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What is Fork & Floor?

Fork & Floor is a floorplan designer for restaurants, pubs, cafés and bars. You draw your dining room, fill it with tables, chairs and fixtures, and it counts your covers and checks your aisles as you go. When doors open, the same plan becomes your live table plan for service.

What you can do with it

• Design rooms of any shape, with flooring, dining zones, over 100 pieces of furniture and fixtures, text and icons.
• Check the layout: clashes, tight spots below your minimum clearance, covers, table mix and space per cover.
• Run service: seat walk-ins, mark tables reserved, seated or clearing, and see how long each party has left.
• Share it: print, save as a PDF, image or SVG, or save a plan file.
• Work as a team: everyone sees changes within seconds, with roles that decide who can do what, and sites for each of your venues.

It runs in your web browser on a computer, tablet or phone. There’s nothing to install.

Trying the demo

The demo lets you try the planner without an account. It opens with a sample plan, Quayside Kitchen.

• Open it from Try the demo on the home page.
• Almost everything works: designing, zones, warnings and Service mode.
• The demo keeps one plan, saved in this browser only. It can’t add extra floors, open plan files, show version history, or print and export (you can see a watermarked preview of the export).
• Reset demo in the bar at the top puts the plan back to the original bistro. Click it twice to confirm. You can undo it.

Creating an account

Choose Create an account on the home page, or Create your free account in the demo. First, pick the kind of account.

Then enter your name, email and a password (and the business name, for a Business Account), agree to the terms and tick the “I’m not a robot” check.

We’ll email you a link to confirm your address. Until you confirm, a bar at the top of the planner reminds you. Everything works in the meantime, except adding people to a team. Confirming also means you can reset your password if you ever forget it.

Signing in and passwords

Sign in with your email and password from Sign in on any page.

Forgotten your password?

1. On the sign-in window, choose Forgot your password?
2. Enter your email. If it has a login, we’ll email a link.
3. Open the link within an hour and choose a new password. It signs you in.

Changing your password

Open the menu under your initials (top right) and choose Change password. We’ll email you to let you know it changed.

Given a temporary password?

When someone adds you to their team, you get a welcome email with a link to choose your password, and they may also give you a temporary one. If you sign in with a temporary password, you’ll be asked to choose your own straight away.

Finding your way round

The planner has four main parts: the top bar, the furniture list on the left, the plan in the middle, and the panel on the right.

The top bar

• Site and plan menus: choose which plan is on screen, or create a new one. Business Accounts with several sites also get a site menu.
• Save status: shows Saved, Saving… or Offline. Hover over it for details.
• People: the initials of anyone else looking at the same plan.
• Design / Service: switches between laying out the room and running service. See Design and Service modes.
• Undo, redo and version history.
• Export: print, PDF, image, SVG and plan files.
• Your plan’s covers, tables and area, the theme button, and the menu under your initials (your accounts, password, team, sign out).

The furniture list (left)

Everything you can add, in groups: Tables, Seating, Bar, Service, Kitchen, Entertainment, Decor, Outdoor, Custom, Rooms, Structure, Text and Icons. Search it from the box at the top. Fold it into a slim strip to give the plan more room.

The plan (middle)

Your room drawn to scale. The tools in its corner turn measurements, the grid, flooring and alignment guides on and off, switch between metric and imperial, open the list of controls, and zoom. The scale bar sits at the bottom.

The panel (right)

With nothing selected it shows the plan: its settings, warnings, rooms, space per cover, zones and table mix. Floors and layouts are managed from their tabs at the top left of the plan; moving, locking and deleting the plan are in the plan menu in the top bar; the details for licence plans are in the export window. Select an item and it shows that item’s details instead. Each section folds away by clicking its title, and stays folded next time.

To put the sections in the order you like, drag the dotted grip beside a section’s title up or down (or select the grip and use the up and down arrow keys). While you drag, the sections shrink to their titles so they’re easy to drop in place. The panels for the plan, one item, several items and service each keep their own order, in this browser. Put these sections back in their usual order, at the bottom of the panel, undoes it.

Design and Service modes

The Design and Service buttons in the top bar switch between two ways of using the same plan.

The planner remembers which mode you were in, so a refresh comes back to the same place. Some roles only have Service mode; for them the Design button is hidden.

Adding furniture and fixtures

Drag anything from the furniture list on the left onto the plan. It lands where you drop it, snapped to the grid.

What’s in the list

Finding an item

Type in the search box at the top of the list (for example “stool” or “heater”). Only matching items show, with their groups opened. Click a group’s title to fold or unfold it; the planner remembers which you’ve folded.

Selecting, moving, rotating and resizing

Click an item to select it. Its details open in the panel on the right, where you can type exact sizes, rotation and more.

Selecting several items

• Ctrl click (or Shift click) adds or removes an item.
• Drag across empty floor to select everything in a box.
• Ctrl A selects every unlocked item. Esc deselects.
• On a touchscreen, turn on Select (by the plan tools): taps then add or remove items, and dragging selects an area. Tap Done when finished.

Moving

Drag an item to move it, along with everything else selected. The arrow keys nudge the selection 5 cm (25 cm with Shift). Items snap to the grid and line up with other items (see Lining things up).

Rotating

Drag the round handle above a selected item to turn it in 15° steps (hold Shift for 1°), press R to turn it 45° (Shift R the other way), or type the angle in the panel.

Resizing

Drag the corner handle. Hold Shift to keep its proportions. Round items have a single diameter. You can also type the width and depth in the panel.

Rooms from the Rooms group (kitchen, toilets, office and so on), floor areas, pathways and licensed areas also have a handle on each side, like a room’s walls: drag one to move just that side while the opposite side stays put. Free shape in their Actions gives them corners to drag instead, for an L-shaped kitchen or a curving path (drag a + to add a corner, double-click a corner to remove it; Back to rectangle undoes it).

Deleting

Press Delete, or use Delete in the panel. Locked items can’t be deleted until you unlock them.

Tables, seats and chairs

Select a table to set its number, seats, name, zone, allocation priority, colour, what goes round it and where its chairs go.

Seats

Use the Seats − and + buttons, or type a number. Chairs are added and taken away round the table for you.

For a table with no chairs at all (a buffet, display or gift table), tick No seating. It adds no covers and is listed as “No seating” in the Table mix rather than by a number of seats. Untick it to give it chairs again.

Where the chairs go

• Square, long, oval and trestle tables: the Chairs section shows the table with − and + on each side. Use them to put chairs exactly where you want, for example none on the side against a wall. Back to automatic goes back to chairs along the long sides first, then the ends.
• Round tables: choose Evenly spaced or Against a wall.
• Hexagonal and L-shaped tables: chairs are spread round their sides for you, with the most room per chair. An L-shaped table’s Arm width sets how wide each arm is; its table number sits where the arms meet. Clearance warnings measure it by the box round it, so something tucked into the crook of the L is warned about.
• Booths and picnic benches have their seats built in.
• Banquettes have a Seats stepper too: each seat adds 60 cm of length.

Chairs, stools or armchairs

Any table with loose seats (not booths or picnic benches) can have chairs, stools or armchairs round it: choose under Seating. Poseur tables start with stools, the rest with chairs. Armchairs sit further out, so they take more room.

Colour

A table takes its zone’s colour unless you pick one under Colour; the first swatch goes back to the zone’s. Other furniture, fittings and decor can have a colour too (the first swatch is their usual look). In Service mode, tables show their status colours instead.

