Call & serve

The whole day at the counter is one loop — Call next → the visitor walks up → Complete (or Complete & call next). This page walks that loop, then the tiles for every state, and what happens when the person you called doesn't appear.

Call next is the console's headline action. It calls the person at the top of the line — in the line's own serving order, which weighs appointments, priority and the max-wait safety netA max-wait limit — a walk-in who has waited longer than it is bumped ahead of other walk-ins, but never past an emergency or a due booking..

Two counters pressing it at the same instant each get a different visitor — no double-calls.

Call next from a counter that still has someone at it is refused — nobody is called. If you are signed in to a counter and the last visitor is still on the way, being served or on hold there, the console tells you what to do first (complete them or mark them a no-show; complete them; or bring them back or move them). This stops a second visitor being told “it's your turn” with no counter to go to. Someone not signed in to a counter, or a line run without counters, is not affected.

If the line has services or named people, there are also tiles under the big button — Call next for a service and Call next for a person — one for each, greyed out when nobody is waiting for it. Each one calls the next visitor waiting for that service or that person.

• When a visitor is called, the lobby TV updates and plays its chime or spoken announcement. The sound comes from the display, not the console — set it in Line settings → Lobby TV, or per display on Displays.
• Their tracking linkThe always-free link a visitor gets when they join. It opens their tracking page. flips to "It's your turn!" — and when the call names a counter, the page says which one (“You've been called — please go to Room 2”).
• Whoever has now moved inside your heads-up window gets the one automatic “almost up”The one automatic message per visit — sent when a visitor reaches your line's heads-up position (position 1 by default), with their number and tracking link. message.
• There's no separate “message the called person” blast — the display and tracking page are the announcement.

Select a visitor and the Action centre offers only the moves their situation allows.

• They're grouped so the obvious one is impossible to miss — the main action first, full width.
• Then the everyday ones.
• Then, under a divider that says “Use with care”, the ones that take somebody out of the line — Cancel visit (which you can undo for a short time straight afterwards) and End whole visit.

Live visitors also always carry the visit tiles — priority, notes, flags, change contact, contact & messages, re-send link and report issue — covered in Walk-ins, notes & flags.

Example. A salon: the stylist taps Call next, A014 appears on the TV with a chime. The visitor sits down — nothing to press. Haircut done and the room's still busy — Complete & call next keeps the chair full in one tap.

A wrong tap at a busy counter should cost seconds, not somebody's place in the line. Three things give it back.

Every one of these is written to the activity log with your name. A changed name is logged as “changed”, never with the name itself.

Everything else happens on one tap. These stop and check, because each one costs somebody something — as does cancelling an appointment from the Upcoming tab, which asks the same way.

Two line settings (Line settings → Staff controls) decide how much latitude staff have here — see Staff latitude & flags:

• If you are not signed in to a counter, or the setting is off, the tile is not shown at all.

Transfer is a fresh start, not a sideways step. Transfer to another line… puts the visitor at the back of the other line with a new wait clock — it does not carry their place across.

• Moving somebody to a line at another location is for the owner, or a manager of both locations once the owner has switched on Allow transfers between locations; everyone else sees those lines greyed out, with the reason beside them.
• A visitor in the middle of a journeyThe whole route of a visit that passes through several stops in order (for example reception, then consult, then pharmacy). Each stop is its own line. can only be moved to another line at the same location — their normal next step is Send to next stop. Full story in Transfer a visitor.

• “Signing in at a chair is optional — you can still call and serve visitors without it (at a stop with one counter you call to it automatically; with two or more you are asked which counter you are at) — but only a signed-in chair shows who's there and has your serves tagged to it.” Sign in from the counter pill in the top bar (see PIN sign-in & counters). The live list of who is signed in where is the “Who's at each counter” roster on the Queue.
• If you serve several stops from one screen (I serve several stops, then My stops), each stop has its own Call next. A stop's Call next is greyed out, with the reason, when you still have someone open there (“You still have A004 open at Cashier”), every counter there is busy or closed, or nobody is waiting. Turn My stops off goes back to the normal page. See My stops.
• Because several people work one line, an action can land a second after somebody else's. When that happens you get one plain sentence naming what actually happened, not an error code.
• After any action the tiles go quiet for a moment and pulse. That is the console waiting for the line to catch up before it offers you the next move, so you can't fire two actions into the same visitor.

• There's a version of that sentence for every situation — already being served, already finished, on hold, marked a no-show, left the line, or moved to another line.
• Nothing broke, nothing was done twice, and the tiles you now see are the real ones.

Related: Serving order & fairness · Staff latitude & flags · PIN sign-in & counters