05-12-2023 02:41 PM - edited 05-12-2023 03:41 PM
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...
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.
Solved! Go to Solution.
05-17-2023 01:17 PM - edited 06-21-2023 03:48 PM
Sorry. There is no solution yet. But since I made this post. I've been collecting a list of features that frustrate me throughout all Toast software. This is in shorthand that I understand based on context, so I'd be shocked if this was comprehensible to anyone else.
I just wanted to share the extent of my feeling like "Toast can do better". Not cause I think any of this will change. I'm just hoping someone important sees this eventually.
Menu Builders
- Database has "date created" needs "date modified"
- "None of this group's items inherit pricing."
- Bulk editing of items
- bulk edit item's to be base price, or their base price. price strategy
- Bulk edit "tags"
- "description" for Modifier Groups
- Need option to hide modifiers from a set within a specific nested item (eg modifier from menu group w/ chicken/beef/veal, hide veal option at specific items)
- Cant set default size (unless using modifiers) (why even have "Size Pricing"?)
- Adding existing items, click confirms, should just preview.
- Cant add a modifier to groups from the modifier detail page
- Add existing item doesnt show all the items it's a part of (+43 more)
- If an item is removed from a group, then you refresh the item's detail page, it still shows up as in that group in the breadcrumbs
- Modifier Items used within only modifier groups dont show which groups they're used in.
- Cant set "Size" per "Menu Specific".
- Cant have "hidden" modifier that is hidden on POS or Online ordering.
Admin
- No reporting of who made what categories. No user accountability.
- Why is there a 3dot menu icon when there's only one action (archive)
- You have change by change publish records, but cant revert or change anything. And can barely even see what the changes are w/ v2
Invoices
- List of invoices is an iframe (or similar) cant see menu
Reporting
- Year to date, "max", last 30 days, last 7 days
- Why can I only see 1 month of some breakdowns?
- No reporting for sizes/modifiers
Takeout & delivery
- Clicking any of the "Online Ordering Hours" buttons takes you to the wrong place
Online Ordering
- Show min price on sized items
KDS
- All Day Mode doesnt show sides/modifiers that are clearly "items". Making it utterly useless.
Log-in
- The auth page that asks if you want to use biometrics should remember and just offer the biometric immediately. I'm not actually saving any clicks at all. If anything it's MORE clicks than it was without it.
- Biometrics should come first
Customer Engagement
- Guestbook doesnt show all customers. Search is bad
- Customer Credits. Should be able to add/edit in web. Should be able to edit expiration on fly. Cant delete customer credits at all.
- No way to manage customer accounts from POS (or web)
05-15-2023 10:59 PM
@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...
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
feel feee to reach out if you need help seriously it’s complex
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.
05-17-2023 01:09 PM
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.
05-18-2023 02:56 AM
@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..
Wednesday
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.