Menu Management Platform – Case Study

One of our specialties at The Solutions Group is creating customized software to meet a client’s needs. We understand exactly who the audience is, what they need to accomplish, and how to make the solution as lean as possible. Many of our tools provide a complete end-to-end process or solution for our clients. Our Menu Management Platform does just that. It is a multi-faceted tool for customizing restaurant menus; users can design, order, and access reporting to achieve the most accurate product.

Client R

Client R is a major restaurant chain using TSG’s Menu Management Platform. Client R has multiple business units with specific pricing and branding standards. Client R needed the ability to create restaurant menus with various digital assets, pricing, and specific regional content. Our job was to ensure our platform provided the ability to both customize and order menus, store ongoing pricing, and customization data for ease of future orders.

Users

The best way to understand this platform is to identify the users. On the customer’s end, there are two types of users that access different functions of the platform:

  • Restaurant Owner (end-user): Restaurant owners use the platform to customize their particular location’s menu. They use the drag-and-drop features to specify all items and prices. End-users at this level access a database of menu items and specific information stored for every menu item (calories, descriptions, subtitles, titles, headings, translations, and other content).
  • Restaurant Corporate Team (end-user administrator): At the admin level, a corporate team sets up all the templates and options available for the menu customization. The admin team also views reporting and historical data to identify trends and opportunities.

Developed Solutions

Client R needed a way to order customized menus and see proofs in real time. We developed a storefront as part of our platform that allows both customizing and ordering menus. When designing, users can see a real-time preview of their menu prior to placing an order.
Client R wanted 100% data integrity. Our platform needed to be able to quickly update menu information while also archiving the previous data for future reference. We developed the ability to showcase trends in real time. When placing an order, users see all the last price of an item, history of prices, and how the current pricing affects the trend (i.g. a disclaimer stating, “This item is 10% higher than your last order.”)
Client R wanted a way to update menus across multiple locations at the same time. We developed the ability for end-users to create pricing groups. Restaurant owners are able to bundle restaurants into pricing groups to streamline menu ordering and updating on a regional level. When a location is added to a price group, it retains all pricing history while inheriting the pricing of the group.
Client R needed a repository of digital assets for all end-users to access when customizing menus. The Menu Management Platform houses all digital assets, images, and historical menu information (pricing, item descriptions, etc) for future use.
Client R required automated reporting—in conjunction with order confirmations—sent to restaurant owners. We developed a range of reporting functions available to the corporate team of Client R. These reports show historical data including variations in menu pricing and layouts over time.

 

Summary

Our Menu Management Platform is an end-to-end solution for Client R to customize and order restaurant menus. While this specific tool is relevant to print menus, our Agile development team brings the same philosophy to all projects: thoroughly understand the requirements, design, develop, test, and deploy. Our solutions become tailor made to fit the needs of our clients.