Tempo Dashboard Update FAQs
About Tempo Dashboard
- The Tempo Dashboard is designed to give restaurant operators a detailed understanding of dining room performance. It tracks table turn speeds, guest dining durations, and overall service pacing flow across shifts.
- It allows operators to monitor and analyze service pacing, table utilization, and daily order flow. Operators use it to pinpoint peak/quiet operational hours, measure guest stay durations, diagnose causes of guest complaints or slow tables, and identify underutilized seating areas (such as outdoor terraces vs. indoor dining).
Total empty table time
- The total time during the trading day when tables were empty (no active orders).
- Includes empty time at the start and end of the day, and between guests.
Average turn time
- The average time guests spend occupying a table from being seated to leaving.
Average time between turns
- The average amount of time between one table being vacated and the next party being seated — helping identify efficiency gaps in reseating tables.
Tables empty the longest
- This daily summary card tallies cumulative unoccupied hours for every table across the full trading day (including pre-service, post-service, and gaps between seatings).
- It displays the top underutilized tables alongside an Average table marker so managers can spot floor plan bottlenecks. Adjusting time filters does not recalculate this card
Orders with the biggest slowdowns
- Highlights specific table orders where recorded POS service milestones took longer than the venue’s configured targets (e.g., excessive time to place a first order, delayed payment after printing draft receipts, or long gaps without activity).
- Selecting an order opens its detailed timeline.
- Note: Requires POS app version 26.32.0 or later.
What is the Order Key Moments chart for?
This chart visualizes key service timestamps for individual table orders (when items were ordered, which items were selected, cover counts, payment times, and guest names).
It helps diagnose total order duration from open to close, identify payment or service step delays, and compare timing variances across tables.
What is the Global Order Patterns chart for?
Provides a macro-level overview of total restaurant order volume across the trading day.
It categorizes ordering patterns into food, drinks, uncategorized items, and payment volume, helping managers analyze operational peaks/dips, assess service consistency, and understand kitchen workload surges.
What is the Table Occupancy chart for?
Measures floor plan efficiency by breaking down Total Empty Table Time (time spent unoccupied before, during, and after service), Average Turn Time (seated to departure), and Average Time Between Turns (reseating turnaround gap).
Why doesn’t the Order Key Moments chart show the last 4 digits of the card number for some payments?
If a check is split between diners using partial payments, no single card is tied to the total order, causing the chart to omit the card’s last four digits.
Why do I see other orders on the same table when viewing the Full Service Period?
When viewing an extended timeframe, the dashboard displays previous or subsequent orders on that same physical table purely for contextual reference regarding table turnover; they do not alter the metrics of the specific order being analyzed.
Why does the Global Order Patterns chart show activity when the Order Key Moments and Table Occupancy charts are empty?
Global Order Patterns tracks all restaurant demand—including takeout, online, pickup, and delivery orders. Order Key Moments and Table Occupancy track only seated, physical dining room tables.
Therefore, kitchen activity from off-premise dining will reflect in Global Patterns even if the dining room has zero occupied tables
Why don’t Tab Name orders appear in the Order Key Moments chart?
Tab Name orders (e.g., custom bar tabs or walk-up orders) are not linked to physical table layouts. Because Order Key Moments isolates table-based pacing, tabs are excluded from it, though they remain visible in the Global Order Patterns chart.
How does Tempo determine the ordered time shown for items in the dashboard?
Ordered time records the exact timestamp when a staff member taps to add the item to the order in the POS.
It does not reflect when the item was sent/fired to the kitchen. However, if an item is added but never sent, it is completely excluded.
What happens if an item is added to a table and then cleared before it’s sent?
Items deleted/cleared prior to being sent are scrubbed from dashboard data, preventing accidental or false server inputs from skewing pacing calculations.
How does Tempo determine the served time shown for items in the dashboard?
For venues using Lightspeed KDS, served time uses the timestamp when kitchen staff tap Completed on the screen.
It serves as a close proxy for kitchen exit time rather than the exact second food touches the guest table. Non-KDS locations do not have served time metrics available.
