The menu management tools are making me overwhelmingly furious!!!

[corey_akc]

Let me start by saying I'm very grateful for the services that Toast provides. I love the variety. I love the integration of everything. 

Please keep in mind when you read what I am about to say, that I have 10 years of experience building websites and designing user experiences, including for enterprise use. Also, this is me attempting to keep my chill.

The Toast admin user experience is one of the worst pieces of software I've ever used.

I find myself growling and groaning at my screen more than I have in a long time. I am constantly clicking something and ending up somewhere I didnt expect. (This is not about 'getting used to the software'. If you rely on your customers 'getting used' to something not working as expected, that is bad design). I imagine I'm not alone.

After 3 years of being on Toast, my family's restaurant is due for a overhaul. It's been managed by my father, English is his second language, and he's also a bit chaotic. So there are tons of items, modifiers, menu groups, etc. Most that should be archived are not. But even once you've archived something, nothing makes sense. Now when you read the numbers in the line below this, even I can agree there must be some form of user error, but the question I ask is why is it so easy to get to a point this chaotic?

In those three years we've somehow managed to amass (incl archived): 141 menu groups, 1303 items, 105 modifier groups, and 321 modifiers. 

My goals right now: Clean up old items/groups/menus/modifiers. Make the existing menu easier to use & understand.

I find myself asking...

1. Why can I not see what menus/groups contain an item from the item detail page?
   • I know I can go to item database, and click "view usage". But why do I have to click something extra to view it, and why isnt this info available from the item detail page? There are multiple ways to end up in an item's details. 
   • Don't say it's in the breadcrumbs, because right now I'm looking at an item that has no breadcrumbs ahead of it.
   • I actually just realized it doesn't even offer this for Menu Groups.
   • I need a database column w/ this, because I want to archive items that arent in groups, but I have to click back and forth to do it. 
2. Why does it not say what type of item I'm looking at at the top of a detail page?
   • Things often seem to end up having the same name. I'm currently looking at an item called "Lunch Specials" and I have zero clue if it's my Menu or the Menu Group of the same name. 
3. Why can I not archive things recursively? (Why cant I do almost anything recursively?)
   • If I archive a group, I would like the option to archive everything within it.
   • Menus/Groups/Subgroups/Items/Modifier Groups/Modifier Items. everything.
4. Why can I not delete things?!?!?!?!
   • Yes I am aware that deleting things will remove them from reporting. I am an adult. Give me a warning when I choose to delete something. And then let me do it.
   • Archiving is not enough. My menu database is TORTURE to navigate. 
   • I (and many people) learn by doing. So I create menus/groups/items and then decide to archive or delete them. I will not do that anymore, I'll have to just salvage them into something else. But I should have the option to just undo or delete stuff.
5. Why does archiving an item remove the items from the group?!?!
   • Does it not make sense that if I used a group once, choose to archive it (and not delete it, if I had the option), that I would want to use it the same way again in the future?
   • Because I cant recursively archive groups. I would have to go from the bottom of the hierarchy up, archiving items before their parent group, so I don't lose track of them. BUT...
   • I cant archive the item because it will remove it from the group, and so my item database remains further cluttered! 🤦‍
6. Why are archived parents showing up in the "usage" info?
   • I know I just asked for items to remain in the parents when getting archived.
   • You could at least separate them out in a 2nd group within the section.
7. Why can I not set time availability for Menu Groups?
   • You can set the time availability of a Menu. You can set time specific pricing of an item. Why cant I set a time for Menu Groups?
   • I have to create a whole new top level menu for the ONE section of our daily menu that isn't available at all times of the day.
   • I have to create a whole new top level menu for a Special Item that's only available one day a week. 
8. Why can I not change settings such as "Visible To" recursively?
   • If I change the visibility of a Menu Group, why would I not want the groups and items within it to follow the same visibility? And if it does that, why is it not indicated?
   • Why is there not a Menu Group/Item Detail level option to "Inherit visibility from parent"?
9. Why can I not filter for anything but "name" in the databases?
   • Of all the things, this one might make me want to scream the loudest.
10. Why is there no "prune items/menu" feature? 
11. There's so much more. I don't have time to post every one. Because I need to dedicate that time to needling through this menu system. If I find something that demands to be posted, I'll edit and add it. 

I know I ask "why" a lot, but I am not interested in an answer unless you have an exceptionally remarkable reason including case studies as to why it is that way. A reason that's significantly better than "because that's the way they made it" or "we found it works best this way". Because I promise you, this is not the best. 

I so desperately want to build a mockup of how I feel this should be done but I do not have the time to do that for free. It would take many days just to do a low-fi functional mockup. If not weeks, to include all of Toast's software suite. Plus, you have a massive product team who should be doing this. And I have a restaurant to run.

