LiveOrder - Getting Started

LiveOrder gives attendees the ability to place mobile orders and skip the line by picking up at an order ahead location on-site. Event producers have the flexibility to configure locations, customize pricing, fees, order limits, and any regulatory requirements through the use of the LiveOrder CMS and Square. LiveOrder supports multiple item categories, allowing you to sell beverages, merchandise, donations, and more. 

The LiveOrder suite includes 4 products:

1. Your LiveOrder Store. Link to the store from your event app, or website, or use it as a simple point of sale on any device.
2. LiveOrder CMS. Manage store settings, messaging to customers, store fees, and more.
3. Square. Create and manage your item pricing, inventory, and view customer and event reports.
4. Order Management. Simplify order fulfillment for vendors onsite with this easy portal. 

If you are a Premium client and have LiveOrder included in your contract, please use this link to book a meeting with a member of the Aloompa team. We'd be happy to assist you in the set up of LiveOrder at your event!

There are 3 steps to getting started with LiveOrder

1. Create your Square Account
2. On-site Planning
3. Enter Items and Inventory & Configure your store

Note: Aloompa will create your LiveOrder store, provide the portal for Order Management on-site, and process the transactions. Client Support will provide training on the LiveOrder CMS and Order Management portal and will help answer questions throughout the setup process. The setup of your items, pricing, and inventory is your responsibility. 

Step 1: Payment Processor / Creating your Square Account

To use LiveOrder, all clients must provide a Square account. We suggest you create a new account for your LiveOrder sales. This should be done a minimum of 16 weeks prior to your event date to allow ample time for training, the configuration of your store, and testing. 

If you do not have an account, please visit https://squareup.com/signup, create an account and follow their onboarding steps to complete. There is generally no lead time required when creating an account with Square - you should receive your account immediately. 

We support all currencies that Square supports - CAD, GBP, FKP, AUD, YEN, EUR, and USD.

Please send Client Support a login with admin access to the Square account you would like to use. The login must be able to perform API OAuth.

We will then handle integrating your Square account with your LiveOrder store. For US clients, the Aloompa fee will be automatically routed to Aloompa's account and visible to you within your Square account. We can show you an example of this with a test transaction once your account is set up and your LiveOrder store is ready.

Note: If you have multiple vendors interested in using LiveOrder, they must all use the same Square Account. We do not currently support multiple Square accounts for a single LiveOrder store. 

Non-USD Currencies:

If you are planning an event in a location with a non-USD currency, we are not able to automatically transfer the Aloompa fee through Square. In this case, you will collect the Aloompa fee and be billed by Aloompa after the event.

Step 2: On-Site Planning & Best Practices

Proper planning for how you will implement the use of LiveOrder on-site is crucial to the success of your LiveOrder store.  We recommend starting to plan how you will use LiveOrder on-site at least 12 weeks prior to your event.

Here are a few best practices we've gathered to help.

• The best use cases for LiveOrder are merchandise and beverages. Pre-made grab-and-go type food would work well but we do not recommend using it for made-to-order food products. 
  • Made-to-order food has the additional complication of preparation time and adds an element of uncertainty when it comes to pick up times. LiveOrder supports one message for pick up instructions across the entire store (i.e. "Your order will be ready in 15 minutes"), which can create frustration for your customers if the orders are not fulfilled in the time promised.   
• Map out the staffing requirements on-site in advance to ensure you will have adequate staffing and pick up locations. We recommend dedicating pick up locations to products that were ordered ahead via LiveOrder. Having a single staff member responsible for selling to walk-up customers and fulfilling items ordered ahead can cause frustration for your customers. Depending on the size of your event and the number of sales you expect, we recommend 1-3 people managing order ahead. For example, 1 staff member speaking to customers and managing the pick up line and 2 staff actually fulfilling the orders. 
  • Tip: Don't forget to consider if you need to ID customers at the time of pick up. If your event IDs people elsewhere on-site and provides 21+ with a wristband this will speed operations up at your pick up locations when alcohol is involved. If not, increase staffing at the pick up location to account for the additional task of checking IDs. 
• Will you have one single pick up location or multiple? Consider the convenience of the location to all attendees. If there is a single pick up location at an event that is difficult to access from certain parts of the event, this could present problems to your customers. 
• Ensure you have adequate internet coverage. The Order Management portal can function with spotty internet access as it sends orders through in batch as it receives a connection. However, this can create an issue for your customers and employees on-site if they placed their order yet the location fulfilling the order does not receive the update to fulfill their order in a timely fashion. 
• Discuss the type of device you will use for Order Management and fulfillment of orders on-site. 
  • The Order Management portal can function on any device, but we do not recommend using handheld devices such as personal cell phones. In addition, ensure that any device settings disallow screen dimming and sleep settings. When some device screens turn off the app running in the background is turned off. This will create an issue with fulfillment as the person working will not be notified of new orders. For this same reason, ensure the devices have adequate access to power!
• Will your order fulfillment process require printing? For example, if you are fulfilling merchandise does that process require printing a paper order confirmation out? Touch base with the vendor handling the fulfillment of your items very early on in your planning process to discuss topics like this and avoid surprises. The Order Management portal does allow a printer to be used but we'll want to ensure everything is working prior to the day of your event. 
  • Note: we do not automatically provide devices or printers with standard LiveOrder contracts. If this is something you need, please let us know and we can discuss it. 

Step 3: Enter Items and Inventory & Configure your store

With your LiveOrder CMS and mobile store set up and your on-site plan in place, you're ready to move on to entering the items, pricing, and inventory and configuring your store specifics. On-site planning will impact the setup of your LiveOrder store (you will need to make decisions such as location names and categories of items) which is why we suggest tackling your on-site plan prior to entering any items.

Locations

These are the names of the actual locations where customers will pick up their orders. Create the Square locations that will be mapped to our LiveOrder Categories.  -  https://squareup.com/dashboard/locations

Items & Inventory Setup

Square is used to manage the inventory and items for sale in your LiveOrder store. We recommend setting up the items in your Square store 6-8 weeks prior to your event.

Please review this Square guide on how to Create and Manage Items Online. If you need to limit the inventory of items you are selling please review this Square guide on Basic Inventory Management. 

Configure your LiveOrder Store

The LiveOrder CMS is used to configure your store settings such as hours of operation, Categories, fees, templates for customer communication, and more. Review our LiveOrder CMS Guide for full details on how to use this tool. 

Note: Depending on the number of items you are offering, the process of programming your inventory and setting up your store can be time-consuming. Please allow plenty of time for this task and ensure the staff responsible for the task are able to attend training.