For catering orders to properly function, there must be at least one order policy for your organisations' building. It is used to restrict time frames of when catering items can be served and any associated preparation time needed.

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Create separate policies for all categories such as hot and cold meals, snacks and drinks to make sure that they are ordered with enough time in advance. Create a separate order policy for all-day items, another order policy could be for lunchtime menu items, and so on. Order policy makes the menu dynamic based on how far in advance the person books.

Order policy is primarily defined by the kitchen staff and applied to one or multiple menu items.

If you are defining the order policy for the kitchen staff, make sure to align with them first. It is essential to provide operation time (food preparation and delivery) and operating hours of the kitchen. Then the menus will be built accordingly, depending on whether there's sufficient time for preparation of the item.

On the Order Policy page, you can search for an existing order policy, delete, edit, or add a new one.

Adding an order policy

To add a new order policy:

1. Click +Add
2. Fill in the fields in the popup window.
   
   1. Define Policy Name.
   2. Add Policy Description.
   3. (inactive field) Policy ID is assigned by the system after you save the order policy.
   4. Define the time range for kitchen operating hours from and to. You can use this option to create different order policies for different menu items to later dynamically display items in the menu for a certain space.
   5. (required) Add your internal notice in plain text in the Advanced Notice field.
   6. Set preparation time in hours. Consider these examples:

3. Save your settings or cancel adding an order policy.

Deleting an order policy

To delete an order policy, first reassign a catering item attached to it. Do this in the popup that lists all related items that need to be sorted.

Click OK to confirm reassigning the order items, and then confirm all changes and deleting the order policy.