ASAP Order Throttling

Introduction

Olo offers brands greater control of their ASAP/Immediate orders via ASAP Order Throttling (a.k.a ASAP Throttling). Brands using the Make Time Minutes Per Period order throttling strategy can utilize this feature to fine-tune the inflow of their ASAP/Immediate orders from both direct and third-party marketplace ordering channels.

Enabling the feature

Please reach out to your Customer Success representative to enable this feature and learn about it in greater detail. 

Qualifications

Brands can use this feature if they meet the following criteria:

• Your brand uses the “Make Time Minutes Per Period” order throttling strategy. Brands utilizing the “Orders Per Window” strategy cannot utilize this feature.
  
  
• Your brand is “Rails-only”or has a front-end that can support this feature. Olo front-ends are supported, but not all custom front-end providers have built support for this feature yet. Please reach out to your Customer Success representative to learn more.

How it works

At a high level, the feature will allow orders to be placed as Immediate (i.e. ASAP) during periods when the restaurant has already reached capacity. The customer sees an extended prep time rather than needing to select a future time slot as long as there is an available time slot within a preset overflow window (e.g. 30 mins). This contrasts with previous functionality in which a customer is presented with an error message and asked to choose a later handoff time for their order.

FAQ

• What is the difference between ASAP Throttling and Capacity Throttling?
  • “Capacity Throttling” and “Order Throttling” are used interchangeably at Olo. They are both umbrella terms that describe different approaches to the throttling of a restaurant’s orders. ASAP Throttling, however, is a specific tactic within the Make Time Minutes Per Period order throttling strategy.
    
    
• Does Olo have a recommendation for the “Max Overflow Minutes” setting?
  • Though every brand is different, we’ve seen many succeed with a 60 minute max overflow value. We recommend enabling the feature for a trial period and testing different values to find the one that works for your brand.
    
    
• Can I enable this feature for a specific set of stores?
  • Unfortunately, no. This is a brand-wide enablement and the setting will affect all stores.
    
    
• What problems are solved by enabling this feature?
  • The majority of Rails orders submitted to Olo are ASAP/Immediate. This means that if an order is placed on a marketplace and the restaurant's time slot has reached its maximum, the order will fail. This results in order cancellations and in cases where repeat failures of this nature occur, stores are often temporarily deactivated from ordering by the marketplaces. Enabling ASAP Throttling reduces friction for users in the ordering workflow and can be highly effective in reducing errors related to throttling.
    
    
• Am I able to run reports from the Olo Dashboard to see which orders were throttled?
  • Olo does not offer self-service reporting for ASAP Throttling at this time. 
    
    
• Can I enable this feature for a specific third-party marketplace?
  • Not at this time, no.
    
    
• Why are my brand's Rails marketplace orders still seeing errors even with ASAP throttling turned on? Shouldn't ASAP throttling have addressed this issue?
  • No, ASAP throttling will not eradicate throttling errors although it serves to reduce them. Here are some situations where a brand, that has enabled ASAP throttling, will still encounter basket failures/errors:
    • Late orders that are placed during the last (at-capacity) slot of the day
    • Holiday/Observances/Events where capacity slots have been filled far in advance by direct channel orders, leaving no room for marketplace orders.
    • The next available slot is too far into the future and exceeds the overflow setting
      
      
• Which front-end/third-party apps and marketplaces support this feature?
  • Please reach out to your Customer Success Manager to learn more.