Table numbers

New tables are numbered for you. Type your own in Table number, or with nothing selected, use Renumber tables in the plan panel’s Table mix to number them left to right, front to back.

Allocation priority

Choose First choice, Normal or Only when busy. When you seat walk-ins, the planner suggests first-choice tables before others. See Seating walk-ins.

Rooms and room shapes

Every plan has a main room. Add rooms next to it for a terrace, a private dining room or an extension, and give any room an irregular shape.

Setting the size

With nothing selected, the plan panel’s Rooms section lists each room on one line with its size and flooring. Click a room there, or click its empty floor on the plan, to select it: its card opens with its name, width, depth and flooring, and handles appear on its walls to drag.

Adding a room

Under Add a room, choose Right, Below, Left or Above. Drag the handle in the middle of an added room to move it. Tick Open to the rooms next to it to take the wall away between them, for example where a dining room opens onto a terrace. Remove room takes it off the plan.

Free shapes: angled walls, alcoves and L shapes

1. Choose Free shape on the room’s card.
2. Select the room (click its floor, with no items selected). A circle appears on each corner and a + in the middle of each wall.
3. Drag a corner to move it. It snaps into line with its neighbours, other rooms and the grid.
4. Press a + and drag to add a corner there. Double-click a corner to remove it.

With measurements on, each wall of a shaped room shows its length. Back to rectangle turns it back into the box round its corners.

Outdoor areas

Tick Outdoor on a room’s card for a terrace, beer garden or pavement area. It loses its walls and gets a dashed red boundary instead (a wall between it and an indoor room stays). Its area, and the tables, chairs and covers in it, are shown under Space per cover and on exported sheets, ready for a pavement licence application.

Hiding rooms while you work

With two rooms or more, each room in the Rooms section has an eye. Click it to take that room and everything in it off the plan, so you can work on the others without them in the way; click it again (or Show every room) to bring it back. Hidden rooms are only hidden in this browser, and nothing about the plan changes. Service mode has its own room choice (see Service mode).

Printing one room

Open a room’s card and choose Print this room… to print or export just that room, with its own covers and area. See Printing and exporting to choose several.

Drawing a room by its corners

Draw… under Add a room lets you click a new room’s corners straight onto the plan. See Tracing a drawing, which also covers redrawing the main room.

Tracing a drawing

The fastest way to get a real room in: upload a photo, PDF or architect’s plan, set its scale by marking one length you know, then draw the room over it.

1. Upload the drawing

With nothing selected, open Trace from a drawing in the plan panel and choose Upload a drawing…, or drop the file onto the plan. Pictures (JPEG, PNG and so on) and PDFs work; for a PDF with several pages, choose the page in the same section. The drawing is laid over the plan, faded, with its white paper left out so only its lines show.

2. Set the scale

1. Straight after uploading (or with Set the scale), click one end of a length you know on the drawing: a wall with its size written on it, a doorway, or the drawing’s own scale bar. Zoom in to be exact.
2. Click the other end.
3. Type how long it really is (in metres, or feet in imperial) and press Set scale. The drawing is resized round the first end you clicked.

The longer the length you mark, the more accurate the scale. Hold Shift to keep the line straight across or down.

3. Line it up (optional)

Move lets you drag the drawing to line it up with rooms you already have; Turn 90° turns it a quarter turn. The slider sets how strongly it shows, and Show the drawing on the plan hides it without removing it.

4. Draw over it

1. Choose Draw the main room to replace the main room’s outline, or Draw another room to add one.
2. Click each corner in turn. Corners snap to the grid and to other rooms, line up with the corners you’ve already drawn, and nearly straight walls are straightened. The wall you’re drawing shows its length. Hold Alt to place a corner exactly where you click.
3. Click the first corner again, press Enter or choose Finish. Backspace takes off the last corner; Esc or Cancel stops without drawing.

A room drawn as a plain rectangle stays a rectangle; any other shape becomes a free shape whose corners you can drag afterwards. Drawing a room is one step to undo. You can draw rooms this way without a drawing too.

Where the drawing is kept

Only in this browser, with the plan it belongs to. It isn’t uploaded, shared with your team, printed or exported, so each person who wants to trace uploads it on their own device. Remove drawing (a second click confirms) takes it off.

Measuring distances

Measure between any two points on the plan, for example the aisle between the bar and table 6.

1. Choose the measure button among the plan tools (the double-headed arrow), or press M.
2. Drag from one point to the other, or click one end and then the other.

The length shows in the middle of the line, and for a slanting line how far across and how far down it goes too. The ends snap to room corners and walls, and to the edges of furniture (with its chairs, and a table’s top inside them); a square shows when an end has snapped. Hold Alt to measure from exactly where you click, and Shift to keep the line straight across or down.

The last measurement stays on the plan until you measure again. Esc clears it; press Esc again, M or Done to stop measuring. Measuring never changes the plan, so it works on locked plans and with a view-only role too. For the gaps the planner checks for you, see Clearance warnings.

Flooring and floor areas

Each room has a flooring type: plain, wood, carpet, tiles, paved, gravel, decking, grass or chequered. Choose it on the room’s card in the plan panel.

Floor areas

For a patch of different flooring inside a room (a rug, a carpeted snug, a dance floor), drag a Floor area from the Rooms group and choose its flooring. Floor areas sit under everything else. Dragging across one selects the items on it, not the area itself, unless the area is already selected or wholly inside your box. Drag the handles on its sides to size it, or choose Free shape for any outline.

Pathways

The Outdoor group has a Pathway (paved), a Gravel path and a Boardwalk, and the Rooms group a plain Walkway for indoors. They’re floor areas, long and narrow: drag one end’s handle to lengthen it, turn it with the round handle, or give it a free shape to follow a bend. Furniture on a path never counts as a clash, so check the way stays clear yourself.

Hiding the flooring

The flooring button by the plan shows every floor plain, which can make a busy plan easier to read. Floor areas keep a dashed outline. Exports can show or hide flooring separately.

Dining zones

Zones are named, coloured areas such as Main dining, Bar, Window, Private dining and Terrace. Each table and seat belongs to one, and the plan panel counts tables and covers in each.

• Set an item’s zone in its Zone menu. With several selected, Zone for all of them in the panel puts every selected table and seat in one zone at once (it says Mixed while they’re in different zones).
• In the plan panel’s Zones section, rename a zone, choose its colour (click the colour to the left of its name for a list of every colour), add one with + Add zone, or remove one with ×. Items in a removed zone move to the first zone.

Zones are shown on exports in the plan details, and on each table’s card in Service mode.

Names, text and icons

Naming an item

Any table, seat or piece of furniture can have a Name, such as “Window booth” or “Chef’s table”. Kitchen, toilets and other blocks, and fittings like the back bar, have a Label on plan instead, drawn on the plan. Press Enter in it to start a new line (up to three), for a long name like “Manager’s office” on a small room; the lines are drawn one under another and made smaller to fit.

Text

Drag Text (or a ready-made Front, Back or Entrance) from the Text group, then type the words in the panel. Quick text offers common labels like Street, Garden and Kitchen pass. Change the Letter height to make it bigger or smaller.

Icons

The Icons group (folded at first) has over 80 symbols in five sets (food and drink, facilities, safety, service and equipment, outdoor), such as toilets, accessible, baby changing, exit, first aid, Wi-Fi and dogs welcome, each drawn on a round badge on top of everything else.

Locking items in place

Lock the things that never move (walls, the bar, the kitchen, pillars) so you don’t drag them by accident.

• Select an item and choose Lock in place, or press L. Press it again to unlock.
• A locked item can’t be moved, rotated, resized or deleted. You can still change its name, label, seats, zone and chairs.
• Dragging across a locked item selects the items around it instead of moving it, which makes it easy to box-select tables next to a bar.
• Select several and choose Lock all or Unlock all.

Copies of locked items start unlocked.

Copy, paste and duplicate

• Ctrl C copies the selection, Ctrl X cuts it, and Ctrl V pastes it under your pointer.
• Ctrl D duplicates in place, a little offset.
• The panel has Copy, Duplicate and Paste buttons too, for touchscreens.

Copies work between plans, and between browser tabs. Pasted tables get new numbers, and keep their zone if the plan has one with the same name.

Lining things up

Alignment guides

While you drag, items snap into line with the edges and centres of other items and the corners of rooms, shown by pink guide lines. Hold Alt while dragging to move freely once, or turn guides off with the guides button by the plan.

Align and space

Select several items and use Align and space in the panel:

• Align left, centre or right edges, or top, middle or bottom edges.
• Space evenly left to right or top to bottom (three or more items). The first and last stay put.
• Set the gap: type a gap and space them exactly that far apart. It starts at your plan’s minimum clearance.

Choose Include chairs or Table tops only to decide what counts as each table’s edge. Locked items never move: the others line up with them.

Snap and grid

In the plan panel, Snap to sets how far items jump as you drag (5 cm to start with).

Merging items into one

Merge a table and its chairs, or any group of furniture, into a single item that moves, rotates and copies as one.

1. Select the pieces (they must be unlocked).
2. Choose Merge into one item in the panel.

Its seats are the seats of everything inside it added up. Its size can’t be changed directly: choose Split apart, change the pieces and merge them again.

Walls, doors, windows, floor areas and text can’t be merged.

Custom items

Save any item, with its size, seats, chairs and name, to the Custom group of the furniture list, ready to drag onto any plan.

• Select it and choose Save to Custom. (Text, walls, doors, windows and pillars can’t be saved.)
• Change or rename one with ✎ in the Custom group, or remove it with ×, then Remove? to confirm.
• Custom items are shared with everyone in your account, on every plan. Removing one doesn’t change plans that already use it, and it can’t be undone.

Create one from scratch

For something the furniture list doesn’t have, choose + Create Custom Furniture & Fittings at the top of the Custom group. A preview shows how it will look as you go.

1. Choose what you’re making: Table, Seating, Furniture & fittings, Decor & outdoor or a Floor area.
2. Give it a name, and pick its shape or style. Tables come as rectangular, round, oval, hexagonal, L-shaped, trestle, poseur, booth, corner booth or picnic bench; everything else can start from anything in the furniture list (a bar counter, a banquette, a planter), or a plain box with a label.
3. Set its size, in centimetres or inches (whichever the plan shows), and its seats. Seats count towards covers.
4. Arrange the chairs: for rectangular, oval and trestle tables, use + and − on each side of the preview (Back to automatic undoes it); for round tables, choose Evenly spaced or Against a wall. Choose chairs, stools or armchairs under Seating, and for an L-shaped table its arm width.
5. Pick a colour, if you like. Furniture and fittings can have a label drawn on the plan, and floor areas a flooring.
6. Choose Add to Custom.

To change one later, choose ✎ on it in the Custom group: Save changes updates it, and Save as new keeps the original and adds your version beside it. Items already on plans stay as they were. (Merged items and icons saved to Custom can only be renamed.)

Limiting it to how many you own

So a plan never shows 16 of your oak tables when you own 14: tick Limit to how many we own in the builder and type how many you have. The Custom group then shows how many are on the plan out of how many you own (for example 12/14), and once they’re all placed, adding, pasting or duplicating another is refused. It counts the layout on screen plus the layouts in use on the venue’s other floors, since those are all out at once. If you lower the number below what’s already placed, the plan’s warnings say so. Untick it to take the limit off.

Clearance warnings

The planner checks your layout as you work. The status pill in the top bar counts the problems, and items with a problem are outlined.

Set the minimum clearance in the plan panel’s Plan settings (50 cm to start with). Walls, floor areas, text and parasols aren’t checked.

Ignoring a warning

Open the warnings list (in the plan panel, or on a selected item) and choose Ignore, or Ignore all. Ignoring lasts for that occasion only: if you fix the problem and it comes back later, you’ll be warned again.

Turning warnings off

To stop seeing warnings altogether, tick Always ignore warnings in Plan settings. Items are no longer outlined, the warnings lists are hidden and the status pill says Warnings off. It applies to every plan in this browser only, so your team still sees theirs; untick it to have them back, including anything you’d ignored one at a time.

Accessibility checks

As you design, the planner checks whether wheelchair users can get in, reach a table, turn round and reach the toilets. It’s advice, like the clearance warnings: anything it finds shows in the warnings list as Access, with the items outlined in blue.

The checks are on for every plan. To turn them off (or back on) for a plan, use the tick in the plan panel’s Accessibility section, with nothing selected. It’s saved with the plan, so everyone who works on it sees the same.

What’s checked

The plan panel’s Accessibility section shows how many tables have wheelchair space and which, how many ways in are step-free, and whether there’s an accessible toilet. Select a table to see its Wheelchair access section; if it has space, the place is shown on the plan with a dashed box.

Tables kept for wheelchair users

Tick Keep for wheelchair users on a table and it gets a wheelchair symbol on the plan, and you’re warned if moving things round takes its space, its route or its turning room away.

If there’s no door in an outside wall, routes can’t be checked: the section says so, and only the space and turning room at each table are checked.

Capacity guide

The capacity guide gives an indicative maximum number of people for a plan, from its floor area and the width of its exits. It’s off to start with: turn it on with the tick in the plan panel’s Capacity guide section, with nothing selected. Like the accessibility checks, the choice is saved with the plan.

How it’s worked out

• By floor area: the indoor rooms, less kitchens, toilets and stores, divided by the space each person needs for how the floor is used: Restaurant or café, mostly seated (1 m² a person), Bar or pub, partly standing (0.5 m²) or Busy standing bar (0.3 m²). A dance floor counts at 0.5 m² a person.
• By exit widths: exits are the doors in outside walls (not kitchen swing doors), and any door with a Fire exit sign within 1.5 m. An exit at least 75 cm wide serves 60 people, 85 cm 110 people, 105 cm 220 people, and wider ones 1 person for every 5 mm. With two or more exits, the widest is left out, in case a fire blocks it. One exit is enough for up to 60 people, two for 600 and three for 1,000.

The guide is the lower of the two. Selecting a door shows whether it counts as an exit, and for how many. If your covers indoors are more than the guide, it shows in the warnings list as Capacity. Outdoor areas aren’t included, and each floor of a venue is worked out on its own.

Covers, table mix and space per cover

The top bar always shows the plan’s covers, tables and floor area. With nothing selected, the plan panel shows more:

• Space per cover: floor area, front-of-house area (not counting the kitchen, toilets and store) and the area per cover, on a scale from very dense to generous. As a rule of thumb, casual dining is about 1.1–1.4 m² per cover and fine dining 1.7–1.9 m². With an outdoor area, also its area and the tables, chairs and covers in it.
• Zones: tables and covers in each zone.
• Table mix: how many 2-seaters, 4-seaters and so on.
• Floors: for a venue on several floors, the ⋯ at the end of the floor tabs shows each floor’s tables and covers, and the venue total.

Selecting several items shows how many tables and covers are in the selection.

