HelpWhat your customers seeThe free tracking link

The free tracking link

The moment someone joins, they get a live tracking link — a web page that shows their place and updates on its own. It is free, needs no app and no account, and does not depend on them having given you a phone number or an email.

Everyone Where: Public — no sign-in 10 min read

This is the safety net under everything. WhatsApp and email are best-effort extras; the tracking link and the lobby TV always work, whatever those switches say.

Free, and it needs no phone number

Joining opens the page automatically — nothing to install, nothing to sign up for. It follows the visitor through every stop of a journey, so a person moved from reception to a treatment room keeps the same page.

It is also the page every WhatsApp or email nudge points at, so all your channels lead to one screen.

A visitor who joined without giving a contact can turn WhatsApp on from here: once a WhatsApp number is live for your account, the page shows “Turn on free WhatsApp updates”. It opens WhatsApp with a short message typed; sending it links their chat to this place. See WhatsApp messages.

It is a link for that visit, not a permanent page. A visit nobody has touched for about a day is closed automatically, and the page shows the ended screen instead of a live position.

What it shows while they wait

The page is built around one number — theirs — and one sentence saying how close they are. The sentence changes as the line moves.

1Waiting
“3 people ahead of you” — a bar underneath fills as that number falls
2Nobody ahead
“You're next up” — no wait estimate, nothing left to estimate
3Called
“It's your turn!” — number at full size, phone buzzes if it can

Each version of the sentence is deliberate.

Two other versions of the waiting sentence

What it says	When
“2 appointments before you”	Everyone ahead is a booking that has not arrived yet. The moment one of those bookings checks in, they count as a person again — the sentence becomes “2 people ahead of you”.
“You're in the line” / “We can't show your exact place right now, but you haven't lost it.”	Occasionally the exact position can't be worked out. Rather than show a false “0 people ahead”, the page says this instead.

“Your spot is on hold” — know this before you use hold. If staff pause someone, their page hides the position entirely and shows a hold message instead. From the visitor's side, a hold looks like being set aside — a hold you forget about is a person sitting quietly with no number.

What the screen says	When
Your spot is on hold / Staff have paused your number for a moment — they'll call you shortly. No need to rejoin.	Staff pause the visitor.

The wait estimate — “About 20 min to go” — appears while somebody is ahead, unless you have switched it off for the line. On a long, thin estimate it says “More than …” instead of inventing a precise figure.

The AI mark When the estimate has learned this line's own rhythm for this day and hour, a small AI mark sits beside it.

Under all of it sits one fairness line — “Your number can sometimes move if a booking or urgent case is called — your place is safe.”

Why this sentence matters It is why a visitor watching their position go from 3 to 4 asks nothing at the desk.

The running-late banner appears on every waiting visitor's own phone as well as the TV.
On a multi-stop journey, a step strip reads “Step 2 of 3”.
The browser tab itself is labelled with their number and standing (for example “A002 · you're next”), so a visitor with ten tabs open can find this one without opening them all.

A visitor who gave no contact details is told to keep the page open. “No number given, so we can't send you a reminder. Keep this page open, or take a screenshot, so you don't lose your place.” Shown only while the visit is live, and only when there is certainly no contact.

How the wait estimate is worked out

It is simply how many people are ahead × how long one person takes. The second half is where the work is, and there are two ways it can be answered.

	Enough history for this hour	Not enough history yet
How it's worked out	Learns your line's own rhythm, by day of week and hour	Falls back to a flat average — the service length you set, or the line's overall pace
The AI mark	Shown	Not shown

The mark only ever appears over a number actually learned from your own shop.

The estimate never changes who gets served next. It is a display, worked out from the order your serving rule has already decided. The same figure is used on the console, the TV and the visitor's own page — the three never disagree.

If they lose the page

Closing the tab is the one real risk with a link-based queue. Under the heading “If you lose this page” sits an 8-character code shown in two groups of four. One tap selects the whole thing.

Open your join page again.
Tap Already in the line? Enter your code. A small link under the join button, closed by default.
Type the code into Your code and press Find my place. They land back on their own page with their original number and position — they do not re-join.

What the screen says	When
That code doesn't match anyone in this line. Check it and try again, or ask a member of staff to find you.	A wrong code — and, on purpose, the same answer for a code from another shop or an ended visit. Telling a stranger which of those it was would let them go fishing for other people's codes.

What to say at the desk “Open the join page again, tap 'Already in the line?', and type the code from your first screen.” If they never noted it, find them by name on the Queue and carry on — the code is a convenience, not the only route.

Leaving the line

A waiting or on-hold visitor can take themselves out with Leave the line. It takes two taps — the first asks “Leave the line and give up your place?” with Stay and Yes, leave.

