Managing your website
Use this guide to see what customers see, set up a service date, manage orders and check that a booking works from start to finish.
Which site should you open?
Keep these two tabs open while testing:
| Site | What you do there |
|---|---|
| Customer preview | See the website as a customer would and place a test booking. No login is needed. |
| Admin website | Sign in to change the menu, set service dates and collection slots, and manage orders. |
The main address, steakholders.uk, still sends visitors to the temporary Canva site. So does www.steakholders.uk. Give testers the preview address.
The preview and admin website share the same records. If you place a test booking, it will appear in admin. Use your own contact details: a booking may trigger a real email.
How a booking works
You first create a drop in admin. A drop is one day you plan to serve food. Add collection slots to that day, such as 5:00–5:15 pm and 5:15–5:30 pm. Set how many orders each slot can take.
The booking window is the period when customers are allowed to place orders. It can start days before the service date. A collection slot is the time they come to collect. These are separate settings.
On the preview site, a customer chooses an available drop and slot, selects food, enters contact details and submits the booking. The website checks that the slot is still available before saving it. The customer then gets a confirmation page and a private link to follow the order.
There is no online card payment step in the booking form. Decide separately how you want to take payment.
Inside the admin website
Open admin.steakholders.uk and sign in with your admin details. The menu on the left takes you to the following screens. On a phone, open the menu from the top of the page. Use Sign out from the account menu when you finish on a shared device.
| Screen | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | Start here for today's or the next drop, today's order and collection figures, and recent drops. A dash in today's figures can simply mean there is no open drop today. |
| Drops | Create a service date, set when bookings open and close, add collection slots, and see orders for that date. Open a drop to change its status or export its orders as CSV. |
| Menu | Change an item's name, description, price, availability and other options. Refresh the customer preview after saving to see the result. |
| Customers | Find a customer's record and review their order history. |
| Notifications | Review recorded messages and their delivery status. A recorded status does not replace checking whether the customer received an email. |
| Service Mode | Work through orders during preparation and collection. It is the quickest place to update progress on service day. |
Changing a menu item
Open Menu, find the item and choose its edit control. Check the item details, price and whether it is active, then save. The price field uses pence: enter 1500 for £15.00. An inactive item will not appear on the customer menu. Refresh the preview to confirm the change.
Changing the menu price does not rewrite orders already placed. Check the total on any order you edit separately.
Finding an order
Open Drops, choose the service date and find the order in its list. Open it to check the customer's details, items, notes, total and collection slot. You can also use Service Mode for today's work. Move an order on only when that stage has actually happened: Pending → Confirmed → Pickup assigned → Preparing → Ready → Collected.
Marking an order Ready can trigger a customer email, so check it before using that action. “Collected” means the order has been handed over. The order screen also has supported controls for cancellation and some corrections; use those if you need to fix a mistake.
Run a first test
Start with a future service date and a small number of collection slots. You can reset test data later, but treat each test booking as a real record until then.
- In admin, open Menu and check that the food and prices you want to test are active.
- Open Drops and select New Drop. Choose the service date. If you set Booking Opens and Booking Closes, make sure the current time falls within that window when you test.
- Open the drop and add collection slots. Give each one a start time, end time and Max Orders. A slot must be open and have space for another booking.
- Use the drop controls to move it from Draft to Scheduled, then Open. Scheduling alone does not open bookings.
- Visit the customer preview. Check that the drop and slots appear, then book one small order with your own email and phone number.
- Return to the drop in admin. Find the order and compare the items, total, notes and slot with what you entered. Open the customer's confirmation link and check that it shows the same order.
If the preview has no bookable slots, first check the drop status, booking dates, slot capacity and each slot's Closed setting.
What the drop status means
Draft is for setup. Scheduled is ready for a booking window. Open accepts bookings when the other conditions allow it. Closed stops new bookings while you finish existing orders. Completed is for a finished service.
You can use Clone on an earlier drop to copy its slot layout for another date. Review the new date and settings before opening it.
On service day
Before opening bookings, check the menu, date, booking window and slot capacity. Place a test booking if you have not already checked the full customer journey.
As orders arrive, use Drops to review customer notes and keep an eye on each slot's capacity. Closing a slot stops new bookings in that slot; it does not cancel orders already placed.
During collection, use Service Mode to assign pickup times and move orders through preparation. Mark an order Ready when it is ready for the customer, and Collected after handover.
After service, close bookings, check for outstanding orders and mark the drop completed. If staff need a copy of the orders, export the CSV from the drop and handle it as customer information.
If something goes wrong
I still see Canva
Check the address. The customer test site is preview.steakholders.uk. The main domain still redirects to Canva.
No drop or slots appear
Check the drop status, service date, booking window, slot capacity and whether the slot is closed. A drop can exist in admin without being bookable on the preview.
An email did not arrive
Check that the order exists in admin, then check the inbox and spam folder. If you report it, include the order reference and the email address used. Avoid placing duplicate bookings just to retry the email.
A link in an email goes to Canva
Email links come from the backend's configured customer address. During testing, a link may still use the public domain and reach Canva. Report the exact link so it can be corrected before launch.
How do I change the homepage?
Text, photographs, layout and new features are website development work. The Codex guide shows how to request and check those changes.
For any problem, send the page address, what you tried, what happened and a screenshot. Remove customer details before sharing it.