Zoom, grid, measurements and units

Moving round the plan

• Scroll to zoom, or use the + and − buttons. Fit fits the whole plan on screen.
• Pan by holding Space and dragging, by dragging with the middle mouse button, or by dragging outside the dashed edge round the rooms.
• Or use the keyboard in Design: hold W, A, S or D to move up, left, down or right (with Shift, faster). Handy when the plan fills the screen and there’s no room outside it to drag.
• On a touchscreen, pinch to zoom and drag with two fingers to pan. One finger on empty floor pans too.

The plan tools

These are remembered in your browser, for every plan.

Venues with several floors

A venue on more than one level (a ground floor, a first floor, a basement bar) is one plan per floor, grouped under the venue’s name.

• + Add floor in the tabs at the top left of the plan adds a floor with the same main room and zones.
• Switch floors with the tabs. Rename the venue and each floor in Plan settings.
• The ⋯ at the end of the floor tabs opens Floors: each floor’s tables and covers and the whole venue’s total, ↑ Move up and ↓ Move down to put the floors in order, and Delete this floor.
• Delete this floor… is also in the plan menu in the top bar. It removes just that floor.

Several layouts of one room

Many venues set the room out differently on different days: a weekday layout, a Friday layout, a Christmas party, private hire. A plan can keep all of them, sharing the same rooms and fixtures, so there’s no need to copy the whole plan.

• Add a layout: choose + Add layout at the top left of the plan. Your existing furniture becomes the first layout, “Everyday”, and the new one starts as a copy of it, with its name ready to type over. After that, + Layout in the tabs copies the layout on screen.
• Manage layouts: the ⋯ at the end of the layout tabs opens Layouts, with each layout’s tables and covers. Rename one by typing over its name, and use Show, Make live and Remove. + Copy this layout copies the layout on screen and + Empty layout starts with just the rooms and fixtures.
• Switch layouts with the tabs at the top left of the plan (above the floor tabs, for a venue with several floors). When there are too many to fit, the tabs fold down to the layout on screen, for example “Friday 2 of 5”: click it to see them all, or use ‹ at the start of the tabs to fold them again. The planner remembers which you chose.
• What’s shared: tables, seating, decor, text and icons belong to one layout. So do a stage, dance floor, DJ booth and buffet counter. Walls, doors, windows, pillars, the bar, kitchen equipment, back-of-house rooms and floor areas are in every layout, so a change to them shows in them all. To change this for an item, select it and set In layouts to Every layout or Only this one. With several items selected, use Only in … or In every layout.
• The live layout (marked with a dot on its tab) is the one Service mode uses, for everyone on the team. Make live switches it, for example on the morning of a Christmas party. You can’t switch while tables that are only in the live layout are reserved or have guests at them: set them free in Service mode first.
• Remove deletes a layout and the furniture that’s only in it (Ctrl+Z undoes it). The live layout can’t be removed. Down to one layout, the plan goes back to having no layouts.

Each floor of a venue has its own layouts. Warnings, covers, table numbers and prints are for the layout on screen, and the print’s title names it.

The setup guide: a starting plan in a minute

The first time you sign in to a new account, a few quick questions lay out a starting plan for you, so you’re not starting from an empty room.

1. What kind of place is it? Restaurant, café, pub, bar, fine dining or function room. This picks the tables (for example, 2-seaters and 4-seaters for a restaurant, poseur tables and bar stools for a bar, round 8- and 10-seaters for a function room), how far apart they are, and the flooring.
2. About how many covers? Type a number or pick one.
3. Include: tick the bar counter (a café gets a counter with a coffee machine), kitchen, toilets and outdoor seating (about a quarter of the covers, on a terrace or, for a pub, a beer garden).
4. Name of the plan, and, if you know it, the size of the room. Leave the size empty and the room is made to fit. If you give a size that can’t take all your covers, the guide tells you how many fit.

The box at the bottom says what you’ll get before you choose Create my plan. The result is an ordinary plan: move, add, remove or resize anything, and change the room under Rooms.

Skipping it

The guide is optional. Skip (or Esc) gives you our example plan, Quayside Kitchen, to try things out, and Start with an empty room instead gives you a blank room. You can use the guide again any time: open the plan menu in the top bar and choose + New plan with the setup guide….

Creating, renaming and deleting plans

• New plan: open the plan menu in the top bar and choose + New plan with the setup guide… to have a starting plan laid out for you (see The setup guide), + New blank plan for an empty room, or + New from sample bistro for a ready-made example. For a blank plan, set the room’s size in the plan panel.
• Rename: type in Plan name in the plan panel (with nothing selected).
• Delete: open the plan menu in the top bar and choose Delete this plan…. The window lists what will go, including its version history. It can’t be undone, so save a plan file first if you might want it back.

Every change saves automatically. There’s no Save button.

Locking a plan with a password

When a plan is finished (say, the layout your licence was granted on), lock it so nobody changes it by mistake. This is different from locking items in place: a password lock covers the whole plan, for everyone.

1. Open the plan menu in the top bar and choose Lock with a password….
2. Choose a password (at least 4 characters), type it again and choose Lock.
3. Tell the people who’ll need to change the plan what the password is.

A locked plan still shows in Design, with Locked at its top left and a notice in the plan panel saying who locked it and when. You can look around it, select items to read their details, print and export it, but nothing can be added, moved, changed or deleted, and the plan itself can’t be deleted. Service mode works as normal: tables can still be seated, reserved and cleared.

Unlocking it

Choose Locked on the plan, or Unlock… in the plan panel, and enter the password. It’s unlocked for everyone until someone locks it again. After 5 wrong passwords, unlocking pauses for 15 minutes.

If the password’s been forgotten

Someone whose role can reset plan passwords (Managers, to start with) chooses Reset password… in the plan panel (or Forgotten the password? when unlocking). They can give the plan a new password, which keeps it locked, or choose Remove the lock.

Each floor of a venue locks on its own. While any floor is locked, the venue can’t be renamed and its floors can’t be reordered. Locking needs an account; it isn’t in the demo.

Undo and version history

Undo and redo

Ctrl Z undoes, Ctrl Y (or Ctrl Shift Z) redoes, or use the arrows in the top bar. Undo only takes back your own changes, never a teammate’s.

Version history

The clock button in the top bar opens the plan’s history: a list of saved versions, with who saved each and what changed. Several saves by the same person within 15 minutes count as one version, and the latest 100 versions are kept.

1. Choose a version to preview it. Changes since are outlined: added, moved, changed, and removed items faded.
2. Restore this version puts it back. The restore is itself a new version, so you can undo it or go back again.
3. Back to current (or Esc) returns to the plan as it is now.

Version history needs an account; it isn’t in the demo.

Service mode at a glance

Switch to Service in the top bar. Tables are coloured by their status, and the whole team sees changes within a few seconds.

Businesses can add statuses of their own, such as “Mains out” or “Bill requested”. See Service settings.

What’s on screen

• The plan: each busy table shows a small chip with its covers and time left (amber when it’s nearly up, red once it’s over, and the guest’s name too if you tick Guest names on the plan at the bottom of the service panel), and an icon for each of its notes. They stay within the table’s own space, so they never cover the next table. When the whole room is on a small screen, there’s no room for them: a dot in the table’s corner means it has notes (red: an allergy), and tapping the table shows everything. Tables nearly out of time, or over, are outlined.
• The table card: tap a table to open it. See Seating, reserving and clearing.
• The side panel: today’s covers, parties and walk-ins; server sections (Business Accounts); the walk-in finder; the waiting list; the plan’s rooms (see below); tables whose time is nearly up; tables by status; and tables free now. Hide it with the panel button in the top bar to give the plan the whole screen.