The button disappears the moment staff call the number. From then on, leaving is the desk's to do, not the visitor's — a called customer who has changed their mind will come and tell you, and you clear them on the Queue.

Very occasionally, if their number is called in the second between their two taps, they see “Couldn't leave the line — please ask a staff member.” — the same story, arrived a moment too late.

Worth encouraging Every person who leaves on their own is a no-show you never have to call, wait for and clear.

When the visit ends

A visit can end in more than one way, and the page says which. One cheerful sentence used to cover all of them, so a guest who missed their turn was thanked for coming — this was a real complaint.

What the screen says	When	Desk sentence + way back?
This visit has ended. Thanks for coming!	Served — with a green tick. Nothing further, it is finished properly.	No
You were marked as not arrived, so your place in the line has been given up.	Marked as not arrived. No thank-you, because they did not come.	Yes
You've left the line.	They left themselves. “You chose to leave, so you've given up your place. Changed your mind? Join again below, or ask a member of staff.”	Yes
You've been taken out of the line.	Your staff took them out.	Yes
This line has closed.	The line closed.	No — nothing else at all.

The way back, on the three endings that have one: “If you're still here, speak to a member of staff — they can put you back in the line.” with a Join the line again link.

“This line has closed” is the one ending with nothing on it — know when a customer meets it. You cannot close a line with people still in it — turnda refuses until you finish or clear them. The moment you do close it, every cleared customer's way back disappears too, so tell the room out loud rather than relying on their screen.

What the screen says	When
This line still has 3 visitors in it — finish or clear them first, then you can archive it.	You try to close a line that still has people in it.
You've been taken out of the line.	A customer is cleared while the line is still open — with a way back.
This line has closed.	The line is closed — every phone changes instantly, with no “speak to staff” and no rejoin.

A finished visit can also do two more things

If you have turned it on	What the visitor sees
Ratings for the line	“How was your visit?” with five stars and a Send rating button.
A review link, with the review ask on	An “Enjoyed your visit? Leave us a review” button that opens your public listing.

Whose page it looks like

This is your page, not turnda's. Your logo and business name sit at the top, exactly as on the join page. Your colour, text size and heading choice for the Waiting page in Visitor pages all apply here too.

The only turnda mark on it is the small “powered by turnda” footer that every visitor page carries.

This page asks the visitor for nothing at all — no name, no number, no tick box — so it carries no privacy notice.
It is built to be used without looking at it.
The number and standing are read out by a screen reader the moment they change.
The phone buzzes at the same moment.
The browser tab is labelled with their number.
Leave the line is a full-size target.

Offline, slow and stale

Shop wi-fi drops, phones go into tunnels, and the one thing this page must never do is tell somebody they lost their place because of it.

What the screen says	When
You're offline / Showing your last known place. We'll update as soon as you're back.	The phone is offline. The number stays on screen, clearly labelled as last-known.
Reconnecting… / your place is safe. This will keep trying.	We cannot reach the shop for a moment.
Live updates are limited right now — this page refreshes every few seconds.	Live updates are limited. Clears itself when the live feed comes back.
Just a moment / You're being moved to the next step. This page will update on its own.	Between two steps of a journey — one stop has closed and the next has not opened.

“Updated just now” / “Updated 3 min ago” This small line with a coloured dot keeps counting up even while offline — a frozen number saying “just now” is worse than a stale one that admits it.

“We couldn't find this ticket”

One screen means the link itself is not recognised — “This link has ended” with “We couldn't find this ticket. It may have ended.” and a Try-again button.

This is not what a slow connection looks like. It is shown only when the address matches no visit at all — a link typed by hand, or a visit that has since been removed. A genuine network problem shows “Reconnecting…” instead.

What to do If a visitor shows you this mid-wait, check the link they used and add them again if something was lost.

How long the link keeps working

A tracking link belongs to one visit, not to the person — so it lasts as long as that visit does, and no longer. There is nothing for you to switch off.

Situation	What happens
Someone who joins and never comes back	The visit is closed automatically after 24 hours of nothing happening, and the link stops showing a place.
Someone who was called, is being served, or is on hold	Never closed automatically — kept for 72 hours before its clock starts.
Their name and contact details	Erased 48 hours after that clock starts, on every visit whether it ended well or not — see how long turnda keeps customer details.

So “my customer's link stopped working” is almost never a fault. Same day means something else is wrong — check the address they used. A day or more later means the visit simply closed, working as intended. A customer who needs to be seen again joins again.

The gotcha most shops hit. Nothing on this page calls anybody — it only reports. A visitor watching “2 people ahead” for twenty minutes usually means nobody at the desk has pressed Call next.