How do I get the app and alerts on my phone?

Get the app and alerts — the two apps (ResoFlow for you, ResoFlow Staff for a shared device), turning on push alerts for new bookings, orders and floor alerts, and managing every device that gets them.

ResoFlow can send push alerts to your phone, tablet or computer — new bookings and tickets, floor alerts (late arrivals, overstays, table ready, no-shows, large parties) and orders — even when ResoFlow is closed. Setting it up is one pop-up, Get the app and alerts, with two steps: Add the app, then Turn on alerts. Everything about alerts on devices, and where the app opens, lives in Settings → Notifications → App and alerts (it used to be called Devices and push).

Two apps, by where you add them

The name under the icon tells you which one you have. On an iPhone or iPad each app gets its own alerts, and can keep its own sign-ins apart from Safari's — so set a staff device up from the ResoFlow Staff icon.

Where to find Get the app and alerts

Every door opens the same pop-up, at the right step:

Your own alerts are for owners and admins — the server has never allowed anyone else, so the doors are only offered to them. On the staff portal (ResoFlow Staff), the pop-up is for the device's alerts: an owner or admin turns them on when setting the device up, or later after signing in there with their PIN (see Venue devices below).

Not now on the Home card hides it for 30 days on that device and says where it lives: the bell and Settings → App and alerts. Don't ask on this device hides it for good. Laptops are never shown the card — the bell and Settings are a computer's doors. You can bring the card back from Settings → App and alerts (Show the set-up card on Home again).

Alerts are per venue

Alerts are set up venue by venue. If your account has more than one venue, a phone set up while one venue was open gets that venue's alerts; open another venue and the phone doesn't get its alerts yet — nothing was lost. Every place that shows this device's alerts says which venues it gets them for ("Alerts on this iPhone: The Exchequer and Test 3"), and on a phone already set up for another venue the open venue offers one tap: Also turn on for that venue — on the Home card, in the pop-up and in Settings → App and alerts → This device (the bell's Also turn on here does the same). There's nothing new to allow: the phone already allows ResoFlow's notifications. On a tablet paired as the venue's, the pop-up opens first and asks, as below.

Tapping an alert for one of your other venues — not the one open on this device — opens a page that says which venue it's for, with one button, "Open that venue here": it switches this device to that venue (your other devices stay as they are) and opens the alert.

Turning alerts off on the App and alerts page turns them off for the venue that's open; the device keeps the others. Signing out removes your own alerts from that device for every venue (a paired venue tablet keeps the venue's alerts — they belong to the device).

Losing a venue stops its alerts at once. If you can no longer open a venue — the account owner turns your access to it off on Who can open which venue, or the venue leaves the account — its alerts stop on every one of your own devices straight away (nothing waits for the 60 days below). Your alerts for your other venues stay as they are.

"Alerts for … have stopped on this iPhone"? The device's alerts for that venue were removed somewhere else — Remove on the App and alerts page on another device, Sign out everywhere — or they lapsed (a device unseen for 60 days is removed automatically, and a phone that stops accepting alerts is too). The Home card, the pop-up and Settings say so, with Turn alerts on again.

Step 1 — Add the app

Add it from the page you want it to be: a dashboard page adds ResoFlow; a venue's staff PIN page (or any staff portal page) adds ResoFlow Staff. The pop-up shows the steps for your device, with a picture of where the button is (tap another device's name to read its steps):

ResoFlow needs an up-to-date browser on every device — the list is in Devices and browsers that work with ResoFlow.

Tap I've added it when you're done. On an iPhone or iPad, then open ResoFlow from the new icon on your Home Screen: step 2 opens there by itself, the first time. (ResoFlow Staff on an iPhone or iPad: open it from its icon — if it asks to set the device up, an owner or admin does that there and chooses its alerts; if it opens on the PIN pad, an owner or admin signs in on it and turns them on — see Venue devices below.) On Android or a computer, installing is optional — Skip to alerts goes straight to step 2.