Hiding a room

When a plan has more than one room, the side panel’s Rooms section has a button for each, with its tables and how many are in use. Tap one to take it off the service plan, such as the terrace when it’s raining or a function room that isn’t open tonight; tap it again to bring it back, or use Show every room. The plan fits itself to the rooms left.

• The walk-in finder, Free now and the waiting list’s quoted waits leave out tables in hidden rooms.
• Guests still at a hidden room’s tables are counted in the totals and in Time nearly up, and the room’s button shows how many tables are in use. Opening one of those tables brings its room back.
• It only changes what this device shows, for this plan (each floor on its own). Everyone else, and Design mode, still sees every room. At least one room always stays on the plan.

On a phone or tablet

On a touchscreen the service plan is held still, so it can’t be knocked about mid-service: a tap opens a table (even if your finger slides a little), a swipe scrolls the page as usual (so you can reach the panel below the plan on a phone), and pinching does nothing. To move or zoom it, tap Plan held still in the bottom corner of the plan; tap it again to fit the plan back on screen and hold it still. The plan also stays put when the phone’s address bar slides in and out as you scroll, and only fits itself again when the screen really changes size, such as turning the phone round.

Seating, reserving and clearing a table

Tap a table in Service mode to open its card. It shows the table, its seats and zone, who’s there and how long they’ve had.

1. Optionally type the party’s Name, and set Covers with − and + (it starts at the table’s seats). Tick any notes: Birthday, High chair or VIP, and an allergy note if your role allows.
2. Tap the big button for what happens next. It’s always the likeliest step:

   Free	Walk-in: seat now, or Reserved
   Reserved	Seat them
   Seated	Guests left: clearing
   Clearing	Ready: free

The row of statuses at the bottom of the card sets any status directly, including your own.

• More covers than the table seats? You’ll be asked to confirm, in case of a typo.
• At a busy table, changing the covers saves straight away, and a name saves when you leave the box.
• Clearing a table removes the party’s name, covers and notes from it.
• Close the card with × or Esc, or tap empty floor.

Seating walk-ins

The Walk-in section of the service panel finds the best free table for a party.

1. Set Party of with − and +.
2. The best tables are listed: those that seat them, first-choice tables first, then the closest fit (so a couple isn’t put on a 6-seater if a 2-seater is free).
3. Tap Seat here. The table is seated as a walk-in.

If no free table is big enough, it suggests free tables close together that would seat them when joined, such as Tables 4 + 5. Tap Join to open the first table’s card, confirm the seats, then tap Walk-in: seat now. See Joining tables. If nothing fits even joined, it says so.

Parties you couldn’t seat

If a party leaves because there’s no table for them (or the wait is too long), tap Couldn’t seat them? Log a party of … turned away under the walk-in finder. It records their party size, so reports and table-mix advice can see demand you couldn’t meet. Today’s count shows as Turned away in the service panel.

Allocation priority

In Design, select a table and set its Allocation priority: First choice for your best tables, Only when busy for ones you’d rather keep back (by the toilets, or the big round you save for groups), or Normal.

Joining tables for a bigger party

Push tables together for one party without going into Design. The joined tables share one card, one name, one covers count, one timer and one status, and split again when the party has gone.

1. Tap the first table to open its card, and tap Join tables….
2. Tap the other tables on the plan. Only free tables can be joined. Tap one again to take it off.
3. Tap Done, then check the seats. They start at the tables’ seats added up, less the chairs at the ends that are pushed together (two square 4-seaters seat 6). Use − and + if they seat more or fewer, then tap Yes, … seats.
4. Seat or reserve them as usual. A free table keeps the join until you do.

Tables too far apart

Tables should be close enough to push together (within about 2 metres of each other). If you tap one further away, the card warns you how far it is and doesn’t join it. Tap Join anyway if you really are moving it over, or Don’t join it.

While they’re joined

• Tapping any of the joined tables opens the party’s card, titled with them all (Tables 4 + 5). A band joins them on the plan.
• Seats changes the seat count, Change adds or takes off tables, and Split puts the party back on the first table.
• Setting the party to free (Ready: free) frees every table and splits the join.
• Reports record the party once, as Tables 4 + 5 with the seats you confirmed.

The waiting list

When there’s no table for a party yet, put them on the waiting list in the service panel and tell them how long they’ll wait. The whole team at the site sees the same list, on every floor.

1. Tap + Add a party (or, when no table seats them, Add them to the waiting list under the walk-in finder).
2. Type their Name, set Party of, and tick any notes (Birthday, High chair, VIP).
3. The Quoted wait is worked out for you. Change it with − and + if you’d rather quote longer, then tap Add.

How the wait is worked out

From the table timers on the floor on screen: for each table that seats the party, when it should be free again (the time its party has left, plus your turn time to reset it; a table being cleared, what’s left of the turn time). Parties already waiting go first, each taking the first table that suits them for their table time. Reserved tables, and your own statuses without guests (such as out of use), aren’t counted. If no one table seats them, it says they’ll need tables joined. It’s an estimate, so the timers are only as good as the times in your service settings.

While they wait

• Each party shows how long they’ve waited against what they were quoted (flagged once they’ve waited longer), and when a table should be free.
• As soon as a table that seats them is free, Seat at Table 7 appears. Tap it to seat them there as a walk-in, with their name and notes, and take them off the list.
• Their notes can include your site’s own notes, and + Note adds a new one here too.
• Edit changes their name, size, notes or quote. × then They left takes them off and counts them as turned away; Take off the list just takes them off.

The list only keeps today’s parties: at the start of the next trading day, anyone still on it (names included) is deleted. A party is deleted from it as soon as they’re seated or taken off.

Table notes and allergies

The table card has Notes for things the team should know about a party: Birthday, High chair and VIP, plus any your site has added. Tap one to tick it. At a busy table it saves straight away; at a free table it waits until you seat or reserve them. Notes show as icons on the table, and parties on the waiting list bring theirs with them.

Your own notes

Need something else, like “Anniversary”, “Regular” or “Window seat”? Tap + Note at the end of the notes, type it and tap Add (or press Enter). It’s ticked on that table straight away, and saved as a button for everyone at your site to use from then on. On the plan it shows as a circle with its first letter. A manager can remove notes in Service settings. Allergies can’t be made into notes: they go in the Allergies box, below.

Allergy notes

Type any allergies in Allergies (for example “peanuts, coeliac”). It saves when you leave the box, and the plan shows Allergy under the table.

Allergies are health information, a special category of personal data under UK GDPR, so they’re handled with extra care:

• Only people whose role has the permission Allergy notes can see or write them. Manager and Staff have it to start with, because the people serving the food need it; the owner can take it away from a role, and new roles start without it. Everyone else sees no allergy note at all.
• They’re deleted as soon as the party leaves the table (clearing or free), or a day after they sat down if nobody clears the table.
• They never go into the day tracker or reports.

Always check allergies with the guest and the kitchen too: a note on the plan is a reminder, not a replacement for your allergen procedures.

Host stand on a tablet

Host stand mode is service mode for a tablet at the door: full screen, with the walk-in finder and waiting list at the top of the panel, bigger buttons for fingers, the time in the corner, and the screen kept on so it doesn’t dim or lock during service.

1. In Service mode, tap the tablet button in the top bar.
2. Tap Exit host stand to go back. Switching to Design also leaves it.

The tablet stays in host stand mode if the page is refreshed. To change site, exit first.

