Locked Feature despite Plan

[Cooked4U]

I am a new user and just invested in Rest. Plus and all the related hardware. 

I have an outside site hosted by INONOS, who I have been doing business with for decades.

My online store is a sub-domain thru Square. 

Under Item/Categories/Edit Category - there is a feature called AVAILABILITY which is lock for me, typically this feature has 2 options 1) During Reg Biz Hrs or 2) Only During Certain days and Times

After 3 tech support calls and one very rude manager I am told that despite my plan this feature is only is I host my website thru Square and cannot be applied to the sub-domain/square.site online store.

I find this unfair and frustrating. Why cant I designate these features? My entire menu is day to day specific until an item is sold out. I have spent all week working on all the features to make this easier for customers to understand what is available day to day. I am not open yet and trying to work out all kinks now. 

Any suggests would be very helpful and appreciated.

Additionally the language barrier of tech support makes this even harder, once I got a manager and asked who can I speak with, her only response was "This is no longer a productive call, I need to disengage" - she hung up, gone are the days of going up a chain for a solution. I asked for specific IT contact so I can contact my provider with tangible info to work on. It may have changed my mind on who I chose for POS if this had been disclosed upfront.

Square should've have said some features are locked if you are not hosted with us, regardless of plan. Its not so easy to switch hosts and cancel contracts and after decades with my host who is great, I wont do that

[Cooked4U]

I am a new user and just invested in Rest. Plus and all the related hardware. 

I have an outside site hosted by INONOS, who I have been doing business with for decades.

My online store is a sub-domain thru Square. 

Under Item/Categories/Edit Category - there is a feature called AVAILABILITY which is lock for me, typically this feature has 2 options 1) During Reg Biz Hrs or 2) Only During Certain days and Times

After 3 tech support calls and one very rude manager I am told that despite my plan this feature is only is I host my website thru Square and cannot be applied to the sub-domain/square.site online store.

I find this unfair and frustrating. Why cant I designate these features? My entire menu is day to day specific until an item is sold out. I have spent all week working on all the features to make this easier for customers to understand what is available day to day. I am not open yet and trying to work out all kinks now. 

Any suggests would be very helpful and appreciated.

Additionally the language barrier of tech support makes this even harder, once I got a manager and asked who can I speak with, her only response was "This is no longer a productive call, I need to disengage" - she hung up, gone are the days of going up a chain for a solution. I asked for specific IT contact so I can contact my provider with tangible info to work on. It may have changed my mind on who I chose for POS if this had been disclosed upfront.

Square should've have said some features are locked if you are not hosted with us, regardless of plan. Its not so easy to switch hosts and cancel contracts and after decades with my host who is great, I wont do that

[ryanwanner]

Hello again @Cooked4U !

Well, after our last conversations about getting your site set up, that was not what I expected when we agreed it was time to get support involved!

As far as I know, as long as your site ends in the square.site address, all these features should be available to you. The only time I could see issues is if you're importing your item list into a third party provider (Like WooCommerce on a WordPress site). I could be mistaken, but I don't believe the responses you got were correct.

I'd like to tag a couple of mods to the community here along with a few other Restaurants Champions to get clarification on what you've been told.

@Summer2024, @_Violet @JJ_ (mods)

@SSB_YVR, @JamesSandbar , @SVLFever , @Donnie-M , @TheRealChipA  (champions)

and others...

Does this sound right to you?

[SVLFever]

Honestly, I'm not sure @ryanwanner .   Our site is hosted by Square, and the functionality works as expected.   I guess the issue could revolve around some built-in scripts that Square has in their hosting that aren't available as a sub, but I would have zero clue what they are.

I'll need to defer to others.

[Cooked4U]

I appreciate the help and reach out

[TheRealChipA]

Hey there @Cooked4U.  I appreciate the tag @ryanwanner.

So, what you were told is correct.  I can’t speak to the “whys” of this not being included in the Restaurants pricing and features guide, but here’s a quote directly from Items > Categories > Edit Category, in the Availability section:

“Your Square Online site must use the Order Online ordering page template to apply availability settings, and this doesn’t apply to services and classes at the moment.”

