Call & serve

The whole day at the counter is one loop — Call next → the guest walks up → Start serving → Complete. 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 bookings, 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 — never past an emergency or a due booking..

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

• When a guest is called, the lobby board updates and plays its chime or spoken announcement. The sound comes from the board, not the console — set it in Line settings → Lobby TV, or per board on Displays.
• Their tracking linkThe always-free web page a visitor gets when they join — it shows their number, how many are ahead, and an estimated wait, and updates on its own. flips to "It's your turn!"
• 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 board and tracker are the announcement.

Select a guest 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 “Can't be undone”, anything you can't take back.

Live guests also always carry the visit tiles — priority, notes, flags, 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 guest sits down — Start serving. Haircut done and the room's still busy — Complete & call next keeps the chair full in one tap.

Everything else happens on one tap. These three stop and check, because each one costs somebody something — as does cancelling a booking 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:

• Staff simply don't see it. If the line has no counters, the tile is there but greyed, saying “No stations on this line yet.”

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 branch is the owner's to do; everyone else only sees lines at their own branch.
• The tile never appears at all for a guest on a journeyA visit that passes through several stops in order (e.g. reception → consult → pharmacy). Each stop is its own line. — those move with Send to next stage. Full story in Transfer a visitor.

• “Signing in at a chair is optional — it shows who's at each counter and tags your serves to it. You can call and serve guests without it.” Sign in from the station pill in the top bar (see PIN sign-in & stations).
• 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 guest.

• 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: ((set-up-your-line/serving-order-and-fairness|Serving order & fairness)) · Staff latitude & flags · PIN sign-in & stations