INDY Theater Management System supports a wide variety of item delivery workflows.

We support the concepts of Locations, where both Items and Registers are in specific Locations (e.g. Bar, Concessions Area) and the system takes into account if Items are co-located with the Register and coordinates delivery as required.

We support Table Delivery, Theater Seat Delivery, and Express Pickup area. We also support direct delivery from each Item area or coalescing before delivery. We also support future scheduled deliveries and controls for delivering items when ready to together.

We will explore an example that covers all the scenarios INDY Theater Management System supports.

Imagine the following theater with the following elements:

Bold here represents the concept of a Location. Italics the concept of an Item.

Things to note about this configuration:
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This theater supports Counter Pickup, Express Pickup, Table Delivery, Theater Seat Delivery.

This theater is configured to deliver food directly from each location to the tables, but coalesce orders before delivery to the theater.

Item Preparation Status

There are three Item Preparation Statuses:

Locations

Locations are a foundational concept for the system. They are the physical locations at the theater that has a register or is a source of an item (e.g. food or merchandise items). Locations can optionally have a printer associated with them.

In this example the locations are:

When setting up a site in INDY Admin, both Register Station Types and Items reference the associated location. Register Stations Types are in exactly one location (or none). Items can be associated with multiple locations.

A Location is the source of the item. In our example above, Soda is the only thing that is available at both the Bar and the Concession Stand. This means that those items are co-located with registers in that location and do not need delivery workflows.

In this example, Coffee's only source is the Espresso Bar location. It is still available at other registers, but if ordered at other registers it must be delivered. For example, if ordered at the Register at the Bar, there needs to be a workflow to handle getting it to the Bar (e.g. Register Delivery) or to the Customer (e.g. Counter Pickup).

Item Co-location

Items can also be co-located with the register where the item is being placed or not. This impacts the workflows that are available for the order.

Item Delivery Types

There are five item delivery types possible:

These are only available if turned on for the site and register and only under certain circumstances.

When possible Direct to Customer and then Register Delivery is used. Only if necessary will the other delivery methods be invoked. The priority of the other delivery methods is set in admin on the Register Type.

Direct to Customer

Direct to Customer is where the employee executing the transaction is completely responsible for delivering the item to the customer. This is only available for Ready To Serve items that are co-located with the Register where this order is being placed.

Direct to Customer is not available if an order is being placed online, for the future or for an item that is not co-located with the register, and for items that require any form of preparation.

No information needs to be collected.

Register Delivery

Register Delivery is where an item is delivered directly to a Register Station. This is available for co-located Fast-Prep items and for remotely located Ready-to-Serve or Fast-Prep items.

For register delivery, a prep-ticket is printed at the appropriate printer with delivery instructions to take directly to a register. This is so no additional coordination takes place and the customer can get their item before leaving the register station.

No additional delivery information is requested. The only delivery information used is the Register Station name, which is already known.

Counter Pickup

Counter pickup is for orders that were placed remotely, for the future, or need time to prepare. Counter pickup needs an identifier. Users can configure in Admin what identifiers are collected. Options are Just order ID, Name, Pager. Multiple options can be selected.

Table Delivery

Table delivery requires just the table name to be selected.

Theater Seat Delivery

Theater Seat Delivery is only available once a seat has been chosen. Delivery Slips will include the theater name and seat number.

Order Packing

In Admin you can configure whether or not to coalesce orders that come from multiple locations.

If an order comes from a single location, the preparation information will be printed along with the delivery information.

If an order has multiple item sources and the delivery type is configured to coalesce, each location will print the preparation information along with a message to take to the packing area.

The packing printer (there is one packing printer per site) prints a packing slip showing where each item is coming from and the delivery information.

If coalescing is turned off for the delivery type, then each location will get the delivery information printed and no packing slip will be created.

Fast Prep

Fast Prep is a workflow for expediting and simplifying the delivery of items that can be prepared quickly. We can print a preparation ticket before an order is completed that says to deliver an item directly to a register. This prevents the need to collect additional information from the customer and orchestrate handing it off to them since they are already there at the register.

This is only available for items that take less than 2 minutes to prepare. It can also be turned off and on per location. For example, let's say that Popcorn is set to "Requires Preparation" and has a preparation time of 2 minutes. This makes sense to be able to do delivery directly to the concession stand registers.

