🚩 Applicable to app version R2025.02

As catering service can be delivered only to certain spaces and at certain times, it can be useful to know what catering availability controls your organisation is using. 

When ordering a catering service to your booking, there are several aspects that control if the order can be made based on the current time and until what time you still can make that order. Same controls apply for updating the catering order.

1. Order Policy controls catering item availability hours and preparation time of each catering item that's using it. This means that some of the items on the menu may become unavailable if there's not enough time left to prepare them. Such items will be shown in red and disabled.
2. The Pre_Book_Cat_Time parameter can be applied for your building to define the minimum time ahead of a booking when catering can be added.
3. Catering Menu cut-off settings offer more flexibility than the Pre_Book_Cat_Time building parameter and define on what specific weekdays you can make an order from the corresponding menu. For example: 
   Catering Menu cut-off time for Mondays is set to 2 days in advance at 9:00 AM. This means that the last time to make an order for any Monday is on a Friday in the morning before 9:00 AM.
   ⚠️ If this dynamic catering cut-off setting is applied for a menu, it is then always used even if it was accidentally turned on and off. It overrides the building parameter:
   • Before this cut-off setting gets applied for a menu, the Pre_Book_Cat_Time parameter is used.
   • After this cut-off setting gets applied for a menu, it overrides the previously set Pre_Book_Cat_Time parameter.
4. If the approval flow for the catering service is applied for organisation, each new catering order moves on to the Pending Approval status for the catering manager to timely approve catering orders. Editing a catering order during the approval window is disabled.
5. Users can have IgnoreCutOff permission to create and manage catering orders regardless of current time.