@mattkaplan I am sincerely sorry to bother you. But this is bad. And it extends to every single part of your software. Including xtraCHEF and Payroll. (Don't get me started on payroll). But also reporting, marketing, POS management, Employee management, etc. The question continues to be "Why?". Why is this happening on such a large scale? And why does it continue to keep happening. This is an overwhelmingly systemic issue in Toast's UX.

And I know that there's a UI refresh coming. I've tried to reach out to product leaders at Toast with no response. I am terrified that this UI refresh will not fix any of the issues I've seen with Toast's UX. And any future changes will be relegated to the next refresh 5 years down the line.

I don't believe there's a solution to this that can be offered by the community or moderators, but I earnestly welcome the surprise.  I also welcome commiseration from anyone who feels the same way.

[josh212]

@corey_akc  Im gonna take a stab at this and them DM and Ill help you out

but the question I ask is why is it so easy to get to a point this chaotic? Because it is extremely complex and basically integrates with a ton of business models but also needs to integrate with a ton of  different platforms. A majortiy of which had to go from an idea or slow development to 100 during the pandemic and with people not actally working or knowing whats going on and being held together with scotch tape at best

In those three years we've somehow managed to amass (incl archived): 141 menu groups, 1303 items, 105 modifier groups, and 321 modifiers. - Toast Support made a mistake and I had to manually archive 6783 items. My guess is your father might have done a deep copy.  UNDER  NO CIRUCUMSTANES EVER EVER EVER do a deep copy its like glitter youll never get rid of some mistake

My goals right now: Clean up old items/groups/menus/modifiers. Make the existing menu easier to use & understand.

I find myself asking...

1. Why can I not see what menus/groups contain an item from the item detail page? If used correctly Menu's and groups and subgroups dictate behavior and pricing as well as grouping like items toghether so that most options or price factors are not on an item
   • I know I can go to item database, and click "view usage". But why do I have to click something extra to view it, and why isnt this info available from the item detail page? There are multiple ways to end up in an item's details. For instance im a pizzareia want to want to know how many ways marinara sauce is used. The Item is the lowest end of the Heirarchy not the other way around. Items can be turned into modifiers as well so they have underlying modifier 

Don't say it's in the breadcrumbs, because right now I'm looking at an item that has no breadcrumbs ahead of it.  -so what I would do if I were you and have web experience I would enable data exports and get the json file daily.  Have them enable api access so you can do an easy menu pull. 
familiarizd yourself with the cookbook and developer docs it will be helpful

1. • I actually just realized it doesn't even offer this for Menu Groups. Make sure you remove items from menu groups before you archive because you don’t want an integration to have an infinite looop
   • I need a database column w/ this, because I want to archive items that arent in groups, but I have to click back and forth to do it. click select all on the database and view usage… keep in mind if you use price levels it won’t show a parent.
2. Why does it not say what type of item I'm looking at at the top of a detail page?(please elaborate)
   • Things often seem to end up having the same name. I'm currently looking at an item called "Lunch Specials" and I have zero clue if it's my Menu or the Menu Group of the same name. So menus need to have menu groups not just items Really understand the hierarchy 
3. Why can I not archive things recursively? (Why cant I do almost anything recursively?)
   • If I archive a group, I would like the option to archive everything within it. Because again remember the hierarchy I may have spinach and that is an item but also a modifier and used on many different items. The items and modifiers are the roots and shouldn’t have things attached 
   • Menus/Groups/Subgroups/Items/Modifier Groups/Modifier Items. everything.
4. Why can I not delete things?!?!?!?!
5. you can delete things as long as absolutely nothing references it