Put it on the home screen

Add it to the tablet’s home screen and it opens straight into the host stand, full screen, like an app:

• Android (Chrome): tap Add to home screen in the top bar when it appears, or use Chrome’s menu → Add to Home screen (or Install app).
• iPad (Safari): tap Share → Add to Home Screen.

Keeping the screen on

The top bar says Screen stays on while the host stand is keeping the screen awake. If it says Screen may sleep, tap anywhere on the screen. Some older browsers can’t keep the screen on: set the tablet’s auto-lock to Never while it’s at the door, and keep it on charge.

Server sections

Share the tables out between your servers for the shift, as you would on a paper plan. Each section has a colour on the plan and its server’s name, and the panel shows everyone’s covers so the work is shared evenly.

Setting up sections

1. In Service mode, find Sections in the side panel and tap Set up sections. You get two sections, with the tables shared out between them.
2. For each section, choose its Server: anyone who works at the site, or Someone else… to type a name (agency staff, say). Rename it and pick a colour if you like.
3. Tap Tables… to choose a section’s tables: tap them on the plan to add them or take them off (a table taken from another section leaves it), then Done.
4. + Add section adds another (up to 12), and × removes one. Share out evenly splits all the tables into neighbouring areas with about the same seats each; tap it twice if sections already have tables.
5. Tap Done when you’re finished.

During service

• Each section’s tables sit on a patch of its colour, with the server’s name above them. Untick Colour the plan by section to hide it on your device.
• The panel lists each server with their section’s tables and seats, the covers at their tables now, and the covers they’ve seated today. Your own section is highlighted.
• A table’s card shows its section and server.

The next shift

Sections keep their tables from day to day, but servers are set for one trading day: each new day starts with nobody on them. Same servers as last time puts the last ones back in one tap. For a second shift on the same day, Take everyone off clears them.

Each party is recorded with its table’s section and server when they sit down, so Reports show covers by server, and moving a table to another section later doesn’t change who served it. Each floor of a venue has its own sections.

Table times and the seating timer

When a party is seated, their table time starts. It depends on the party’s size. To start with:

Each busy table shows its time left. Ten minutes before the end it’s outlined as nearly up and listed under Time nearly up; after that it shows as over.

Giving one party more (or less) time

On the table’s card, use Table time − and + to change it in 15-minute steps. reset goes back to the time for their party size.

Managers can change the times, the warning, or turn the timer off entirely in Service settings.

Service settings and your own statuses

Open Service settings at the bottom of the service panel. Each site has its own settings.

Settings

• Seating timer: show each table’s time left and warn when it’s nearly up. Turned off, times are still recorded for reports, but nothing counts down.
• Table times by party size. Add a row with + Add a party size.
• Turn time: the minutes to reset a table between parties.
• Warn before time’s up: 10 minutes to start with.
• Trading day starts at: 05:00 to start with, so a late service counts towards the day it began.
• Keep guest names for: guests’ names are removed from the day tracker after this many days (30 to start with).

Statuses

Every status is listed in the order it shows on table cards, in the key and under Tables by status. Move one with its ↑ and ↓ arrows; the order is the same for everyone at the site.

If you don’t use Reserved or Clearing, tap Remove twice to take it out of service; Put back brings it back. Without Clearing, a table’s card offers Guests left: free instead. Free and Seated always stay, since walk-ins, the waiting list and joined tables are seated with them.

Your own statuses

Add up to 12 statuses alongside the built-in ones, each with a name and colour. Tick Guests at the table if guests are still seated while a table has it (for example “Mains out”), so its time keeps running and it counts as in use. A status (your own, Reserved or Clearing) can’t be removed while any table has it.

Your own notes

The notes hosts have added with + Note on a table’s card (see Table notes), up to 30 per site. Tap × then Remove? to remove one: any table or waiting party that has it just loses it.

Reports and peak times

Every party seated in Service mode is recorded. Open Reports and peak times from the service panel.

• Choose Today, Yesterday, or the last 7, 30 or 90 days.
• See covers, parties and walk-ins; a chart of covers in the room through the day (the busiest day, and the average day); arrivals by hour; and totals by day and by table.
• Businesses with several sites can see This site or All sites.
• Parties at joined tables and parties turned away are counted too, when there were any.
• With server sections, Servers shows each server’s covers, parties and covers a day.
• Download CSV gives every visit, to open in a spreadsheet.
• Business Accounts also get Table mix: advice on your table sizes.

Table-mix advice

Are your tables the right sizes for the parties you get? Open Reports and peak times and choose Table mix. It looks at the plan on screen (and the venue’s other floors) over the Last 30 days or Last 90 days.

• Party sizes and your tables: how many parties were 1–2, 3–4, 5–6 and so on (including parties turned away), how many needed tables joined, beside how many of your tables are that size.
• How full the tables were: the average party at each size of table, and the share of its seats they used. A 4-seater averaging 2.1 covers is mostly seating couples.
• What would have seated more: the planner replays your real parties (when they arrived, how long they stayed) against your tables as they are, and against changes such as splitting 4-seaters into 2-seaters or putting 2-seaters together. It lists up to three changes that would have seated more covers, and roughly how many a day.

Suggestions start once there are 100 parties over at least 7 trading days. They’re a guide, not a promise: the replay assumes the same parties would come at the same times. Try a change in Design first to check it fits the room and keeps its clearances.

Logging parties you turn away makes the advice better, because it shows demand the tables you have couldn’t meet.

End of service

Set all tables to free at the bottom of the service panel puts every table back to free (and splits joined tables), ready for the next service. Parties still at tables are recorded as leaving then.

Parties you forget to clear count as in the room for up to 4 hours in reports, so an open table overnight doesn’t spoil your figures.

Print, PDF, image and SVG

Choose Export → Print, PDF or image… in the top bar. You’ll see a preview of the sheet, always in light colours.

Paper and scale

Choose A4 or A3, which way round (Automatic picks the way the plan fits), and a scale: Fit to the page, or true to scale at 1:50, 1:100 or 1:200. At 1:100, a metre on the plan is a centimetre on paper. If the plan won’t fit at that scale, the window says so and suggests a paper and scale that will.

What’s on the sheet

Tick what to show: Grid, Flooring, Measurements, and Title and details (the plan’s name, the premises’ name and address, covers, outdoor area, scale bar, north arrow, zones, and a key to any safety symbols and licensed areas on the plan).

Printing some rooms

A plan with several rooms has a Rooms list in the export window: untick the rooms to leave off, for example to print just the terrace for a pavement licence. Only the ticked rooms and what’s in them go on the sheet, with their own covers and area, and their names after the plan’s in the title. It starts with the rooms you’re showing in Design (see hiding rooms); Print this room… on a room’s card opens it with just that room.

Getting it out

The “Created by” line

Exports carry a small, discreet “Created by Fork & Floor” line in the corner. Business Accounts can untick it.

Exporting needs an account; the demo shows a watermarked preview.

Plans for licence applications

Applications for a premises licence, or for a pavement licence for tables and chairs outside, usually need a plan of the premises. Councils commonly ask for it drawn to scale (usually 1:100), showing the boundary, exits and escape routes, fire safety equipment, the bar, the toilets and any outdoor area. Every council has its own guidance, so check yours before you apply.

