There are 2 important concepts to understand about Specials, Specials and Codes. A Special is the statement and outline of the offer. It states what the offer includes and the type of offer. When a Special is created, it is assigned to a store. This does not limit where it can be used it is merely a tracking tag. A Code is the trigger entered by users to apply that code to the items associated with the Special. A Code can modify the price or percentage of the Special and connect the Code with a specific store and vendor. Codes have beginning and ending dates. An Exclusion can be added to a Code so that it cannot be used at a certain store.
Users can create Specials by adding a New Special.
Set the Search by:
Then enter the search characters in the Search Data: field and click search
Common search wildcards like * are not supported.
If you click on the plus sign to the right of “Coupon Codes” it will expand a list of all the codes that have been added to that Special. There is a flaw in the search feature when a Special has more than 5000 Codes assigned, the Codes cannot be opened for editing. You will see a spinning icon if it disappears and no codes are displayed that means there are too many codes assigned.
Double click on one of the Specials on the results list to open that Special.
The top line is the description that customers see and the Special value if there is one. Codes can modify Special values. Right click on this line to Edit this special's general information as described above in New Special.
Most Specials must have one or more Component Groups. A Component Group is a list of one or more Item Sizes that are included in the Special. Within a Component Group there can be very different items. A common Special we have is Free Bread Buds or Cin Stix. That Special has a Component Group with the Item Sizes Regular Bread Buds and Regular Cin Stix.
If the Special includes more than one option like pizza and a drink, there is a Component Group with all the possible pizza Item Sizes that the customer can chose from and another Component Group with all the drink choices for that Special.
The names of the Component Group only apply to that special and can be anything that describes that Group.
There is an exception for Entire Order Specials. Because those codes apply to any full priced Item Size on the menu you create the Special with a Component Group called “Entire Order” and then delete the Item Size you added to create the “Entire Order” Group. This gives you a Component Group with no Item Sizes listed.
A Component Group can have an Upgrade. This is for Specials like 1M 1T @ $9.99 and you want to allow the customers to Upgrade to a large for $4 more. Upgrades are store specific and the Upgrade added in Admin will only be available at the store that is selected. [The selected store is the store in parentheses next to Change Store in the navigation menu.] If it is desired to have an Upgrade available on a Special at all stores it can be done by running a query in the database. Right click “Available Upgrades” to “Add an upgrade to this component group.”
If you click on the plus sign to the right of “Coupon Codes” it will expand a list of all the codes that have been added to that Special. There is a flaw in the search feature when a Special has more than 5000 Codes assigned, the Codes cannot be opened for editing. You will see a spinning icon if it disappears and no codes are displayed that means there are too many codes assigned.
If you right click on Coupon Codes you will see “Add a coupon code for this special.” Click on that message to open the Add Coupon window.