Where the app opens

The app's first screen is your own choice, on every device you sign in on: Settings → Notifications → App and alerts → When the app opens, show. Pick The same as signing in (Home, or All venues when your account has more than one venue), All venues, Home or Bookings (naming which venue, if you have several — a single venue that takes no bookings isn't offered Bookings). It never skips a sign-in: if you are signed in, the app opens straight there like a bookmark; if you are not, you meet the sign-in page first. A paired venue tablet always opens on the PIN pad, whatever anyone chose and whoever is signed in on it — and only a paired device ever does: a phone or computer that isn't paired opens the sign-in page. (For a shared tablet, add ResoFlow Staff from the staff PIN page instead: it always opens the PIN pad.) The change applies from the app's next launch. (The same link opened in an ordinary browser tab, not the installed app, goes to Home with the steps for getting the app instead — see above.)

Step 2 — Turn on alerts

Tap Turn on alerts. ResoFlow first explains what will arrive; the phone's own "allow notifications?" prompt appears only when you tap the button. On an iPhone or iPad, alerts only reach the app on your Home Screen — a Safari tab cannot receive them, so there the pop-up starts at step 1 and step 2 is finished inside the added app.

Once alerts are on you can Send a test alert to check it lands on the lock screen, choose which alerts, set quiet hours, and see every device.

Alerts are blocked? The device said no to notifications at some point. On an iPhone or iPad: Settings → Notifications → ResoFlow → allow. On Android: long-press the ResoFlow icon → App info → Notifications. In Chrome or Edge on a computer: the icon at the left of the address bar → Notifications → Allow, then reload. Then tap I've allowed it — try again.

A venue's tablet — your own alerts ask first

A tablet or phone paired as the venue's (for the staff portal) gets the venue's alerts — new bookings, floor alerts and orders — for whoever is working. If an owner or admin signs in to the dashboard on it and turns on their own alerts there, ResoFlow asks first and says what will happen: the venue's alerts stop on that device, and their personal alerts — including money and account alerts — show on it instead, where others can see them. Keep the venue's alerts is the safe answer and the default; Replace with mine puts your own alerts on it. The change is recorded in the Activity log, and the device shows under Venue devices in Settings → App and alerts as taken over, with who did it and when.

To switch back, open ResoFlow on that device and go to Settings → App and alerts → This device → Give it back to the venue (or, on the staff portal, Profile → Alerts on this device): your alerts come off it and the venue's come back.

Not getting alerts on your iPhone?

Work through these in order — the first one that applies is nearly always the answer.

Which alerts push

Every venue alert — bookings, floor alerts, orders and marketing — has its own Push switch, beside Bell, Toast and Sound. The venue's defaults are on Settings → Notifications → Alerts and sounds → Notification defaults; each owner or admin can override their own devices in Your details → In-app notifications. Thirteen are on out of the box: new booking, event ticket purchased, large party needs tables, late arrival, overstay, unassigned large party, table ready, no-show, new order, order not acknowledged, new orders paused automatically, kitchen printer offline, and delivery address checks not working. "Booking cancelled" is off unless you switch it on. Its twin Booking cancelled (same day) fires only when the cancelled booking is for today's service — switch that one on to hear about a table that has just freed up tonight without hearing about every cancellation. System alerts (billing, security, staff, support and platform) always appear in the bell for owners and admins and are not pushed per type. The one exception is a single personal switch in an owner's Your details → In-app notifications — Money and security alerts on my devices, on by default — which covers seven alerts (payment failed, Stripe payments paused, a fraud warning, the account paused, Two-step sign-in changed, the texts service down, a service paused by ResoFlow) and pushes them to owners' own devices only, never to an admin, a venue tablet or a member of staff. Two more alerts are pushed. Your approval PIN was used goes only to the owner whose approval PIN it was, on their own devices, under the same switch. A new device signed in to your account goes only to the person whose account it is — an owner or an admin — on their own other devices, never to anyone else or to a venue tablet. For an owner it rides the same switch; an admin has a switch of their own for it, New-device sign-in alerts on my devices, in Your details → In-app notifications (on by default). A reply from ResoFlow support also rides this switch, to the person who wrote — an owner or an admin. Nothing else in the System stream is ever pushed.