Making the plan

1. Draw the rooms to their real sizes. Tick Outdoor on a terrace or pavement area’s card: it gets a dashed red boundary, and its area is worked out for you.
2. Add the bar, toilets, kitchen, stairs, doors and anything else fixed, from the palette on the left.
3. Drag a Licensed area (Rooms group) over where licensable activities happen, such as the sale or drinking of alcohol, and fit it to the space: with it selected, drag the handle on any side to move that side. For an L-shaped bar or angled walls, choose Free shape in its Actions, then drag its corners, drag a + to add a corner, or double-click a corner to remove it. Give it a name, for example “Area for the sale of alcohol”: the name shows on the plan and in the key, with its area. Several areas with the same name are added up in the key.
4. Open Export › Print, PDF or image… and open For licence plans (folded below Show on the sheet; it says “Filled in” once it is): the premises’ name and address, and which way north is on your plan. They’re saved with the plan, and the preview shows them straight away.
5. From the Safety group, add your extinguishers (by type), fire blanket, alarm call points, emergency lights, fire exits and first aid. Use Escape route arrows to show the way out; rotate them to point the right way. Safety symbols go in every layout of the plan.

Exporting it

1. Choose Export → Print, PDF or image….
2. Under Paper and scale, pick 1:100 and A4 or A3. If it doesn’t fit, the window suggests what will.
3. Keep Title and details ticked. The sheet then has the premises’ name and address, a scale bar, “Scale 1:100 at A3” (or whichever you chose), a north arrow if you set one, a key to each safety symbol on the plan with how many there are and to the licensed areas, and the outdoor area with its tables, chairs and covers.
4. Download the PDF, or print. When printing, choose Actual size (100%), not “Fit to page”, or it won’t be to scale.

Furniture list

The furniture list counts everything on the plan that you’d buy or hire, for fitting out a venue or ordering more. Open it from Export → Furniture list…, or Open furniture list in the plan panel on the right (with nothing selected).

What’s counted

• One line for each type and size: two sizes of Long 4-seater are two lines.
• The chairs round tables are added to the Chair line, and the stools round poseur tables to the Bar stool line, with how many of them are at tables. Booths and picnic benches have their seats built in.
• Merged items count as their pieces. A table or seat you placed from the Custom group goes by its Custom name, so it isn’t mixed up with the standard one.
• Seating, bar and service fittings, kitchen equipment, decor, outdoor furniture, and safety equipment and signs are listed. Rooms, walls, doors, windows, floor areas, text, icons, escape route arrows and fire door symbols aren’t.

On a plan with several layouts, choose the layout on screen, or Every layout: the most any one needs: for each line, the highest count in any one layout, which is what you need to own if you store the rest between layouts. On a venue with several floors, choose this floor or every floor.

Suppliers and prices

Type a supplier and a price each into any line, and the list works out each line’s total and the grand total. They’re saved with the plan (on every floor of a venue), so they’re there next time, and a supplier you’ve typed once is offered on other lines. Prices are in pounds, as you type them: keep to one way, with VAT or without, for every line.

Changing a supplier or price is an edit to the plan, so it can be undone, shows in version history, and needs permission to edit plans.

Getting it out

• Download CSV: a spreadsheet with each line’s section, item, size, quantity, supplier, price and total, for Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets.
• Print…: an A4 list in your browser’s print window, which can also save as a PDF.

The demo shows the list and takes prices; downloading and printing need an account.

Saving and opening plan files

A plan file (.json) is a complete copy of one plan, to keep as a backup or pass to someone with their own account.

• Export → Save plan file (.json) downloads it.
• Export → Open plan file… adds it to your account as a new plan, at the site on screen. A floor from a venue opens as a plan of its own.

Sharing a read-only link

Send a plan to a landlord, contractor or licensing officer without them needing an account. They open the link in any browser and see the plan, always the latest version. They can zoom, switch floors and layouts, select anything to see its size and details, and use the tape measure, but they can’t change anything, and they never see table statuses, guests, allergy notes, furniture prices or warnings.

Making a link

1. Open the plan, then choose Share a read-only link… from the plan menu (next to the plan’s name at the top).
2. Say who it’s for, such as “Landlord” or “Smith Builders”. It’s only for you, to tell your links apart.
3. For a venue with several floors, choose Every floor or Just this floor. For a plan with several layouts, you can share just one of them.
4. Choose how long it works (until you remove it, or 7, 30 or 90 days, or a year), and whether they may comment and whether they may print it or download a PDF or image.
5. Choose Make link. It’s copied, ready to paste into an email or message.

The same window lists the plan’s links, with how often each has been opened, Copy link, Turn comments off and Remove link (click twice: the link stops working straight away, but its comments stay). An expired link can be renewed for 30 days.

Comments

If the link allows comments, the person you sent it to can choose Add a comment, click the spot on the plan it’s about (or choose About the whole plan), and write it with their name. They see only the comments made through their own link, and your replies.

You’ll see them in Design, at the top of the plan panel, with numbered pins on the plan. Click a pin or its number to find it. With the Share links permission you can Reply (under your own name), Resolve (the pin goes; Show resolved brings them back) or Delete. Whoever made the link gets an email about new comments, at most one every half an hour.

A link is like a key: anyone you pass it on to can open it too. Remove it once they’re done, or give it an end date.

Designing table lay-ups

Table lay-ups show how a table is laid for each service, with every knife, glass, teacup, cruet, vase and lamp in its place, so everyone on the team lays it the same way. Open it at Table lay-ups, from Table lay-ups in the planner’s account menu, or from the home page. It uses your Fork & Floor login, and works in whichever account you’re in. Lay-ups belong to the whole account, not to one site, so everyone in a business sees the same ones.

Not signed in? Try it without an account starts you with four examples kept in that browser only. You can design as much as you like, but exporting needs a free account.

Starting a lay-up

• The first time, Add the four examples gives you Breakfast, Daytime, Afternoon tea and Dinner to change to suit you.
• The lay-up menu at the top has + New lay-up…: pick the service and we lay a table to start you off, or tick Start with an empty table instead. It also has Duplicate this lay-up and Delete this lay-up….
• Lay-ups are grouped in the menu by their Service (breakfast, dinner and so on), which you can type or pick in the panel on the right.

The table

With nothing selected, the panel on the right sets the table: its shape (round, square, rectangular or oval), its size, how many covers, whether a rectangular table has covers at the ends, the tablecloth (or bare wood), a runner and the napkin colour. Add any notes for the team, such as “glasses polished and upside down until 5pm”: they print under the picture.

One place, laid at every cover

Items are either part of the place setting or in the middle of the table. A place setting is laid once and repeated at every cover, turned to face each guest, round tables included. Change a knife at any cover and it changes at all of them. Things like teapots, cake stands, cruets, flowers and table numbers go in the middle, once. To swap an item between the two, tick or untick Lay it at every place.

• Click an item on the left to add it where it usually goes, or drag it onto the table. Dropped near a cover, a place item joins the setting there.
• Drag an item to move it (it snaps to half a centimetre; hold Alt for finer steps), or type how far across and how far from the edge it is. Drag the round handle to turn it in 15° steps (Shift for 1°), or press R.
• Arrow keys nudge the selected item (Shift for further), Ctrl+D duplicates it, Delete removes it, and Ctrl+Z undoes.
• Napkins, flowers, candles and lamps can each have a colour. A napkin with no colour of its own takes the lay-up’s napkin colour.
• Give an item a name on the key, for example “Steak knife (mains only)”, or the text on a table number, menu or place card.
• If the places overlap, the bar under the table says so: try a bigger table or fewer covers.

Above the table: Whole table or One place (a close-up of the first cover), Chairs, Numbers (the numbered key, as it will print), centimetres or inches, and zoom. Drag empty space to move around; the mouse wheel or a pinch zooms.

