Getting started

Key ideas and words

A short course in how Line Me Up thinks. Read it once and every screen, report and button in the rest of the guide will make sense.

The one loop everything serves#

Line Me Up is built around one loop at the desk: Call Next, serve, then Complete. Every other idea on this page exists either to set that loop up — where people wait, what they come for, where they are served — or to describe what happened in it. If you keep the loop in mind, the rest follows.

The building blocks, in the order a customer meets them:

1. A customer comes for a service.
2. The service belongs to a line, and they take a place in it.
3. Their place in that line is a token.
4. A desk that serves the line calls the token.
5. Everything they do with you, from arriving to leaving, is one visit.

Line#

A line is where people wait, in order. A small café might have one; a hospital might have a dozen — Consultation, Billing, Lab, Pharmacy. The product always says “line”.

Each line has:

• A name customers read, and a short Token prefix of one to six letters or numbers that starts every token it gives out. Leave the prefix empty and one is made from the name.
• A type — how people get in:
  • Walk-in: people join on the day.
  • Bookings only: people book a time ahead.
  • Walk-in + booking: both, in the same line.
• Usual time per person — how long one person usually takes. Line Me Up uses it, along with each service's own time, to estimate the wait.
• Most people waiting at once — when the line is this full, joining from a phone stops. Your desk can still add someone who is standing in front of it.
• A short description and a location customers see, such as “Lab, 2nd floor, room 4”.
• Its no-show rules: how long a called person has to arrive, how early and how late a booked person may come, and whether no-shows are marked automatically.

A line can be paused: nobody new can join it, and everyone already in it keeps their place.

How to add and change lines is on Lines, services and desks.

Service#

A service is what someone comes for: a consultation, a haircut, a colour, a full wash, a passport renewal. Your services form the menu a customer chooses from, grouped up to three levels deep — for example Hair › Colour › Roots.

• Each service belongs to a line. A customer picks what they came for; the right line follows from their choice, so they never have to know how you organise your desks.
• Each has a duration (between 1 minute and 8 hours). A 90-minute colour and a 15-minute trim are counted at their own lengths, which makes the wait estimate fairer.
• A price is optional and for display only. Line Me Up never takes a payment.
• Each section of the menu starts with a “Not sure yet” choice, so someone who has not decided can still join.

A service is not a line. Several services can share one line (Trim, Colour and Wash all in “Hair”), and a desk can be limited to certain services so a specialist chair is only sent people it can serve.

Desk#

A desk is where people are served: a counter, a chair, a consulting room, a wash bay. Each desk serves one or more lines and has a Where to go sign that you write — “Room 12”, “Bay 3”, “Chair 2” — which customers and the TV show when the desk calls them.

• A desk can belong to one person — their chair, their room — or be a Shared desk, a counter anyone can pick when they start their shift.
• When a desk serves several lines, Calls from sets how its calls are shared between them — for example, most from Consultation and some from Review.

A desk is always in one of these states, which you see on the Live board and on Desks:

Visit and token#

A visit is one person's whole time with you, from joining or booking to leaving. A token is their place in one line.

Most visits have one token. A visit that goes through several lines — billing, then the lab — has one token per line, all tied to the same visit. That is why some counts say whether they are tokens or people: the Live board can show “9 waiting” with “7 people” underneath, because two people are waiting in two lines each.

What a token looks like#

A token is the line's prefix, the date, and a number that counts up from 1 each day — for example CON-20261030-014. The last part, 014, is printed large on phones, slips and the TV, because it is the part people say out loud. The date means a token never repeats, and a token found on the floor says which day it belongs to.

• Tokens are always written in ordinary digits, in every language.
• Changing a line's prefix affects new tokens only. Tokens already given out keep theirs, and today's numbers carry on.

Every status a visit goes through#

Each token is always in exactly one status. The staff app and the customer's phone use slightly different words for the same thing — the staff app is short and factual, the customer's page tells them what to do.

In the Visits report and Insights, “Cancelled” is split so you can see why: Gave up their place (the person left the line themselves) and Removed by a desk (someone on your team took them off). Neither is counted as a no-show.

How a no-show happens#

Two settings on each line decide this:

• Called but didn't come — mark as no-show after: once a desk calls someone, the desk screen counts down, and when the time is up they are marked no-show automatically. Turn off Mark no-shows automatically and the desk marks no-shows itself, with the No-show button.
• Booked but didn't arrive — mark as no-show: how late after their time a booked person may still check in. Later than that, they can no longer check in.

Held: waiting, but not called yet#

Sometimes a person is waiting but Call Next passes over them for now. The Live board and the Waitlist call them held and say why, for example “2 held — 1 with another desk, 1 running late · back ~11:45”. There are two reasons:

• With another desk — they are being called or served in another line of the same visit. One person is only ever at one desk at a time, so two desks never call the same person.
• Running late — the customer has said they will be 5, 10 or 15 minutes late. They keep their place, and become callable again when the time they gave is up.

Undo instead of “Are you sure?”#

Every change on the desk screen and the Waitlist happens at once, and a small bar offers Undo for a few seconds. There are no “Are you sure?” pop-ups on the desk screen, so serving is never blocked by a dialog. If you press the wrong button, press Undo.

