Expo

Expo is a third operational screen next to the kitchen (KDS) and POS: the workstation for the person at the pass who hands ready orders to guests and couriers, or dishes to tables in the "Dining room" view. Open Admin Panel → "Handoff (Expo)" — that is the sidebar item's name.

The screen helps you see which bag to give a courier and which ready dishes to take to a table. Choose "Handoff" for bags or "Dining room" for the runner and waiter.

What is needed to start#

• A tablet or monitor with a browser — open the handoff screen next to the shelf of ready orders.
• Employee access to "Handoff (Expo)" and the right location selected.
• Pickup/delivery orders for "Handoff", or table orders for "Dining room".
• Ready station tickets — assembling an order builds on item readiness on the kitchen screen.
• The bridge and a printer — for bag stickers and order manifests (Printing).
• A secure connection (HTTPS) — the handoff code uses browser cryptography and is not shown over plain http.

The handoff queue#

The "Handoff" view shows pickup/delivery orders in the ready/awaiting-pickup status — after cooking but before handover to the courier. Own-delivery orders that already have a courier assigned (manually or automatically) stay here while the bag is still on the shelf: assignment does not mean the order has left. The card leaves the pass only when handover is marked here or the courier marks "Picked up" on their side. Each order card shows:

• a channel badge — Glovo / Wolt / Yandex Eda / Deliveroo / own website / own courier, detected from the order source;
• the courier's name and phone, if assigned;
• an ETA countdown, a late-courier indication or a green "courier has arrived" highlight;
• time since the order became ready, so you can see which order is getting cold: after your thresholds the card turns yellow, then red (courier arrival takes precedence);
• a one-line summary of the order (first items and a remaining-item count) and the guest's name;
• for pickup, a handoff code: the same code the guest shows on the tracking screen, checked visually before handing over the bag.

Cards are sorted by courier ETA (soonest first), falling back to arrival order (FIFO) when ETA is unknown.

The "Page view" gear adapts the screen to your pass: card width, density, visible fields (channel, courier phone, items, guest, order age) and yellow/red thresholds in minutes; turn on sound with the header button. If there are several locations, the location filter is saved on the device.

Handing an order to a courier#

When the courier takes the order, press "Handed to courier"; for pickup, press "Handed to customer":

• for own delivery, the order moves to delivering (the same transition as in Own delivery) and gets a courier-picked-up mark, which removes its card from the pass. If the venue has couriers in "Staff" and the order has none assigned, the screen first asks which courier took the bag (there is also an "External courier (not on the list)" option). If a courier is already assigned, it simply records handover and names the courier in the confirmation. To hand the order to a different courier, use "↪ Reassign" in Own delivery;
• for aggregators (Glovo/Wolt/Yandex Eda/Deliveroo) and pickup, the card is marked handed over and leaves the queue; handover is tracked separately from order status. The card disappears immediately and returns if the write fails.

Updates arrive live via WebSocket, with fallback polling if the connection drops, just as on the kitchen screen.

If the location has an external courier service connected, an own-delivery order with an address has a "Call a courier" button. You can call from the pass without switching sections. Without a connected service there is no button; aggregator and pickup orders do not have it either. See Own delivery.

Hand over part of an order#

1. If only part of the order is being collected, press "Hand over part" (½ icon).
2. Enter the quantity of each row you are handing over now. The whole remainder is selected by default — check it before confirming.
3. Confirm handover. The card stays with a "Handed X of Y" mark until the entire order has been handed over.

If the contents fail to load, check the connection and reopen the window. Do not mark the whole bag handed over in place of a missing part.

Check payment before handover#

"Not paid" asks you to check settlement. Unpaid pickup follows the location's "Unpaid handoff" setting: "Senior PIN" (default), "Forbid" or "Warn only". An owner or manager changes it in the Expo header after selecting a specific location. If blocked, take payment at the till first; the PIN must belong to an employee allowed to approve operations.

Handing own delivery to a courier proceeds without this prompt: the courier collects payment on delivery. Aggregators and charge-to-room, corporate-account or debt settlement also bypass this check. This does not confirm that money has been received.

