Glossary
What this covers
Every term used across this knowledge base and the app, in plain language. Skim it once when you start — most of it will make more sense than it looks.
People and places
Workspace — your restaurant's private area of Tabledoo. Your data is separate from every other restaurant's.
Property code — the short code identifying your restaurant at sign-in. The same for everyone on your team, and the third thing you need alongside email and password (link Signing in).
Role — Owner, Manager, Host or Waitstaff. Decides what someone can see and do (link Roles and what each one can do).
Permission — one specific ability, such as manage-settings. Roles are
bundles of permissions.
Slug — the readable part of a web address, like the oldbell in
/book/oldbell. Yours identifies your public pages.
Bookings
Pax — how many people a booking is for. "A booking for 4 pax."
Covers — total people served. Pax counts one booking; covers totals them.
Walk-in — a guest seated without a prior booking. Recorded as a booking with a walk-in source, and bypasses advance-notice rules (link Walk-ins).
Waitlist — the queue of parties waiting for a table (link The waitlist).
Quick seat — turning a waitlist entry straight into a seated booking (link Quick seat).
Unassigned — a booking with no table yet. Normal for online bookings; they wait in a tray for a host to seat them (link Unassigned reservations).
No-show — a booking whose guest never arrived. Marked by staff or by an automatic sweep after the grace period (link Automatic no-shows and completion).
Tables and the room
Section — a label grouping tables: Terrace, Bar, Upstairs. Used for grouping and for reporting (link Sections).
Area — a labelled rectangle drawn on the floor plan. Decorative: it does not assign sections to the tables inside it.
Merge — joining tables for one large party. A merged booking occupies every table it uses (link Merging tables).
Primary table — on a merge, the table the booking is filed under.
Temporary table — an extra table added for a busy night, which deactivates itself after its window. Counts against your table limit while it exists (link Temporary tables).
Turn / turnaround — a turn is one use of a table; turnaround is the scheduled gap between one booking ending and the next starting (link Utilisation report).
How times are offered
Rolling slots — guests pick any time on your interval, and the booking takes your default duration. The normal mode.
Seating — a named service window, "First seating 19:00–21:00". On a seatings day guests pick a sitting rather than a time, and the window sets the duration (link Rolling slots vs fixed seatings).
Booking interval — how far apart bookable times are. 30 minutes gives 19:00, 19:30, 20:00.
Advance notice — how close to now a booking may still be made. Staff and online have separate settings.
Pacing cap — the most covers that may start in one interval, protecting your kitchen from everyone arriving at once (link Pacing: max covers per slot).
Reserved window — how long before a booking its table is treated as committed on the live floor.
Grace period — how long past its time a booking waits before being marked a no-show automatically.
Menu and ordering
Option group — a set of choices on a dish: size, cooking, extras. Can change the price (link Option groups).
Allergen tag — a label you type on a dish. Free text: Tabledoo shows what you write and never checks or infers anything (link Menu item details).
Table session — an ordering session opened when guests scan a table's code. Everyone at the table shares one basket, and it closes after three hours of inactivity (link Table sessions).
Summon — a guest pressing call waiter or request bill (link Call waiter and request bill).
Plan and billing
Plan feature — a capability your subscription includes or does not, such as Events or Webhooks. The commonest reason something is missing (link A feature or menu item is missing).
Limit — a number your plan allows: staff accounts, tables, bookings per month. Enforced, and shown where it applies rather than on one screen (link Your plan and what it includes).
Credit — the unit a text message costs. One text costs one to three credits depending on the destination country (link How SMS credits work).
Billing currency — what you pay Tabledoo in, locked at signup. Different from your restaurant's currency, which your guests pay in (link Currency and pricing).
Proration — the part-period arithmetic when you change plan mid-month. A downgrade gives credit against your next invoice, not a refund (link Changing your plan).
Security
Two-factor authentication — a code from your phone in addition to your password (link Two-factor authentication).
Recovery code — one of eight single-use codes that get you in when you have lost your phone.
IP allowlist — a restriction limiting staff sign-in to approved networks (link Restricting sign-in to your venue's network).
Bypass code — a temporary code letting someone sign in from outside the allowlist (link Bypass codes).
Audit log — the read-only record of sign-ins, password changes and security settings (link The audit log).
Integrations
API — the way another system talks to Tabledoo directly (link The API: what it's for).
API key — the secret another system uses to identify itself. Shown once, scoped to exactly what it may do (link API keys).
Scope — one thing a key is allowed to do, like reservations:read.
Webhook — a message Tabledoo sends your system the moment something happens, instead of your system repeatedly asking (link Webhooks).
Signing secret — the value your server uses to prove a webhook really came from Tabledoo (link Verifying and rotating your signing secret).
Trigger URL — the address your phone system calls so an incoming call pops on your screens (link Connecting your phone system).