In contrast, there may be something in the kitchen that only takes 2 minutes to prepare, but doesn't make sense to do fast-prep, because the kitchen is too far away from the register to be practical. In this case, you can turn on fast-prep for the Concession Stand location and turn it off for the Kitchen Location.

The other very powerful thing about Fast Prep is that you don't need to collect any information from the user. Because of this, there is a "Publish" button on the item in the cart the employee can press at any time to start the order, before adding other items or collecting payment.

This imaginary theater has been constructed to allow for all the supported delivery scenarios to be enumerated. Some of the features we will discuss are.

Scenario 1: Ordering Food at Box Office

No matter what food is ordered, if ordered at the register at the Box Office, it will need to be picked up or delivered. This means that even ready-to-serve items will need prompting for a workflow.

Scenario 2: Ordering Food and Coffee From Concession Stand
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A customer orders Popcorn, Soda, and Coffee from the Concession Stand Register 1 on their way to watch a movie.

Popcorn is set to take 2 minutes to prepare. For popcorn, a fast-prep slip would print at the Concession Stand Preparation Printer, saying to deliver to Register 1.

The Soda is a Ready-To-Serve item so the employee hands that directly to them.

Because the Coffee is not co-located, the system prompts the employee to ask what delivery type to use. Since the customer is heading to a movie, the employee selects the simplest method, counter pickup.

The site has name and pager number turned off for counter-pickup and has the feature to auto-print a claim tag turned on. The employee doesn't ask for additional information. After collecting payment, a claim tag with the order number is printed and the customer walks to the espresso bar awaiting their number to be called.

Scenario 3: Ordering Table Delivery with Items from Multiple Source

A customer orders a Soda, Beer, and Pizza from the Concession Stand and is going to sit at a table.

The Soda is Ready To Serve and is handed directly to the customer.

Because there are items in the cart that require delivery the employee is promoted for the delivery type. The employee gives the customer a table marker for Table 5 and selects this table from the list.

Both the Beer and the Pizza need delivery. Table delivery is set to do direct delivery and to not coalesce deliveries. Because of this, both the Kitchen and the Bar get tickets printed saying to deliver to Table 5.

Scenario 4: Ordering Theater Seat Delivery with Items from Multiple Sources

A customer orders a Soda, Beer, and Pizza from the Concession Stand and wants it delivered to their theater seat.

The Soda is Ready To Serve and is handed directly to the customer.

Because there are items in the cart that require delivery and they are also buying a ticket, the theater seat is selected as the default delivery type.
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Both the Beer and the Pizza need delivery but will be available at different times.

Theater Seat Delivery is set to coalesce orders, but because these won't be ready together, separate delivery slips are printed at the bar and at the kitchen.

Scenario 5: Ordering Theater Seat Delivery with Items from Multiple Sources in Future

A customer orders a Beer, and Pizza from the Concession Stand and wants the items delivered to their theater seat in 1 hour, making it due at 7 pm.

Because there are items in the cart that require delivery and they are also buying a ticket, the theater seat is selected as the default delivery type.
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Both the Beer and the Pizza need delivery, but the Pizza needs more time to prepare.

Theater Seat Delivery is set to coalesce orders to reduce the labor to talk items to the theater and to reduce interruptions.

The preparation time for Beer is 1 minute. The preparation time for Pizza is 20 minutes. The configured packing time is 3 minutes.

At 6:37 pm a perpare ticket will print in the kitchen stating a due time of 7 pm and stating to deliver to Packing Area. Also at 6:37 pm a packing ticket will print at the packing printer saying that an order needs to be delivery to a theater seat and list the items and where they are coming from. In this example Pizza - Kitchen, Beer - Bar.

At 6:56 pm a ticket will print at the bar to prepare a Beer and deliver to Pack Area.

Scenario 6: Express Pickup T-Shirt

A T-Shirt is associated with the Gift Shop. The Gift Shop does not have a preparation printer. If an order is placed for a T-Shirt, the order will print at the Packing Printer. The Packing Printer is the backup printer for any item that is associated with a location and needs a workflow but doesn't have its own printer.

If any order is set to be Express Pickup, it is treated much like a counter pickup order. The exception is that an order tag is printed that has the order number and can be stapled to the express pickup container.

The conceptual models here that are directly represented in the system are:

The overall delivery configuration is set under site settings.

Locations

Items

Register Types