Take ready dishes to the dining room#

1. Open "Handoff (Expo)" → "Dining room". The view is stored in the address (?tab=hall); choose your location.
2. Find the table: the card shows the order number, waiter, ready dishes grouped by course and guest numbers if set. "ready" / "cooking" / "served" counts order rows, not portions.
3. Take the ready dishes to that table. After handover, press "Served": it marks all ready rows on that card. For an individual row, use the order card in "Orders".
4. To see upcoming work, turn on "All tables": it adds open tables whose dishes are still cooking. Without it, only tables with dishes ready to take out are shown.

For a permanent runner workstation, press the "Add to sidebar" pin on the "Dining room" panel: a separate entry opens this view. If "Some lines can only be served from the order card" appears, open "Orders" — this handles older rows the screen cannot address individually.

Printing the manifest and bag stickers#

Two documents print from the handoff screen through Cenaly Hardware Bridge:

• the bag manifest, a slip inside the bag with the order number, channel, guest name, quantities, modifiers on separate lines ("no onions", "lactose-free milk"), guest note and an "Items: N" total. The courier and guest can check completeness against it; it helps check contents in a missing-item dispute. Print one order or the whole queue;
• 60×40 bag stickers: the screen asks how many bags the order occupies (up to 20), then prints "Bag 1 of 3", "2 of 3", and so on, to avoid mixing up bags. Repeating the action with the same answer does not print extra stickers.

Stickers go to a label-role printer, or a receipt printer if there is none. Without the bridge, the manifest prints through the browser. If the full contents cannot be loaded, the screen offers printing with an "unverified contents" note — check the bag manually or retry loading. Printing details, the job queue and code pages — Kitchen and front-of-house printing.

Put a bag on a pickup shelf#

If ready bags sit on a rack, set up the location’s shelves — then the courier and the guest go to the right shelf instead of searching the whole rack.

1. Pick the location in the screen header and click “📦 Shelves” (available to the owner and managers).
2. List the shelves separated by commas or new lines. Ranges expand automatically: “A1-A6, B1-B4” makes ten shelves. Click “Save”.
3. On an order card click “📦 Shelf” and pick a shelf. The first free one is highlighted and marked “free”; shelves taken by other orders are dimmed. You can type your own shelf or “Remove shelf”.

In the apps. The shelf picked on the web screen is also shown by the tablet and desktop apps:

• kitchen screen on Android, Windows, Linux and iPad — an amber “📦 A3” chip under the ticket header;
• “Handoff” mode of the kitchen screen on Android, Windows and Linux — the same chip on the order card;
• till on Android, Windows and Linux — a “Shelf: A3” line under the open order’s ticket;
• order card in the Android owner and waiter apps and in Cenaly Business and Cenaly Team for Windows — a “📦 Shelf: A3” line.

A kitchen screen that gets orders from the bridge on the venue network sees the shelf even offline, once the bridge is updated to a version that carries the shelf.

A shelf is set by an employee with handoff access; guests and employees without the handoff section cannot change it. Several bags can share one shelf.

Assign the shelf automatically#

In the same “📦 Shelves” window turn on “Put the order on a shelf automatically when it is ready” and click “Save”. While the handoff screen is open, it gives every ready order without a shelf the location’s first free shelf — the same one manual selection would highlight. Two orders that become ready one after another get different shelves.

• You can change or remove the shelf by hand — the screen will not put it back.
• No free shelves — the order stays without a shelf; pick one yourself.
• The handoff screen is closed — no shelf is assigned: the open screen is what chooses it.

What the guest sees#

A pickup guest sees the shelf on their order page, in the “Pickup code” block: “📦 Your order is waiting on shelf A3”. The line disappears when the order is handed over or cancelled.

Cutlery and curbside pickup#

Two storefront ordering settings — in the same place where pickup and delivery are switched on:

• “Ask how many cutlery sets” — takeaway and delivery checkout gets a “Cutlery” counter. It starts at “No cutlery”: the guest adds the number they need.
• “Curbside pickup” (in the pickup block) — the guest can tick “I’ll pick up at the car” and enter the car, colour, plate and parking spot. Without the car or the plate the choice is not saved: a parking spot alone is not enough to find the guest.

On arrival the guest taps “I’m here” on the order page. The time is set by the server; tapping again does not move it.

