Tables & the floorplan

Your tables are the backbone of the reservations floor. Under each venue’s Settings → Tables tab you’ll set the default rules for table bookings, define your seating areas, draw your floorplan, and manage combinations and blocking. The floorplan you build here is exactly what your team works on the live reservations grid.

The Tables tab has several panels: General, Pricing, Combinations / Blocking and the Floorplan editor.

General - table defaults

The General panel sets the rules that apply to table bookings unless a shift or access rule overrides them.

Setting	What it does
Table Bookings	Master switch to enable table reservations for the venue.
Smart reassignment	Once a day, automatically moves unlocked reservations to the best-fitting table for their party size and time. Choose when it runs: 1 hour before the first shift (the default - it plans with the day’s bookings already in and skips closed days) or at a set time you pick (default 06:00). Locked bookings (guest-picked or card-held) are left untouched.
Smart duration	Holds the table longer for larger parties. You set three values: the large-party size at which extra time kicks in, the extra minutes per cover added from that size onwards, and an optional overall cap on the total.
Pre-order cutoff	How close to the start time a pre-order request can still be sent or used, in minutes. Leave it blank to allow pre-orders right up to the start time.

Seating areas

Seating areas group your tables into meaningful zones - for example Main Room, Terrace, Bar or Booths. Areas are used when you assign tables, when guests or profiles request a preferred area, and to group the reservations list by area. Define your areas here before you tag tables with them on the floorplan.

Seating area groups

Seating Area Groups let you show guests one simple choice while keeping your detailed area split for your team. Name a group - for example Inside - and tick the areas it combines, such as High tables and Low tables. When a guest picks Inside while booking, they can be seated in any of its areas.

Click + Add Group, enter the Name guests will see, tick the Seating areas in this group, then Save.
Click a group to rename it or change its areas. Drag groups to set the order guests see them in.
Each area can belong to one group at most. Ticking an area that’s already in another group moves it to this one. You can also set an area’s Group from the area’s own edit panel (choose No group to take it out).
Delete a group to un-group its areas. The areas themselves and their tables are kept, and the group is removed from any table profile that offered it.

Groups only change what guests see and pick. Your grid, floorplan, reservations list and reports still show the real area each booking is seated in. Whenever a guest chooses a seating area themselves, whether a group or a single area, the booking panel adds a Guest picked: name line so your team knows what they chose. Capacity, table allocation and pricing work exactly as they do for single areas - a group just gives Sidedoor more tables to choose from.

Grid colours

Grid colours let you set the colours used on the reservations grid - for example distinguishing statuses or areas at a glance - so your team can read the floor quickly during service.

The floorplan editor

The Floorplan panel is a visual editor where you lay out your venue to scale. It’s the same plan your team sees (read-only) on the venue’s Floorplan viewer and works live during service.

Rooms and floors

A venue can have multiple rooms or floors. Use the rooms dropdown to switch between them, and Manage to add, rename, remove or reorder rooms. Each room has its own layout. Drag a room to reorder the list: the room in position one is the default, the one the floorplan and viewer open to.

Tools

The editor toolbar gives you draggable tiles: drag one onto the canvas to place it, or click a tile then click the canvas. There’s no separate select tool - the canvas selects and pans by default.

Tables - drop a new table; choose the shape as you add it: Round, Rectangle, Square or Oval.
Objects - place passive objects (walls, pillars, bars, doors, plants and other décor) that aren’t bookable but help your team orient.
Border - draw the room outline.

Save sits in the Floorplan page header (top right, next to Manage Rooms), not in the tile toolbar. Zoom controls (in, out, fit) float in the bottom-right corner of the canvas, and you can also scroll to zoom.

Table properties

Select any table to edit its properties:

Property	Notes
Number	The table’s label, as your team refers to it.
Type	standard, low, high, booth or bar.
Shape	Round, rectangle, square or oval.
Size	The physical size on the plan.
Min / max covers	The smallest and largest party the table seats.
Area	Which seating area the table belongs to.
Colour	A colour for the table on the plan.

Min/max covers matter: they’re what lets the system (and smart reassignment) match a party to a table that actually fits.

Building a floorplan

Open Settings → Tables → Floorplan and pick or create a room from the rooms dropdown.
Use the Border tool to draw the outline of the room to roughly match its real shape.
Add passive objects - bar, walls, pillars, doors - with the Objects tool so the plan is recognisable to your team.
Add your tables with the Tables tool, choosing each table’s shape as you place it, and drag them into position.
Select each table and set its number, type, min/max covers, area and colour.
Set up any table combinations for tables you join together for big parties.
Select Save from the page header (next to Manage Rooms). Repeat for each additional room or floor.

Combinations

Combinations are two or more tables you routinely push together for larger parties. On the floorplan, Ctrl-select two or more tables and combine them. Once combined, the tables behave as a group on the reservations grid - moving one moves its siblings, and a large party can be seated across the combination.

You can also manage combinations from the Combinations / Blocking panel, which shows a grid by room with actions to Combine, Delete combo, Edit combination capacity, Set type and Set area in bulk.

Blocking tables

Blocking takes a table out of service so it can’t be booked - for a reserved-for-walk-ins table, a broken table, or a section held back for an event. From the Combinations / Blocking panel you can Block and Unblock tables.

Blocked tables appear hatched on the reservations grid, and staff assigning a booking to a blocked table are warned before overriding.