feel feee to reach out if you need help seriously it’s complex 

1.  
   • Yes I am aware that deleting things will remove them from reporting. I am an adult. Give me a warning when I choose to delete something. And then let me do it.
   • Archiving is not enough. My menu database is TORTURE to navigate
   • dont go through f your archive there’s too many reference you may not know remove visibility to everything. 
   • I (and many people) learn by doing. So I create menus/groups/items and then decide to archive or delete them. I will not do that anymore, I'll have to just salvage them into something else. But I should have the option to just undo or delete stuff.
2. Why does archiving an item remove the items from the group?!?!   This creates and infinite loop if it doesn’t I can explain further 
3.  
   • Does it not make sense that if I used a group once, choose to archive it (and not delete it, if I had the option), that I would want to use it the same way again in the future? Groups aren’t tangible they are more like adjectives that hold nouns 
   • Because I cant recursively archive groups. I would have to go from the bottom of the hierarchy up, archiving items before their parent group, so I don't lose track of them. BUT...
   • I cant archive the item because it will remove it from the group, and so my item database remains further cluttered! 🤦‍
4. Why are archived parents showing up in the "usage" info?
   • I know I just asked for items to remain in the parents when getting archived.
   • You could at least separate them out in a 2nd group within the section.
5. Why can I not set time availability for Menu Groups? 
   • You can set the time availability of a Menu. You can set time specific pricing of an item. Why cant I set a time for Menu Groups?
   • I have to create a whole new top level menu for the ONE section of our daily menu that isn't available at all times of the day. 
   • I have to create a whole new top level menu for a Special Item that's only available one day a week. 
6. Why can I not change settings such as "Visible To" recursively?
   • If I change the visibility of a Menu Group, why would I not want the groups and items within it to follow the same visibility? And if it does that, why is it not indicated? Becaus let’s say marinara sauce is on an item or did you want utensils that use other places
   • Why is there not a Menu Group/Item Detail level option to "Inherit visibility from parent"?
7. Why can I not filter for anything but "name" in the databases?
   • Of all the things, this one might make me want to scream the loudest.
8. Why is there no "prune items/menu" feature? 
9. There's so much more. I don't have time to post every one. Because I need to dedicate that time to needling through this menu system. If I find something that demands to be posted, I'll edit and add it. 

I know I ask "why" a lot, but I am not interested in an answer unless you have an exceptionally remarkable reason including case studies as to why it is that way. A reason that's significantly better than "because that's the way they made it" or "we found it works best this way". Because I promise you, this is not the best. 

I so desperately want to build a mockup of how I feel this should be done but I do not have the time to do that for free. It would take many days just to do a low-fi functional mockup. If not weeks, to include all of Toast's software suite. Plus, you have a massive product team who should be doing this. And I have a restaurant to run.

@mattkaplan I am sincerely sorry to bother you. But this is bad. And it extends to every single part of your software. Including xtraCHEF and Payroll. (Don't get me started on payroll). But also reporting, marketing, POS management, Employee management, etc. The question continues to be "Why?". Why is this happening on such a large scale? And why does it continue to keep happening. This is an overwhelmingly systemic issue in Toast's UX.

And I know that there's a UI refresh coming. I've tried to reach out to product leaders at Toast with no response. I am terrified that this UI refresh will not fix any of the issues I've seen with Toast's UX. And any future changes will be relegated to the next refresh 5 years down the line.

I don't believe there's a solution to this that can be offered by the community or moderators, but I earnestly welcome the surprise.  I also welcome commiseration from anyone who feels the same way.

[corey_akc]

I do appreciate your suggestions. Thank you. Sincerely thank you for taking the time to attempt to help me. But I'm not sure it's actually help that I'm looking for here. Also, unfortunately at some point your comments lost their color change and I think I've found them all, but I'm not sure.

But also, as a web developer, I have experience making things like the above requests happen.

I think it'll get more chaotic than our combined menu databases if I were to attempt to reply to everything you've said. I'll try and keep it as a short summary. 

I do realize how complex a tool like Toast has to be to meet the needs of the wide wide variety of businesses it supports. And all the integrations. But I still believe it's possible and they're not doing the job they should be doing for being a public company greater than 1000 employees. (Hindsight, I'm probably much more likely to get my grievances heard if I become a shareholder than a subscriber). But I also didn't see what it was like before the pandemic.

One thing I want to address in your replies: "Marinara sauce is the lowest end of the heirarchy". If you go to your item database, and find the item for marinara sauce, click the magnifying glass, that shows you what parent groups it belongs to. If they have this info there, they could have it anywhere. Every single item in the menu is connected to an identifying code, and somewhere there's a table which effectively knows how every identifier is connected to every other identifier. So this could be done. 

Also I feel like the kinds of things you're warning me about, is definitely the kind of thing I'd be adding to my list of things Toast isnt handling correctly. Most software providers run hundreds of tests of their software to make sure "accidents" arent possible. Especially when it comes to loops. Particularly infinite ones.

Re recursiveness: I did say "option". The system COULD be smart enough to warn me about things. But I do see your point about if an item is in multiple groups, and I archive it, it would archive everywhere. But that could easily be split with a checkbox asking "[Some action] all elements in this group not shared with any others".

I'll look into the "deleting if nothing references it". But also that's a ton of manual detective work that shouldn't need to be done since the system is self aware. It knows what's connected to what.

Thank you for your efforts to explain to me though. I really appreciate it. Kudos for sure. 

[josh212]

@corey_akc @Dm me i should be able to help you out with solutions for most of these issues and walk you through what your looking for..

[CEFreeman]

I'm new to Toast, and late to this thread. 
My experience is similar to yours and I'm pounding my head against the  wall. 
Not only with the very things you've mentioned, but even these boards.  Why repost/display responses and questions again and again in the same thread?  Waste of time. 
Wish me luck.  It's good to know I'm not alone.