-mail notification of that order. To set this up you need to be logged in as the restaurant manager. At the top of the homepage, click on the “Restaurant Manager” section. Then select “Add, edit, or Remove Restaurant Locations.” Then where it says “Currently Receives Orders by:”, you are able to enter or change e-mail settings by clicking on the “change this” link at the end of that line. A small window will open allowing you to select how you would like to receive your orders, and a place is provided for you below to enter your fax number and/or e-mail address for receiving orders depending on which option(s) you choose. For example, if you want to receive orders by e-mail only, select “E-mail Only” in the “Receive Orders by” drop down menu, enter a valid e-mail address in the “E-mail Address for Receiving Orders:” line below, save changes, and you’re done! When you receive an e-mail notification for an order, it will be sent to you in an attached PDF file. Please note if you have more than one location, the settings you enter will only apply to the location you are working on. If you would like to apply the same or different settings to another location, you will need to select that location as well and repeat the same process. In the “Receive Orders by” drop down menu, you will also see options of receiving notification by a “Fax” or a “Thermal Printer.” Those options are discussed below.

Fax

You may also receive order via fax. This can be convenient because a fax machine can be placed anywhere, such as right near the cook's area. Plus, you probably already have a fax machine and a phone line. Please note there is a small fee for each fax you choose to receive with this option. Setting this up is the same as mentioned above for e-mail. First, you should be logged in as the restaurant manager. Then, at the top of the page, click on the “Restaurant Manager” link. Then click on “Add, edit, or Remove Restaurant Locations.” Where it says “Currently Receives Orders by:”, you are able to enter or change fax settings by clicking on the “change this” link at the end of that line. A small window will open allowing you to select how you would like to receive your orders, and a field is provided for you below to enter your fax number and/or e-mail address for receiving orders depending on which option(s) you choose. Where you are able to select how you would like to receive your orders, just as you were able to do above for e-mail, you can also select “fax” as an option (by itself, or along with e-mail). Please be sure to enter a valid fax number in space provided below, click on save changes, and you have completed this process as well. It is not necessary to enter the "1" for a long distance US/Canada number. Please note again that these settings will only apply to the current location you have selected to change these settings on, if you have more than one location. As you can probably see, there are several methods and combinations for receiving an order. Those include E-Mail only, fax only, e-mail and fax orders, thermal printer only, and thermal printer and e-mail. We want you to be able to choose the best option(s) for you.

Thermal Printer

The third, and perhaps most reliable option for receiving orders is by specially configured Internet-enabled thermal receipt printers that can be connected to your local broadband network and receive orders directly from our servers via your Cable Modem or DSL connection. This method is much faster than faxes, eliminates the worry about things like busy signals, blocked emails, and other issues that might arise when receiving orders via fax or email. These printers are small and durable, can be placed in your kitchen prep area, and periodically check in with our servers to download and print any orders that are waiting for you. If your broadband connection goes down, these printers just wait until it comes back up and then retrieves any orders that are still waiting for it.

It is not possible to use just any thermal printer for this purpose, and although we are often asked whether your existing thermal printers will work for this purpsoe, probably they will not, since these printers must (a) be Internet-enabled and (b) be configured to communicate correctly with the eHungry.com servers. At this time, we sell and configure these printers for a one-time fee of $500.00 per printer.

So, there you have the three methods for order receipt. However, often when restaurants choose to receive orders by email or fax, or even sometimes when they elect to receive them by thermal printer, it is necessary to provide some more obvious notification to restaurant and/or kitchen managers that orders have have been received. Imagine a slow afternoon; a fax comes in, but no one notices it. Walking by the fax machine an hour later and seeing it lying there waiting for you is too late! We provide several methods for receiving instant notification whenever an order is received.

Automated Phone Notification

The phone notification option allows you to set up having a phone call placed to any US/Canada-based number of your choice each time a customer order comes in via e-mail, fax, thermal printer, or a combination of those. Let's say you have selected e-mail and fax for your order delivery methods. It could be a busy day at the restaurant, and the person who usually monitors for those orders may be out on the floor helping out. One simple phone call can save you from not realizing an order came in, and also from a disgruntled customer who shows up on his or her lunch break to find out their order was not received and/or is not ready.

You can also be notified with an SMS text message, which is discussed below. Setting up a phone notification is an easy process. You must be logged in as the restaurant manager to do this. At the top of the page, click on the “Restaurant Manager” link. Then click on the "Add, Edit, or Remove Restaurant Locations" link. At the bottom left of this page, you will see a link that says “Edit/View Additional Details for this Location.” Select that link and then select the "Phone & SMS" link near the top of the page. You will see a place to set up an automated phone call, a SMS text message, and below that you will see an option to set up a Blackout Setting. That will also be discussed below. If you are wanting to set up the phone option, simply select the box on the line that ways “I want to be notified by an automated phone call whenever a new order is placed for this location:”, enter a valid telephone number in the line below, click on save changes, and you have completed this process. Please note there is a small fee for each phone call received with this option. In the phone call you receive, an operator will notify you that you have received a new order, tell you the customer’s name, and provide you with the call back number for that customer.

SMS Text Message Notification

You may also receive notification that a new order has been placed via SMS text message. You may choose to have both a phone and text message notification, or just one of these options. One of the other many nice features about phone and text notifications is that you have the option of entering in different phone numbers for the phone and text options. If you want two people to be able to receive notifications and one of them would prefer get phone calls, that person’s number can receive the phone calls, and the other person who would like to receive notification can receive text messages. Setting up text messages is done on the exact same screen where phone calls are set up. If you want to set up text message notifications, select the box on the line that says “I want to be notified by a SMS text message whenever a new order is placed for this location:”, enter a valid telephone number on the line below, select save changes, and you have completed this process. Please note there is a small fee for each text messaged received with this option. On each text message you will receive the customer’s name and a call back number will be displayed.

Notification Blackout Settings

On the same screen where you were able to set up phone and/or text message notifications, you will also have the option to set something called a “Blackout Setting.” This setting enables you to turn off the phone and/or text notifications you have set up at any time you wish. For example, if you find you are receiving a considerable amount of orders at a particular given time, it might be annoying to get 50 phone calls and/or text messages in an hour. This feature allows you to turn those notifications off during that hour, if you wish to do so. To set this up, this is done on the same screen that setting up phone and text notifications are done on. This option is located at the bottom of the screen under the heading “Notification Blackout Settings.”

To add a blackout time (a time where phone and/or sms text messages are not notified to the number you have selected them to be sent to), simply click on the “Add New” button. Enter your begin time, end time, if it applies to phone, sms texts, or both, then click on “Add.” You will now see the blackout time saved into the system. If you no longer wish to have this blackout applied, simply click on the “Remove” link on the corresponding line once it has been saved into the system. We hope this feature will be helpful for you, if you choose to use it.

Fax Failure Notification

It is sometimes a possibility that your fax machine might not be working or may be busy at the time a customer order is coming in by fax. We have an option that can help you. We can have a phone and/or text message automatically sent to you in the event that this happens. If you are interested in this option, please contact us.