topic Re: Practice POS functions at anytime! in Restaurant Operations

Practice POS functions at anytime!

jenni — Thu, 30 May 2024 20:03:16 GMT

Here by customer request – Toast Learning Design and Customer Training have partnered to develop a solution that enables restaurant employees to practice using the POS without access to Toast Web or the physical POS!

Users can now access hands-on tutorials for common Front of House POS functions in a sandbox environment. The tutorials can be accessed via the Getting Started with POS Functionality section of Toast Classroom page.

We are so excited about introducing this innovative modality to enhance on-the-job training for new Toast POS users.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve used them! ⬇️

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

Kirsten_H — Fri, 31 May 2024 14:29:01 GMT

This is a nice start, but it would be great to have a training mode for new floor staff to get familiar with the layout and functionality of their restaurant's Toast POS menu. That way they can get comfortable with the device itself and not have to worry about sending orders to the kitchen or voiding them at the end, or taking devices offline to train. Like a 'test mode' for employees...that would be a really useful addition.

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

jenni — Fri, 31 May 2024 18:29:23 GMT

Hi @Kirsten_H, thanks for sharing this feedback! I just passed it along to the learning team.

-Jenni

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

jenni — Fri, 31 May 2024 19:49:32 GMT

Hi again @Kirsten_H, the learning team sent over a couple other resources that seem like they'd be helpful for you and your team-

Test Mode Overview: https://central.toasttab.com/s/article/Test-Mode-Enable-and-Disable-1492802389999

Training your team on Toast: https://central.toasttab.com/s/article/Training-Your-Team-on-Toast-1492803990315

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

Kirsten_H — Fri, 31 May 2024 20:07:28 GMT

I appreciate this, but Test Mode is impractical for training purposes. We have to train employees while we are open, sometimes due to restaurant hours and sometimes due to employee availability.

Training videos are helpful, but there really is no substitute for hands-on training with the device. As a hands-on learner, it was very difficult for me to conceptualize setting up the back end of Toast without being able to see it, and I think many of our service staff would feel the same way about actually training on a device.

Anecdotally, I was a customer at another restaurant that uses Toast this spring. It was the server's first day back after being away at school, and she ended up taking our order on paper because she was not 'up to date' on her restaurant's Toast layout. Learning it (or re-acquainting) on the fly can be tough even for an experienced server.

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

jenni — Fri, 31 May 2024 20:29:44 GMT

Thank you for sharing that with me, Kirsten! I passed that along to the team as well. Hopefully we can provide a different type of practice mode in the future!

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

Julie — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 19:07:33 GMT

I agree! We used Aloha before Toast and the Training Mode was incredibly valuable. We had a 'Training Mode' dummy employee and staff could ring in training orders that we designed using our specific menu and real life scenarios (specific to our business) to help staff learn where buttons are located, how to ring in specific modifiers, which kitchen station would be preparing the items, clarifying questions to ask for items with similar names, etc. When in Training Mode, Aloha would print the tickets that would have gone to the kitchen at the printer attached to the terminal we were using instead so that the FOH staff could see what the kitchen would get on the ticket and which prep station would get that ticket. All of the checks and the prep station tickets had a statement similar to "These items were rung in Training Mode. Do not make." just in case the ticket went to the kitchen printers instead of the terminal printer. We have had to make a massive adjustment in our training since switching to Toast.

A true Training Mode is very needed.

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

jenni — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 20:32:08 GMT

Thanks for sharing this, Julie. What you both are looking for would more than likely fall into the product team's hands as a feature request, so I am going to send this their way!

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

Brendan — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 02:47:01 GMT

I 100% agree. If we could put 1 device in test mode our new or returning staff would be better equipped to preform their job.

Re: Practice POS functions at anytime!

Rob — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 21:43:09 GMT

Thanks for reaching out with this feedback. I'll make sure to share this with our product team!