Where staff see it:

• Expo screen — a “🚗 white Kia · A123BC · spot 3” chip. When the guest taps “I’m here”, the chip turns green and the same chime as for an arriving courier plays. Next to it — “🍴 Cutlery: 2” or “No cutlery”.
• Kitchen screen — the same chips on the ticket.
• Kitchen ticket, bag sheet and pre-check — bold lines “At the car: white Kia · A123BC · spot 3” and “Cutlery: 2” before the items.
• Order card in “Orders” — the car, “here since 19:05” and cutlery.
• Phone notification — on “I’m here” a push “Guest is at the curb · order #42 / white Kia · A123BC · spot 3” goes to everyone who gets the location’s order notifications: the owner, waiter, POS and kitchen apps (not couriers). The Expo screen may be closed. The guest’s name and phone are not in the notification — it shows on the lock screen.

The POS has the same fields under a takeaway or delivery ticket: the number of cutlery sets and a “Curbside pickup” tick with car, plate and spot — for phone orders.

The self-service kiosk asks the same for “Take away” orders: the cutlery counter and “I’ll pick up at the car”, driven by the same two settings. The kiosk confirmation screen shows a QR code of the order page — the guest scans it and taps “I’m here” from the car. “Eat in” orders don’t show these fields.

The tablet and desktop apps show the same:

• Kitchen screen on Android, Windows, Linux and iPad — the “🚗 white Kia · A123BC · spot 3” and “🍴 2” chips under the ticket header. The car chip turns green when the guest taps “I’m here”. This also works offline, when the screen gets orders from the bridge on the venue network.
• “Expo” mode of the kitchen screen on Android, Windows and Linux — the same chips on the order card. On “I’m here” the card is highlighted and the courier-arrival chime plays. iPad has no “Expo” mode yet.
• POS on Android, Windows and Linux: an opened order shows “At the car: …” and “Cutlery: 2” lines under the ticket. They are read-only: the guest enters the car and cutlery.
• Order card in the Android owner and waiter apps and in Cenaly Business and Cenaly Team for Windows — the same two lines.

The partner ordering widget (ordering from a neighbouring venue through a hotel’s or food court’s menu) shows one cutlery counter for the whole cart; the number goes to the partners that have “Ask how many cutlery sets” switched on. There is no “I’ll pick up at the car” there: the order is brought to the host — to the room or table.

Fullscreen mode#

Like KDS, Expo is designed for a monitor that stays on at the pass:

• fullscreen mode and screen wake-lock;
• a chime when a courier arrives, rather than simply when an order enters the queue — the person at the door matters at the pass;
• a repeat-signal mode: the signal repeats every few seconds until the arrived courier is served. Sound and repeat mode are device-specific. In "Dining room", the signal announces a new table with ready dishes.

Limits#

• "Dining room" shows progress by row, not individual station states. "Served" applies to all ready rows on the card, not an arbitrary selected portion.
• "Handoff" shows only orders in handoff statuses (plus assigned own-delivery orders until pickup) without a handover mark. Earlier statuses belong in "Orders" and the kitchen.
• The aggregator channel list is fixed (Glovo, Wolt, Yandex Eda, Deliveroo — the same platforms as in Integrations); own courier is detected by the courier name.
• Pickup shelves are set only on the web handoff screen. The apps show the shelf, but you cannot pick or remove it there. The automatic shelf is assigned only while the web handoff screen is open — the server does not choose a shelf itself.
• If the connection drops, an action may wait on the device to be sent. Without the cloud and a live location bridge, new orders from other tills are not fully known — If the internet goes down.

Troubleshooting#

Common questions#

Is Expo useful if the venue only has its own couriers?#

Yes, anywhere with delivery or pickup. It shows both your couriers and aggregator couriers together, which is useful with mixed delivery channels.

Do dine-in orders appear on Expo?#

Yes. Open "Dining room" for ready dishes going to tables and the "Served" button. "All tables" adds orders still cooking. "Handoff" keeps pickup and delivery bags.

How does the screen know an aggregator courier's ETA?#

ETA and courier details come from order data updated by aggregator webhooks or own-delivery data. Expo displays those values.

Related guides#

• Kitchen (KDS) — the kitchen screen orders come from before reaching Expo
• POS — order intake and payment
• Hall orders — tables and firing courses
• Own delivery — the venue's own courier screen
• Kitchen and front-of-house printing — manifest, stickers and print queue