How do I set up and use the Seamless Kitchen Display System (KDS)?
Seamless KDS shows your kitchen orders on a screen instead of, or alongside, your printed prep tickets. You install the app on a tablet, sign it into your venue once with a short code, and pick a station: the screen then shows exactly what that station's prep printer would have printed. Orders land about a second after the till sends them, and the screen keeps working if your internet drops.
Before you start
You will need:
A tablet to mount in the kitchen. KDS is on the App Store for iPad and on Google Play for Android tablets. We recommend a screen size of 11" or greater.
Your kitchen print routes already set up. Stations are mirrored from your print routes, so if your prep printers are configured, your KDS is configured.
You do not need a kitchen server, a controller box, or any extra wiring, but the KDS tablet will need an internet connection to operate
1. Install the app
On the kitchen tablet, open the App Store (iPad) or Google Play (Android tablet).
Search for Seamless KDS
Install it and open it.
2. Sign the screen into your venue
Each screen is signed in once, and then it stays signed in. After that the tablet behaves as a dedicated kitchen appliance. If your device has a browser, please login with your account email + password. If your device is a specialist Android based display, follow the on-screen prompts to sign in by QR code.
3. Choose a station
A station is one screen's view of the kitchen, and it mirrors one of your existing kitchen print routes. If you already have Food, Drinks and Desserts routes, you already have those three stations, with the same items and the same grouping rules as the printed ticket.
You can find the settings by tapping on the "gear" icon on the main screen.
Two things worth knowing:
Station settings come from the print route, not from KDS. Category grouping, seat numbers and one-card-per-item production mode all follow whatever that route is set to. There is no separate KDS configuration to keep in step.
Leave no station selected to get expedite view. The screen then shows every item in the kitchen, which is what you want on the pass.
Reading a ticket
Every ticket card shows:
The order number and the table
The order mode badge, for example Eat in or Takeaway
A PAID badge when the order has been paid
The name of the server who sent it
An allergen warning strip across the top of the card, on any ticket where allergens have been declared
Each item, with its modifiers listed underneath
Kitchen notes, always shown and highlighted, because a note is the one thing a chef cannot work out from the product name
The ticket timer and what the colours mean
Every ticket carries a timer showing how long it has been waiting, and the card changes colour as it ages: fresh, then warning, then late. Badly overdue tickets flash.
The timer starts when the kitchen received the ticket, not when the server first opened the order at the till. That means the number on screen is real kitchen time, so a table that sat with an open tab for an hour does not arrive in the kitchen already red.
The amber and red thresholds are set per screen, so a dessert station can run to different timings from the grill.
Working a ticket: fire, done, bump, recall
Tap an item to fire it. That starts a cook timer on that line, so you can see how long that individual dish has been on.
Tap it again to mark it done. The line is struck through. Item states live on the order itself and sync, so marking a dish done on one screen strikes it through on every screen, and the state survives an app restart.
Bump the ticket when it leaves the kitchen. One button clears the whole ticket off the screen.
Recall it if you bumped too soon. Recently bumped tickets sit on the recall rail, one tap from coming back. Nothing is lost.
Courses and seat numbers
If your venue uses coursing, coursed tickets group under course headers, in your own course names and colours: Starters, Mains and so on. Anything without a course is always listed first, so nobody has to hunt for it.
Stations follow their print route's course grouping setting, exactly like the printed ticket does. Expedite view shows courses whenever the venue has coursing switched on.
If your venue uses seat assignment, seat badges (S1, S2 and so on) appear on the lines, on any station whose route is set to print seats.
Sound alerts
KDS can play a sound when a new ticket arrives. You can change this setting under settings.
What happens if the internet drops
Nothing disappears. The Seamless KDS is offline first, in the same way the tills are: everything is stored on the device, so a router hiccup or a dropped connection does not blank the kitchen mid-service. When the connection comes back the screen catches up on its own.
If tickets are not appearing on a screen
Work through these in order:
Check the station. The most common cause is a screen set to a station whose print route does not include those items. Switch the screen to expedite view: if the items appear there, the order is arriving fine and it is a routing question, not a connection one.
Check the print route. Items only reach a station if that route would have printed them. If a new product has been added to the menu without being routed, it will not appear.
Check the till actually sent the order. An order that has been rung up but not sent has not reached the kitchen yet.
Frequently asked questions
Does KDS replace my kitchen printers? Only if you want it to. Plenty of kitchens run both, for example a screen on the hot section and a printer for the dessert pass. KDS works alongside your printers or instead of them, and you can change your mind without reconfiguring anything, because both read the same print routes.
Do I need a kitchen server or a controller box? No. It is an ordinary tablet and the app. There is no hub, no extra box and no special wiring.
Can I run more than one screen? Yes, as many as your kitchen needs. Item states sync across all of them, so a dish marked done on the grill screen shows as done on the pass.
What if someone bumps a ticket by mistake? Use the recall rail. Recently bumped tickets are one tap from being restored.
Does KDS record how long orders take? Every bump records how long that ticket took, from the moment the kitchen received it to the moment it was cleared.