Exporting

Export shows a preview of an A4 landscape sheet: the whole table and one place side by side, or either one alone, with the title, service, table and date, a numbered key and your notes. Download it as an image (PNG), a PDF or an SVG, or print it. Untick the title, key and notes to get just the picture. The “Created with Fork & Floor” line can be taken off on a Business Account.

Working together

Changes save as you go. Others’ changes come in when you come back to the tab, or within half a minute. If someone else saves the same lay-up while you’re changing it, you choose Keep mine or Use their version. Creating, changing and deleting lay-ups shows in the activity log.

Adding and managing your team

Open the menu under your initials and choose Business & team.

Adding someone

1. Under Add someone, enter their name and email, choose a role, and set a temporary password.
2. Tick the sites they work at (unless their role works at every site).
3. Choose Add to team.

They get a welcome email with a link to choose their own password. If they already have a Fork & Floor login, they get an invitation instead, and join when they accept it. Until then they’re marked as invited, and you can Withdraw invitation.

You need to have confirmed your own email address before you can add people.

Changing and removing people

• Change someone’s role, or the sites they work at, from their row.
• Reset password gives them a new temporary password and emails them to say so. (It isn’t offered for people who are also in another account; they can use “Forgot your password?”.)
• Remove someone to take them off the team.

Nobody can change their own role, or change the owner. You also can’t give out, or manage people with, a role that can do something you can’t.

Roles and permissions

Every Business Account starts with two roles: Manager (can do everything) and Staff (everything except reports, service settings, the team, the business name, sites, server sections, resetting plan passwords, the activity log and share links, and they work only at the sites they’re given). The owner can change them, and add up to 20 roles of their own, such as Supervisor.

In Business & team → Roles and permissions, each role has a name and a tick for each permission. Changes save as you make them and reach people within seconds. + Add role adds one; a role can’t be deleted while anyone has it.

Anyone can view the plans at their sites and their version history. If your role doesn’t allow something, the planner tells you which role you have.

The owner isn’t a role: there’s one per account, they can do everything, and only they can set up roles, transfer ownership or delete the account.

Activity log

The activity log shows who changed what across your account, newest first, a day at a time. Open it from your initials → Activity log.

It lists:

• Plans: created, edited, restored from an earlier version, deleted, moved to another site, locked and unlocked; and Custom items added, changed and removed.
• Service settings: table times and other settings, your own statuses and table notes, and server sections.
• Team and roles: people added, invited, removed, given another role or other sites, or a temporary password; invitations accepted or declined; people leaving; roles added, renamed, changed or removed.
• Sites and account: sites added, renamed or removed; the business renamed, switched to a Business Account, or handed to a new owner.

One person’s edits to the same plan within 15 minutes show as one line, such as “12 changes from 14:02”. For what changed in a plan, Versions opens its version history; Open goes to the plan.

Choose what, who and (with several sites) which site to show, or Download CSV for a spreadsheet of what’s shown. You see what happened at the sites you work at, plus changes to the account as a whole.

Table statuses and the waiting list aren’t in the log: Reports has each day’s service. Entries are kept for a year.

The owner and Managers have this permission to start with; Staff don’t. The owner can give it to any role in Roles and permissions.

Sites

A site is one of your venues or branches, such as “Quayside” and “Old Town”. Each site has its own plans, service settings, statuses and reports. Your account starts with one site, named after the business.

• Switching site: use the site menu at the far left of the top bar. It opens the site’s first plan.
• Adding a site: choose + Add site… in the site menu, or Add site in Business & team → Sites.
• Renaming or removing: in the Sites section. A site can’t be removed while it has plans, and there must always be one.
• Who works where: tick each person’s sites in the team list. Roles with “Every site” work at all of them, including new ones.

People only see the plans at their own sites.

Moving plans between sites

Open the plan menu in the top bar and choose Move to another site…, pick the site, and choose Move. A venue moves with all its floors.

A plan can’t be moved while any of its tables has a status, so clear service first. Moving isn’t an edit: it doesn’t add a version, and people who don’t work at the new site no longer see the plan.

Several accounts and invitations

One login can be in several accounts: your own, businesses you create, and businesses that invite you. You work in one at a time.

• Switching: the menu under your initials lists Your accounts. Choose one to switch to it.
• Invitations: a number on your initials shows invitations waiting. Open the menu and choose Join or Decline.
• Starting a business: + Create a business… makes a new Business Account with you as owner, keeping your others.
• Leaving: Leave followed by the business’s name (click twice to confirm). You can’t leave a business you own, or your only account.

Working together live

Everyone in the account works on the same plans at once. Changes others make show up within a few seconds, and in Service mode even faster.

• Who’s here: the initials of others on the same plan appear in the top bar. An outlined circle means they’re in Service mode.
• Editing at the same time: your changes and theirs are merged. If you both change the same thing on the same item, the later save wins for that one detail.
• You’ll see a short note when someone else changes the plan you’re on.

Offline

If the connection drops, the save status shows Offline. Keep working: your changes are kept in this browser and upload when you’re back online.

Business name, switching and ownership

Open the menu under your initials and choose Business & team (or Account for an Individual Account).

Changing the business name

Type it in Business name and save. Business Accounts

Switching to a Business Account

An Individual Account can become a Business Account with Switch to a Business Account: enter the business name and confirm. You become the owner and keep all your plans. This can’t be switched back.

Transferring ownership

The owner can hand the business to someone else on the team with Transfer ownership: choose the new owner, enter your password and confirm. You then take the role with the most permissions, such as Manager.

Deleting your account

At the bottom of Business & team (or Account), choose Delete business… (or Delete account…).

1. Tick that you understand.
2. Type the business name (or, for an Individual Account, your email) exactly.
3. Enter your password and choose Delete permanently.

This immediately deletes the account, its sites, plans, version history and Custom items, and the logins of team members who aren’t in any other account. It can’t be undone. Save plan files first if you might want your plans again.

Keyboard shortcuts and touch

Press ? in the planner to open the full list beside the plan.

On a tablet or phone

• Tap to select; drag an item to move it.
• Drag empty floor with one finger to pan; pinch to zoom.
• Select (by the plan tools, in Design) makes taps add to the selection and drags select an area.
• In Service mode, tap a table to open its card.

Light and dark theme

The theme button in the top bar cycles between light, dark, and the same as your device. Your choice is remembered in this browser, for every page. Prints and exports always use light colours.

Troubleshooting

The save status says “Offline”

The planner can’t reach the server. Keep working: your changes are kept in this browser and upload automatically when the connection is back. Don’t clear your browser’s data until it says Saved.

“Your role can’t …”

Your role in this account doesn’t include that permission. Ask the owner or a manager. If your role changed while you were editing, any change it no longer allows is put back.

I can’t move or delete an item

It’s probably locked (it shows a padlock). Select it and press L. If nothing on the plan can be changed, your role may not include “Change layouts”.

A plan has disappeared

Check the site menu: you may be at a different site. A plan can also disappear if someone deleted it, moved it to a site you don’t work at, or you were taken off its site.

A table won’t show as a clash

Parasols, text, walls and floor areas aren’t checked, and a warning you ignored stays quiet until that problem goes away and comes back.

I didn’t get the email

Check your spam or junk folder. To confirm your email, use Send it again in the bar at the top of the planner. Emails can be sent at most once a minute.

Still stuck?

Email support@forkandfloor.co.uk and tell us what you were doing, and what you expected to happen.