Ordering site set-up

Who this is for: owners, general managers and whoever runs the website. Menu: Storefront (storefront.view to look; every change needs storefront.manage). How it works underneath: architecture/storefront-architecture.md.

The storefront is your customer-facing site: home page, digital and QR menu, online ordering (pickup, delivery, scheduled, at the table), table bookings, catering / private hire / event enquiries, events, gift cards, loyalty, customer accounts and order tracking. It is built from the same menu, prices, 86s, customers, loyalty programme, gift cards and reservation book the restaurant already uses — there is nothing to copy or keep in sync.

1. Create it

The first visit shows Create your storefront: enter the name and the address (the part before .jupita.net, e.g. jupita-kitchen → jupita-kitchen.jupita.net; lower-case letters, digits and hyphens; www, app, admin, api, pos, staff and similar are reserved) and tick the branches it sells from (all are ticked to start with). It starts as a Draft: only signed-in staff of your business can see it (a Preview banner shows), so you can set it up in peace.

Before you go live, open Menu → Menus & schedules and Menu → Items and check two switches:

• Show on the storefront on a menu — its items appear online while it is live (same schedule as the till).
• Sell online on an item — switch it off for things you do not want ordered online (spirits by the shot, market-price fish). Open-price items are never sold online; sold-out (86) items show as Sold out.

2. General

• Name, tagline, about — the home page text.
• Announcement bar — a line across the top of every page (“Free delivery in Kololo this week”).
• Phone, e-mail — shown in the footer and on the tracking page.
• Brand colour, accent colour — buttons, headings and the hero.
• Status — Draft (staff preview only), Live, or Paused (visible, no ordering) for a day you cannot take orders.
• Features — switch each part of the site on or off: Digital menu, QR menu, Online ordering, Pickup, Scheduled orders, Delivery, Table ordering, Reservations, Catering enquiries, Private hire enquiries, Events, Gift cards, Loyalty, Customer accounts, Order tracking. A feature that is off disappears from the site and its forms refuse requests.

3. Ordering & payment

4. Locations

For each branch: whether it is on the storefront at all, and whether it takes pickup, delivery, table ordering and reservations online. Online hours: Branch opening hours (from the branch settings) or Round the clock. Ordering “as soon as possible” is only possible while the location is open; scheduled orders and bookings must fall inside its hours.

5. Domains

Every storefront has its platform address, <name>.jupita.net. To use your own (e.g. order.yourrestaurant.com):

1. Add domain — it appears as Pending with two DNS records.
2. At your DNS provider add CNAME order.yourrestaurant.com → <name>.jupita.net and TXT _jupitapos.order.yourrestaurant.com = <token shown>.
3. Wait for DNS (minutes to a few hours) and press Verify. When the TXT record is found the domain becomes Verified and starts serving the storefront.
4. Make primary — the address used in links and on QR codes.

The hosting side must also accept the domain and have a certificate for it (on DirectAdmin: add the domain or a pointer to the JupitaPOS user and issue Let’s Encrypt); your administrator does this once per domain. Remove stops a domain serving the storefront at once.

6. Events

Add event — title, summary, description, start (and optional end), price per guest, places, location, and what the button does: Book a table, Enquiry form or Information only. Only Published events show on the site; past events drop off by themselves.

7. Table QR codes

Storefront → Table QR codes shows a printable QR code for every table of the chosen branch (the table name under each); Print prints the sheet. Scanning a code opens the menu for that table; orders go straight to the kitchen on the table’s bill and are paid at the table. New code replaces a table’s code — do it if a printed code has been copied or misused; the old one stops working at once. If Table ordering is off, the QR code opens the menu read-only (with QR menu on).

8. What customers can do

• Home — hero, links to everything that is switched on, featured dishes and what’s on. Every page carries the announcement bar, the basket and a footer with your locations, hours and contacts.
• Menu — categories, photos, descriptions, dietary tags, allergens, sizes, modifiers and combos exactly as the till offers them; the basket stays in the browser.
• Checkout — Pickup or delivery (delivery: address, area or Use my location, directions for the rider; the zone’s fee and minimum are shown), As soon as possible or Schedule (day and time), name, phone, optional e-mail, allergies, a note, marketing consent, and the payment option (online, Pay when you collect, Cash on delivery, Pay at the table).
• Tracking — a private link: received → preparing → ready / on the way → completed, the promised time, the delivery code, Pay when an online payment is still due, and Cancel this order until you accept it.
• Book a table, Events, Catering / private hire enquiry, Gift cards (check a balance, buy an e-gift card online), Loyalty (how the programme works; points when signed in) and Account (orders, bookings, points, gift cards, profile, password).

Quick answers

• Why is an item missing online? Its menu is not live or not shown online, the item is not Sell online, it is open-price or hidden, or it is not on a menu of that branch at that time.
• Why can’t customers order now? The storefront is paused or not taking orders, the location is closed (they can schedule), or the feature / location switch is off.
• A customer changed their phone number and now has two profiles. Merge them in Customers → Duplicates; their orders move with the merge.