Udrink – the system for contactless order processing

Request:
To create an efficient and innovative system for the purchasing of drinks and meals in clubs, pubs and restaurants which eliminates lengthy queues.

Proposition:
A mobile application for customers to place orders in selected pubs, a bartender application to be used by staff processing orders and an administration panel for club, pub and restaurant managers – all neatly bundled into one system.

Challenge:
Efficient order processing is always a concern when there are many customers. In such situations it is common for bartenders to mix up orders or for orders to be incomplete. These problems occur especially in clubs with hundreds of customers as it is extremely difficult to provide a fast and reliable customer service, and the bottleneck is always at the bar where the queues form. The overriding challenge is to speed up the sales and ordering process by accurately identifying each order and automating the tasks usually performed by the bar staff. The solution was to create an app that makes the process of placing and receiving orders easy and accessible. The client application, which locates and clearly presents all club, pub, or restaurant products in one place, facilitates the ordering process and, at the same time, reduces the service time at the bar.

Solution:
A mobile application equipped with intuitive navigation which, immediately after choosing your place of interest, lands you on the menu view, where you can start browsing offers and placing orders. Thanks to this application, a bar customer can choose what they want in peace and devote their time to having fun instead of anxiously rushing to the bar. At the same time, ordering via the app cuts down on the service time at the bar, enabling staff to get on with preparing orders. The app also handles payments, so you gain further time and eliminate errors or other irregularities when clearing orders. The whole ordering process goes smoothly for both the customer and the bartender.

Realisation:
We started the project by talking to a few clients with premises in Wroclaw and Gdansk. The aim of the talks was to discuss the requirements for the application, learn about the current needs in the hospitality sector and gather additional information about the clients and premises where UDrink could be used.

The next stage was designing the particular look of the mobile application by a graphic designer. The final design is characterized by simplicity – according to many UDrink users, the application is intuitive and easy to navigate.

The main stage of the project was, of course, the software development. Due to our team’s considerable experience in developing web applications, we decided to use the React Native library as the main technology in which the client and bartender applications were created. React Native was created to speed up the mobile app development process and allow organisations to move faster. The React library, one of the most popular technologies of choice when developing interactive user interfaces, was used in the development of the administration application. The aforementioned applications were developed by several project teams simultaneously – as a result, they are consistent, both in terms of functionality and graphics.

Customer application
The UDrink client application consists of more than a dozen different functionalities, here are a few of the most important ones:

Menu screen:

From here you can start browsing the club, pub, or restaurant offerings.

Product screen:

On this view the customer can add products to their cart and to their list of favourites.
Cart:
At any time, the user can check the current status of the shopping cart and go to the order summary screen with payment options available and clear and concise information on how to collect the order.
View of the order list:
Access to the full history of all orders is in one place. This is also the view where the user can check the status of their orders.

Bartender application
The main point of the bartender’s app is the order view. This is where the order processor can see a full list of the pending orders and is able to change the status of the order during execution. After the customer places an order, the bartender immediately receives a notification of the new task and then carries out the process of its execution. By handling both the order placement and execution process between the customer and the bartender we can prevent duplicate and missed orders from occurring in the future.

Manager application
The third and final application included in the UDrink system is the administration panel for the restaurant manager. This application allows the manager to manage, for example, the opening hours of the premises, view statistics concerning orders, internal revenues, or the number of regular and new customers. It is also the place where the venue manager can update the menu and modify tax rates for individual product categories.

All in all, UDrink is the tool that takes the stress out of ordering and puts the fun into going out.

Currently, the UDrink mobile client app is available for download for Android on Google Play and on the App Store for iOS. The bartender app is only available as an Android version.