It seems that time-based categories currently ONLY work with Square Online hosted sites.  I would imagine that this has something to do with code (as John alluded to) that is specific to the Order Online page as integrated into Square Online sites (and not third-party hosted sites).  In this case, knowing the whys won’t really be helpful, though.  I’ll tag a few more moderators and hopefully they can talk to the team and enlighten us.  But, regardless of the whys, @Cooked4U, it is clear to me that what you are wanting to do with a third-party hosted site is just not possible.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

@Kassi_@RSosebee1@_Violet@MayaP@Summer2024@Summer2024@Ellie_@Katie_SQ@Laurie_@Sammie_C  can you check with the team and at least give us some explanation for this restriction, currently, and if there are plans to “fix” it on the roadmap?

[ryanwanner]

@TheRealChipA  Yeah, I was worried about that.

The whole part that trips me up with all of this is that in the prior thread, @Cooked4U gave us a square hosted site for verification: https://cooked-for-you.square.site/ . And, by going from the main website to the actual ordering site seems to just be a link to the actual square site versus set up as a subdomain (which from my understanding would have been something along the lines of ordernow.cookedforyou.com)

So from my admittedly limited knowledge about things, it seems like the site is hosted on a square server with the Order Online template in play. Which means that this should work?

[Cooked4U]

yes thank you, my main site is just a pretty landing page of visuals created before I chose a POS platform

[TheRealChipA]

@ryanwannerNow I see the conundrum that I did not see before.  And I’m going to also cry uncle here.  I still suspect that there is something technical reason why a subdomain site can’t do this, but I really can’t be sure.  So, it is best that we wait for the moderators to confer with the engineers and get a better reason/verdict.  My apologies for not connecting that last dot in this rather convoluted puzzle.  This one is a head-scratcher for sure!

[Cooked4U]

yes thanks, my sales rep sent it to a manger to look over but if they wanted to - i'm sure the solution is a simple code to the sub

[TheRealChipA]

@Cooked4U see my next post on this thread.  Your issue here is not a Restaurants subscription issue.  It is a Square Online subscription issue.  Timed categories are only supported on the Plus tier and higher — not the free tier.

[TheRealChipA]

@Cooked4U It also has nothing to do with who is hosting your website.  That was just a distraction from the real issue here.

[TheRealChipA]

@Cooked4U @ryanwanner Ok.  So, I finally found something definitive on this Square Pricing Page.  But, man, is it buried.

In the list of “extras” that come with the Plus plan, there is a line that says “advanced item settings.”  If you click on the information button next to it, you’ll see this — “includes time-based categories, scheduled product drops and item badges.”

So, based on this, it seems that time-based categories are indeed only part of Plus or higher plans.  @Cooked4U you won’t have to change your existing website host, but you will have to upgrade your Square-hosted online store to Plus if you want to use this feature.

[ryanwanner]

@TheRealChipA  I didn't even think about having to update the website from the free version. Good eye!

RST Plus subs give you all the bells and whistles for the in person experience, @Cooked4U , but doesn't necessarily get you everything for the online environment. I bet that's what is tripping you up more than anything at this point.

I still hope a moderator chimes in on this, if only to possibly start an internal discussion about if the Plus packages (restaurants, retail, and appointments) should include the website enhancements.

[Ellie_]

Hi there, @TheRealChipA,

Thank you for catching that, you are correct about why that is not available on @Cooked4U site currently. Time based categories is currently a feature of the Square Online Plus plan. For clarification, @Cooked4U, did you upgrade your site? If so, we can get this escalated to our Square Online support for further investigation or check in on the existing escalation. 

I also wanted to say I am sorry to hear about the frustration and experiences you have had with our Customer Success team. That is not the experience we want our users to have, and we can make sure proper feedback is passed on.

[Cooked4U]

My site is hosted by ionos, my square package is restaurants plus with a subdomain for my store https://cooked-for-you.square.site/

[Cooked4U]

Is there a link I can see,  I'm already paying for plus,  how much more will this be

[ryanwanner]

@Cooked4UWhen you're at Dashboard -> Online, you can click the Upgrade text in the upper right.

Depending on your setup, you may be able to downgrade RST plus to the free version and not lose much functionality. That way it offsets the website update cost.