Every so often a grey block marked Online booking, with in progress underneath, turns up on your reservation chart. It isn’t a booking yet. It means someone is part-way through booking that table on your booking page, and NomNom is keeping it for them while they finish.
What the block means
When a guest picks a time on your booking page, NomNom chooses their table there and then and holds it while they fill in their details. The grey block sits on that table, across the time the booking would take. If the guest is being given a table group, such as 11,12, the block shows on each of its tables. It has no name or party size, because the guest hasn’t given you any yet, and you can’t open it.
While the table is held, nobody else booking online can be given it at that time, and the party counts towards any online guest limit you’ve set for that time.
In NomNom Web and the phone app: Chart, next to List and Plan.
How long it stays
- The guest finishes. Their booking takes the block’s place.
- The guest gives up. NomNom lets the table go about 15 minutes after the guest’s last step, and the block disappears.
- The guest is paying. If you take a card or deposit and they’ve reached the payment step, the table is kept for longer — up to about an hour — so they can finish. The block still leaves your chart about 15 minutes after their last step, so for a while the table can look free when it’s still being kept for them.
The block appears on your chart as soon as the guest picks a time. A quick guest can go straight on to a finished booking, so you won’t catch every one.
When it’s a colleague, not a guest
The same grey block appears when someone on another phone or computer is taking a new booking or seating a walk-in and has picked a table. It goes when they save or close the form. Your own booking form never shows a block on your own chart.
If you need that table
The simplest thing is usually to wait a few minutes: the block becomes a booking or disappears. If you can’t wait:
- Dragging a booking onto it on the chart, NomNom checks with you first: Booking in progress. Choose Cancel to leave it, or Assign anyway.
- In the booking form, the table isn’t offered as free while it’s held. If a save would still put a booking on it, NomNom asks first with Table already booked. Choose Cancel to leave it, or Assign anyway.
- If you do give it away, the guest’s booking still goes onto that table when they finish, so you’ll have two bookings on it. Move one of them to another table.
Good to know
- Only on the chart. The block doesn’t show in the list or on the floor plan.
- Nothing to tidy up. The block goes on its own, so there’s nothing for you to cancel or delete.
- Keeping a table for yourself. To stop guests ever being given a table online, switch off its online booking. See Choosing when each table can be booked.
- Which table a guest gets is explained in How NomNom picks a table for an online booking.