Kitchen Display System (KDS)
The Kitchen Display System (KDS) replaces the paper kitchen ticket with a screen. Orders arrive on it the moment they are sent, kitchen staff move them through preparation as they work, and the whole brigade sees the same state at the same time.
A KDS screen runs the same Posbel app as the register. What makes it a kitchen display is the App Mode of the user it signs in as — see Setup.
Warning
The kitchen display must first be switched on for your establishment by your Posbel account manager, with the Enable kitchen display setting. Until that is done, assigning the KDS app mode to a user has no effect. See Features Enabled by Posbel.
How an Order Reaches the Screen
Sending an order to the kitchen puts every one of its lines on the display at once, in the Pending state. Nothing else has to be configured per product.
This happens for orders taken anywhere:
- on the register, when the order is sent
- from the self-ordering kiosk
- from the webshop and the digital menu
Note
The display is not driven by printer routing. A product does not need a kitchen printer, and does not need its group's Print option switched on, to appear on a screen. What a given screen shows is decided by that screen's KDS Product Groups — see Setup.
What Never Appears
Three kinds of line are kept off the display on purpose:
| Line | Why |
|---|---|
| A cancelled item's reversing line | The original stays on screen flagged instead, so the kitchen sees one item struck off rather than two lines to reconcile |
| A line with a manually set price | It reproduces something already charged rather than a new thing to make |
| A negative line entered for a fiscal reason | Same: it corrects the account, it does not order food |
The Preparation States
Every line on the display carries a state, and staff move it forward as work progresses.
| State | Column | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Pending | Pending | Received, not yet started |
| Preparing | In Progress | Being prepared |
| Completed | Ready | Finished, waiting to go out |
| Served | (none) | Handed over — the line leaves the display |
Moving a line forward is called bumping; moving it back is unbumping. Bumping from Ready marks the line served and clears it off the screen, which is how a display empties itself over a service.
Tip
Nothing is lost when a line is bumped out of Ready. The account, its items and its money are untouched — only the kitchen's view of it ends.
An account also carries an overall state, worked out from its lines: it is Ready only when every line is finished, In Progress as soon as one line is under way, and Pending only while all of them still are.
Note
Closing the shift clears every preparation state in the establishment, so each service starts from an empty display.
Display Modes
Two modes decide how orders are grouped on screen. The mode is set per user, so one establishment can run both at once.
Standard Mode
The default, and the mode for a cooking station.
An account appears in every column its items are in — the same table shows in Pending for what has not been started and in In Progress for what is already on the pass, each card listing only the items in that state. Staff work item by item.
Call Screen Mode
For a pass, a call screen or a runner station.
An account appears exactly once, in the single column matching its overall state, and the card shows only the order-level information, without the item list. Staff read one status per order at a glance.
The Two Side by Side
| Standard mode | Call screen mode | |
|---|---|---|
| An order appears | in every column its items are in | once, in one column |
| The card lists | the items in that column | no items |
| The card shows a timer | yes | no |
| Moves to In Progress | per item, as each is started | as soon as any one item is started |
| Moves to Ready | per item, as each is finished | only when every item is finished |
| Suits | a cooking station | a pass, a call screen, a runner |
Setting the Mode
The mode is set per KDS user in the Posbel Admin panel:
- Open Users in the sidebar.
- Edit the user the screen signs in as.
- Set KDS Call Screen Mode to Yes or No, and save.
The field is on the same form as KDS Product Groups, and appears once that user's App Mode is KDS — see Users → KDS Settings. The screen picks the new mode up the next time it signs in.
Tip
The mode can also be switched on the screen itself, for one service, without changing the user — see Using the Screen.
Where to Go Next
| Page | Covers |
|---|---|
| KDS Dashboard | What is on the screen and how to read it |
| Using the Screen | Bumping, the keyboard, zoom and the settings panel |
| Setup | Putting a screen into service and deciding what it shows |