Walk-ins and bookings#

A person gets into a line in one of two ways:

• A walk-in joins on the day — by scanning your poster, from a link, from the directory, or at your desk — and goes straight to Waiting.
• A booking reserves a time ahead — from the customer's phone, or taken by your desk when someone phones. It stays Booked until the person arrives.

What to know about bookings:

• A booking can be made for today or any of the next six days.
• Free times are worked out from the line's hours, the length of the chosen services, and who is in that day.
• When the person arrives, they check in: on their phone they press I am here in Visits, or your desk presses Check in on the Waitlist. From then on they are Waiting.
• A booked person is called in their time window, not before — How early they can arrive on the line sets how early that window opens.
• A customer cannot move their own booking; they cancel and book again, or ask the desk, which can reschedule it.

Who is called next#

Call Next always picks for you. You never choose from a list at the desk; the order is the same for every desk, so it stays fair:

1. Urgent first — someone put Above everyone (in a clinic, Emergency), then anyone marked priority.
2. Bookings at their time — a booked person inside their time window.
3. Everyone else in order — first come, first served.
4. For a desk that serves several lines, calls are shared between them by Calls from, and an empty line is skipped.

People who are held are passed over until they are free. Owners and managers can change the order on the Waitlist — move someone to the front, drag them, or move them to another line. More on Urgent visits, priority and order.

The wait a customer sees#

A customer's page shows how many people are ahead of them — that is exact — and an estimated wait as a range, such as “about 30–40 minutes” or “under 5 minutes”. The estimate comes from the services of the people ahead, the desks on shift, and any desk that has said it is running behind. It is always an estimate, never a time of day, and it is hidden when no desk is on shift.

A visit with several steps#

Some visits are more than one stop: pay at billing, then a blood test, then back to the doctor; a colour, then a finish; an estimate, a repair, a quality check. Line Me Up keeps those stops together as one visit — sometimes called the visit's journey.

There are two ways a person moves to their next step:

• The desk sends them on. Whoever is serving them presses Send to…, ticks where they go next, and presses Complete and send. They can add a note for the next desk.
• A process plans it ahead. On Processes, an owner or manager sets the path once — for example “Pay first, then the service, then back to whoever sent them” — and attaches it to a service or a line. The desk then sees Complete → … with the next step already named.

What a several-step visit does for you:

• Order is kept. A step that must come first — such as billing — has to finish before the next step's token can be called. (“Pay first” is about the order of steps; Line Me Up does not take the payment.)
• Back to whoever sent them. A return to the sending desk is kept for that person and called ahead of new arrivals. A clinic sees this step as Review.
• One desk at a time. The person's tokens are linked, so two desks never call them at once.

The customer sees the whole visit on their phone: what to do now, then every step marked Done, Now, Go first or Later, with where to go. On the staff side, opening a person on the Waitlist shows the Whole visit the same way; steps in lines you do not look after read “Another line”.

Full details are on Processes: visits with several steps.

The business's day and time zone#

“Today” in Line Me Up always means your day, in your time zone — not the server's, and not the customer's phone's.

• Timezone decides when your day starts and ends. Your token numbers, opening hours and reports all use it.
• Clock decides how every time reads — “1:30 pm” or “13:30” — on your team's screens, your customers' phones and your TVs alike. It is twelve-hour unless you change it.
• Opening hours decide when customers can join from their phones. When you are closed, a phone cannot join as a walk-in — but bookings for open times still work, and your desk can still add someone standing at the counter.

How the day closes#

You do not need to close anything at night. Half an hour after your closing time, Line Me Up closes the day by itself:

• Anyone still Waiting is marked Closed for the day, and their page tells them so honestly rather than leaving them waiting for a call that will not come.
• Token numbers start again from 1 the next day.
• The next morning, every line starts empty.

A day you have marked closed, or given special hours, follows that date's hours instead of the usual weekday. See Opening hours, closures and special days.

Words that change with the kind of place#

When you set up, you choose what kind of place you are. The choice gives you a starting set of lines, and it tells the directory how customers can filter for you:

Line Me Up's words are written to suit every kind of place — it says “customer”, “whoever served them” and “where to go”. A clinic or hospital sees a few words of its own, because those are the words its staff already use:

These follow your kind of place automatically; nobody needs to type them, and they cannot be edited. Salons, garages, cafés and counters share the general words. Changing your kind of place in Settings changes these words and the directory filter, and leaves your lines as they are.

A short glossary#

Put it together: one visit, start to finish#

A walk-in at a clinic, from the poster to the door:

1. A patient scans the poster in the waiting area, chooses Consultation and presses Join. Their token is Waiting.
2. Their page shows how many people are ahead and about how long it will be. They step outside for a coffee and keep the page open.
3. The doctor presses Call Next. The page changes to It is your turn with the room, and the TV reads out the token.
4. The patient arrives; the doctor presses They're here — Being served.
5. The doctor wants a blood test, so they press Send to…, tick the lab, and press Complete and send. The patient now has a lab token. If the lab's process ends with a Review — as the ready-made “Pay, test, review” example does — a step back to the same doctor waits until the lab is done.
6. After the lab, the patient is called back to the doctor ahead of new arrivals. The doctor presses Complete, and the visit is Served — one visit, with every step in the Visits report.