What a locked phone shows is fixed: first name and initial, party size and time — "New booking — Sarah M., 4 at 7:30pm" — never a phone number, email, allergies or notes. Pushes use the phone's own notification sound; when the app is open it keeps ResoFlow's chime and skips its own pop-up for an alert it was just pushed. On an iPhone, iPad, Mac or Windows the app icon shows a number: the Venue tab's unread count from the bell — its unread notifications that need someone (see How does the notification bell work?). While the app is closed, each new venue alert adds one; opening the app puts the exact number back, and it clears when nothing is unread. Money, security and test alerts don't add to it.

Quiet hours

In Your details → In-app notifications → Quiet hours you can hold alerts to your own devices between two times on the venue's clock (a window past midnight, such as 23:00 until 08:00, works as you'd expect). Off by default. Floor alerts still come through — late arrivals, overstays, table ready, no-shows and orders — unless you switch that off too. Venue tablets have no quiet hours.

Venue devices — a paired tablet

A paired staff tablet or phone — usually running ResoFlow Staff — gets alerts as a device, not a person. The staff app sits on the PIN pad (leaving it signs the person out), so its alerts can't depend on anyone being signed in: they follow the venue's defaults whoever is signed in — or nobody — never include money or account alerts, and only an owner or admin can turn them on. They choose per device when setting it up (Alerts on this iPad? → Turn on alerts or Not now — a tablet at the pass usually wants them; on a member of staff's own phone it's their choice), or later: sign in on the device with a PIN and tap Turn on alerts on the Home card (or Get the app and alerts on Profile → Alerts on this device) — or, signed in with your email on it, Settings → Notifications → App and alerts → This device, which on a set-up device offers only the venue's alerts. Staff cannot change which alerts a shared tablet gets: a member of staff's own Profile → Notifications only chooses what they see and hear in the app while signed in (the bell, pop-ups and sounds). A member of staff's own phone set up this way is a venue device too — they can quieten it in the phone's own Settings → Notifications. Removing a paired device in Settings → Security policy → Devices allowed in stops its alerts in the same tap.

Tapping an alert in ResoFlow Staff opens the PIN pad; after the PIN it opens the booking, order or table the alert was about.

(Tablets that added the older "ResoFlow Staff" icon before 15 September keep working exactly as before — it opens on the PIN pad; there is nothing to redo. An icon called "ResoFlow" added from a staff PIN page between 15 September and 8 October opens the ResoFlow app: on an iPhone or iPad that is the sign-in page, so remove it and add ResoFlow Staff from the PIN page.)

A tablet on the Orders screen gets pushes for "order not acknowledged" and "printer offline" only by default — the board already rings for every new order. Change that per device on App and alerts: Escalations only, Everything or Off.

The App and alerts page

Settings → Notifications → App and alerts shows This device, Your devices (your own phones and computers) and Venue devices (the paired tablets — including any whose venue alerts someone replaced with their own), each with Alerts on/off, Test and Remove. On Settings → Security policy → Devices allowed in, each paired device shows an Alerts on chip. Your details shows only your own devices.

The lifetimes are fixed: signing out removes your own alerts from that device, for every venue; losing a venue removes your own alerts for it from all your devices at once; one of your own devices stops getting them after 7 days without opening the app (a lost or retired phone), and any device unseen for 60 days is removed automatically. Turning alerts on again from the device sets it up afresh.

Related: How do I control dashboard alerts and sounds? · How does the notification bell work? · How do I set up a device for the staff portal? · Devices and browsers that work with ResoFlow