Get set up
New to Sidedoor? Follow the getting-started walkthrough to create your venue, configure availability, set policies and connect Stripe for payouts.
Venue & operator guides
Welcome to the Sidedoor operator guides. This is the documentation for the client portal ↗ - the app you and your team use to run your venues.
Whether you run a single bar or a group of venues under one operator account, the portal is where you run the whole operation. It’s where you configure availability and your table plans, take and approve bookings, manage your live reservation floor, list and ticket events, and check guests in at the door.
Beyond the day-to-day, it’s also where you build guest relationships — your CRM, loyalty and memberships, two-way messaging and marketing campaigns — keep an eye on performance with dashboards, reports and forecasts, set up your menus, promos, vouchers and branding, apply the rules and policies that fit your venue, connect integrations like your till/POS, embed booking widgets on your own site, manage your team and their roles, and get paid through Stripe.
Two ways to navigate
Section titled “Two ways to navigate”The portal has two navigation contexts, and it helps to know which one you’re in:
- Operator-wide - the main menu you land on in the client portal ↗. Everything here spans all the venues you can access: your combined Dashboard, Guests, Bookings, Reservations, Events, the Venues list, Access and operator Settings.
- Per-venue - once you open a specific venue, the menu switches to that venue’s own context, so everything you do now applies to just that one venue. This is where the real day-to-day tools live: the venue Dashboard analytics, its Bookings and Reservations floor, Events, Vouchers, Floorplan and all of its Settings.
Use the Back item (or the breadcrumbs) to jump out of a venue and back to the operator-wide menu. A venue switcher remembers your active venue between sessions.
Start here
Section titled “Start here”Find your way around
Take the portal tour to learn the menus, global search and the Inbox.
Run the floor
Work your live reservations table plan and manage guest-list bookings.
Get paid
Connect Stripe and understand deposits and card holds.
All the guides
Section titled “All the guides”Managing your venuesCreate venues, publish them and request an app listing.
The venue Dashboard30-day KPIs, trends and current-state tiles.
Guest-list bookingsApprove, reject and add guests to the list.
ReservationsThe live table plan, drag-to-assign and deposit holds.
EventsCreate events, ticket types and approve promoter events.
Guests & CRMThe guest directory, Sidedoor Score and client tags.
Team, roles & permissionsAdd staff and build custom roles.
Your account & securityProfile, two-factor and Screen Lock.
Operator settingsOperator info, key contacts and Stripe payouts.
Door check-inScan QR codes and check guests in at the door.
Deposits & card holdsHow the card-hold model works, end to end.