Order schedule

The order schedule gives your ordering a weekly rhythm. You set up when each supplier order is due, for example "vegetables every Tuesday by 16:00, delivered Thursday". Spensa then shows today's orders on the Home page, reminds the right people, and starts each order pre-filled, so nothing is forgotten.

What this is for

• Plan weekly ordering slots: which supplier, for which location, on which day, by what time.
• Attach a published order template, so the order starts pre-filled.
• See the whole week as a calendar, or as a list grouped by supplier.
• See today's due orders on the Home page, on the web and on the phone.
• Start an order straight from a slot, with location, supplier, and delivery date already set.
• Remind chosen people before the order deadline.
• Mark a slot as handled when the order was placed another way.

Where to open it

On the web app, open Order Schedule in the left sidebar. The app may say "establishment" in some places; that means a location.

Today's slots also appear on the Home page, both on the web and in the phone app. The phone app shows today's schedule and lets you order from it; setting up and editing the schedule is done on the web.

Access and permissions

Everyone in your organization can see the schedule and today's slots. Creating, editing, and deleting slots needs permission to create orders. All team members except viewers have this by default. Marking a slot as handled needs no special permission.

How the schedule works

The schedule is made of slots. A slot is one weekly recurring order and holds:

• A location and a supplier. These are fixed once the slot exists.
• An optional name, for example "Weekend prep order".
• An optional published order template. Draft templates cannot be chosen.
• The order day and the time the order must be placed by.
• The delivery day.
• An optional reminder: a time and the people to remind.

Slots repeat every week on the same day. There are no one-off or monthly slots.

All times use the location's local time.

Create a slot

1. Open Order Schedule.
2. Click New schedule. In the calendar view you can also click the plus on a weekday to start with that day.
3. Choose the location and the supplier. If you change either one, a chosen template is cleared, because templates belong to one location and supplier.
4. Optionally enter a name in Schedule label.
5. Optionally pick an Order template. Only published templates for this location and supplier appear. You can also choose No template.
6. Choose the day under Order On and the deadline under Order by. The time starts at 16:00.
7. Choose the day under Delivery On. Spensa suggests two days after the order day until you change it.
8. Save.

The slot now appears in the calendar and, on its weekday, on the Home page.

Add a reminder

While creating or editing a slot:

1. Click Add reminder.
2. Set the Alert Time. It must be before the order deadline on the same day.
3. Under Notify, pick the people to remind. You can pick up to 20 team members.

To remove the reminder later, open the slot and click Remove reminder.

The location's timezone

The form shows which timezone the times use, with a link to change it. The timezone belongs to the location, so changing it affects every schedule slot of that location. Review your slots after changing it.

Calendar and list views

Use the Display menu to switch views.

• Calendar (the default) shows the week from Monday to Sunday. Each slot card shows its name, supplier, location, template, the "by" time, the delivery day, and a small bell with the time when a reminder is set.
• List groups slots by supplier, then by location. Long groups show the first three slots and a "+3 more" line you can expand.

You can filter by location and supplier in both views, and by weekday in the list view. Active filters appear as chips, with Clear all filters to reset. Clicking any slot opens it for editing.

Today's order schedule on the Home page

On the day a slot is due, it appears on the Home page.

• On the web, open the Today's Order Schedule tab on Home. It appears once you have created slots. A Manage Schedule link takes you to the full schedule.
• On the phone, the Home screen shows a "Today's order schedule" section with a status badge on each slot.

Each slot shows one of three statuses:

• Pending - the order has not been placed yet.
• Sent - an order started from this slot was sent to the supplier today.
• Done - you marked the slot as handled for today. Colleagues still see it as pending, but reminders stop for everyone.

The Home page also shows deliveries arriving today, based on the delivery dates of your orders.

Start the order from a slot

Click or tap a pending slot. Spensa starts a new order with the location, the supplier, and the delivery date already filled in. The delivery date is the next occurrence of the slot's delivery day.

The template is chosen like this:

• If the slot has a template, that template is used.
• If not, and exactly one published template exists for this location and supplier, Spensa uses it automatically.
• If several templates match, a picker opens. Choose one, or start without a template. The slot's own template, if set, is marked with a star.

From there it is a normal order: enter quantities and send it. Once it is sent, the slot shows Sent for the rest of the day. See Orders.

Mark a slot as handled

If the order was placed another way, for example by phone, mark the slot as done so it stops nagging.

1. Click the check icon on the slot (on the web) or open the slot on the phone.
2. Confirm Mark as Complete.

The slot counts as handled for today and no more reminders go out for it today. Next week, on the same day, it appears as pending again. Made a mistake? Use Undo to set it back to pending. If the reminder time has not passed yet, reminders may then still go out.

Reminders

When a slot has a reminder, the chosen people are reminded on the order day at the alert time. Each person gets a message inside Spensa and a push message on their phone, saying which supplier order is due and by when.

Reminders stop by themselves when they are no longer needed:

• when an order from the slot has already been sent to the supplier today, or
• when someone marked the slot as complete for today.

Each person gets at most one reminder per slot per day.

Edit or delete a slot

1. Click the slot in the calendar or list.
2. Change what you need and save. The location and supplier stay fixed; to move a slot to another location or supplier, delete it and create a new one.
3. To remove the slot, click Delete schedule and confirm.

Deleting a slot does not touch orders that were already created from it.

How this connects to other parts of Spensa

• Orders - a slot starts a pre-filled order, and sending that order marks the slot as sent for today.
• Order Templates - slots can point to a published template, so the weekly order starts with the full item list.
• Suppliers - every slot belongs to one supplier, and the supplier needs an email address before orders can be sent.
• Notifications - reminders arrive as messages in Spensa and as push messages on the phone.
• Analytics and Home - today's slots and today's deliveries live on the Home page.
• Mobile app - the phone shows today's schedule and lets you order from it. You need an internet connection for the schedule.
• Settings and billing - your plan sets how many slots you can have.

Good to know

• On the Free plan you can have 5 slots in total, on the Basic plan 50, and on the Business plan there is no limit. There is also a limit on slots for the same location, supplier, and weekday: 3 on Free, 10 on Basic, 20 on Business. When you reach a limit, you will see an upgrade note.
• A reminder can go to up to 20 people, and the reminder time must be before the order deadline.
• The slot name can be up to 100 characters.
• If you unpublish a slot's template, the slot keeps working, but without the template until you publish it again.
• If you delete a slot's template, the slot keeps working without a template.
• Deleting a supplier also deletes its schedule slots. See Suppliers.
• The schedule is weekly only. For a one-off order, just create a normal order.
• Times are shown in each location's own timezone, so locations in different timezones each get the right deadlines.