Saved designs: start at home, finish in the shop

Overview

A customer doesn't have to design at your counter. They can start on their own phone or computer, save the design, and finish it on your kiosk in the shop. At the kiosk, they can also take a design with them on their phone. Orders are still placed only on a paired kiosk tablet and paid at the register (see Pairing a kiosk tablet), so a design saved at home never becomes an unpaid order by itself.

Saving at home is on by default. It is Allow saved home sessions in Settings → Kiosk → Session & Delivery; the How customers order card at the top of that page shows whether it's on. When it's off, customers can try designs on their own phone but not save them, and the welcome screen says you can try designs here, then order at the counter. A paired kiosk can always Save for later.

Start at home

1. The customer opens your kiosk link (/kiosk/{your-workspace}) on their own phone or computer. The welcome screen says This browser isn't a shop kiosk: you can design and save, then finish at the counter.
2. They pick a design and fill it in, as on the kiosk. Instead of Submit order, the last step's button is Save and finish at the shop.
3. Their screen shows a QR code and a short code under Your saved design code (8 characters, like K7M2-QX9P; capitals and the dash don't matter, and it never uses the look-alikes 0, O, 1, I or L). It also says when the code stops working ("Your code works until Mon, Nov 3"). Designs saved before short codes existed keep working by QR code, link or their long code, typed in any case.

On their own phone the kiosk never resets after inactivity, so locking the screen doesn't lose the design.

Finish in the shop

1. On the paired kiosk, the customer taps Finish a saved design (on the welcome screen or the product list).
2. They hold their phone's QR code up to the tablet's camera (Scan with camera). Or staff scan it with a handheld barcode scanner into the code box, or anyone types or pastes the code or link.
3. The kiosk opens the saved design, ready to review, approve and submit. Prices are worked out again with your current price list, and the review shows the new total if it changed. The customer approves the design again.
4. The customer enters Your details again: a code alone never shows the name, email, phone or notes saved with the design. They stay stored, and leaving a box empty doesn't erase them. Only a shop owner, admin or member, signed in on their own device, sees them filled in when opening the saved design; a viewer never does, and neither does a paired kiosk.

Codes only work at the shop that issued them. If a design has expired, the kiosk says so and offers Start a new order. If it was already ordered, the kiosk shows the order number, the total and the receipt QR code, and links to the approved design.

Camera scanning uses the browser's built-in QR reader. It works in Chrome on Android and ChromeOS, and in recent Safari. When the browser has no QR reader, the camera button is hidden and the code box still works. The browser asks for camera permission the first time. Allow it once on the kiosk tablet.

Take a design to your phone

At the kiosk, the review step also has Save for later. The kiosk shows the same code and QR code under Finish it later: the customer scans it with their phone's camera to take the design with them, keeps working on it there, and taps Finish a saved design on the kiosk when they're back. On their phone it works as a design saved at home: it can be changed and saved, but not ordered. With Allow saved home sessions off, the phone shows the design but can't save changes to it.

After an order is placed, the QR code on the order screen is the customer's proof link: scanned with their phone, it opens their approved design, and staff scan the same code at the register to find the order.

Send me this link (off by default)

If you turn on Let customers email or text their saved-design link (Settings → Kiosk → Session & Delivery), the saved screen also shows Send me this link. The customer picks Email or Text, enters an address or number (filled in from what they typed under Your details), and taps Send. They get one message with the code, the link and the date it stops working. Nothing else can be added to the message. Text is offered only when SMS proofs are on; email needs email sending set up for your account.

What staff see

A saved design isn't an order, so it isn't in Orders until the customer submits it on the kiosk. Scanning its QR code or link on any staff page opens the scan panel with Saved design — not ordered yet, the design name and the time it was saved, and asks the customer to finish it on the kiosk tablet. On a paired kiosk tablet there is also an Open here button. Once it's submitted it's an ordinary order, awaiting payment at the register.

How long saved designs last

A saved design lasts seven days; saving it again starts the seven days over. Saved designs that were never ordered are deleted 30 days after they expire. Ordered ones stay with their order. Layout designs the kiosk builds for a customer's own item (a library art piece with a text layout) are deleted 30 days after a customer last picked or opened one, unless a saved design, an order, a kiosk profile or a product still uses them; the kiosk simply builds a new one next time.