Why Manage Menu Descriptions and Images in Direct Ordering

Managing the descriptive details of a menu in Direct Ordering offers advantages over maintaining those details through the POS system and Checkmate. Direct Ordering supports more detail for each item, including:

• Description
• Short Description
• Ingredients
• Tags
• Allergens
• Nutritional information, including serving size, calories, total fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, total carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sugar, and protein
• Multiple image options per item

Adding these details creates a richer ordering experience for customers.

Additional benefits include:

• The flexibility to use short, functional internal names in the POS and Checkmate while showing more descriptive external names to customers. For details, see Menu Item Names and Internal Names.
• A single, centralized place to manage the descriptive information for a menu, rather than splitting it between the POS or Checkmate and Direct Ordering, which risks oversights.
• For multi-location concepts, updating descriptive menu data once in Direct Ordering, rather than repeating the update for each location.

For tags and allergens, see Using Tags and Allergens. For the full list of what Direct Ordering receives from Checkmate and which fields are customizable, see How Direct Ordering Syncs Menu Information from Checkmate.

Updating Menu Item and Modifier Images

Some restaurants use a different set of menu photos for first-party ordering, or different images for the web experience and the app. Menu photos can be changed in the Direct Ordering Admin Panel.

An image can be uploaded in four slots: Raw Image, Small Image, Large Image, and App Image.

• Raw Image: A single high-resolution image of any size can be uploaded here (for example, 5 MB or 10 MB). The tool automatically compresses it into the small, large, and app images used on the website. Image sizes are adjusted in the back end so that site speed is not affected.
• Small Image: The menu item image shown during menu navigation.
• Large Image: The menu item image shown when a menu item is selected.
• App Image: The menu item image shown on the app.

Default image dimensions for Direct Ordering's automated image conversion can be set in the Direct Ordering Admin Panel, under Settings > User Experience > Image Sizes.

Uploading or Updating Menu Item Images

Follow the steps below to upload or update menu item images:

To use different images for the small, large, and app slots, upload them separately under the appropriate tabs.

Uploading Modifier Images

Follow the steps below to upload modifier images: