Setting up Ordering

Setting up ordering

This page is for administrators setting ordering up. There are three parts:

1. a catalogue of products to sell,
2. an ordering workflow (an activity type) that defines the statuses an order moves through, and
3. a Centro Flex Store in the app that ties the two together and gives guests somewhere to order from.

You set the first two up once, then point one or more stores at them.

Access is permission-controlled

Building the catalogue and workflows, and viewing orders, are gated behind staff permissions (including Orders and Activity Types). If you can't see these areas, ask your administrator to grant the relevant permission.

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1. Build your catalogue

Your catalogue is the set of products a guest can order, and the collections you group them into.

For each product you can set:

Setting	What it does
Name, description, images	How the product appears in the store.
Price and tax	The price and the tax rule applied to it.
Stock	How many are available, where you want to limit quantity.
Product type	A standard item or service, a bookable service linked to a calendar resource (the guest picks a date and time), or a free request.
Categories and collections	How the product is grouped and where it appears.

Group the products you want to sell together into a collection — this is the menu or store the guest browses (for example "Room service" or "Spa"). You'll point a Centro Flex Store at a collection in step 3.

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2. Define the ordering workflow (activity type)

An activity type is the workflow an order follows. It's an ordered list of status steps — see Order lifecycle and statuses for what the standard statuses mean.

For each status step you can set:

• its name, colour and icon, and an estimated time shown to the guest,
• whether it's enabled, hidden, or assignable to staff, and
• an email template sent to the guest when the order reaches that status.

You can reorder the steps to match how your team works. Each ordering store uses one activity type, so you can run different workflows for different services (a quick room-service flow and a longer bookings flow, say).

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3. Set up a Centro Flex Store

The Centro Flex Store plugin is what puts a store in front of the guest. Add and configure the plugin, then set:

Setting	What it does
Products	The product collection this store sells.
Order workflow	The activity type orders from this store follow.
Payments enabled	Whether the guest pays by card (via Stripe) at checkout. Turn off to place orders without taking payment.
Orders enabled	Whether the store collects real orders.
Tile and carousel images	The store's icon and the hero/carousel images shown on the store page.
Order email	Optionally email a recipient (for example the room-service manager) whenever an order is placed.
Webhook	Optionally send each order to an external system by webhook.
Messages	Ready-made guest ↔ staff messages for the order thread (for example "Your order is on its way").

Taking card payments

Card payment uses Stripe. Your Stripe account must be connected for payments to be taken; with payments enabled, guests are sent to Stripe's secure checkout to pay. See The guest ordering experience.

Once your store is live, orders placed by guests appear in your orders queue — see Managing orders.