A smarter, faster, and more intuitive way to manage your service
We're excited to introduce the powerful updates in Libro 8.0, featuring a redesigned dashboard and an all-new reservation window. The new dashboard gives hosts and managers a clearer, more intuitive view of your entire service, from reservations to table statuses. At the same time, the completely reimagined reservation window makes the booking process faster, more accurate, and more flexible than ever before.
Together, these updates streamline your entire workflow—making it easier to manage reservations and walk-ins, see details at a glance, and take quick, confident action when needed. This guide will walk you through the key areas of these improvements, ensuring you can take full advantage of all the new features from day one.
Key Benefits of the New Layout
The New Dashboard
The overall design has been rethought to make your service management seamless.
- Enhanced Clarity: Get an at-a-glance overview of your entire service, with key information logically organized and easily accessible. See exactly what's happening now and what's coming up next without having to search for information.
- Streamlined Workflow: Important actions, like adding walk-ins or editing the floor plan, are now more visible and require fewer clicks. This saves you valuable time and reduces friction during your busiest shifts.
- Real-Time Service Insights: The new capacity summary and current client counter give you immediate data on covers, table availability, and guest flow. This allows you to make smarter decisions on the fly, from quoting wait times to managing staff.
- Intuitive Navigation: With distinct top and bottom navigation bars, finding the tools you need is faster and more natural than ever before. The clean layout separates your main service view from administrative tools, keeping your screen focused on what matters most in the moment.
The New Reservation Window
The process of creating and managing a reservation has been completely overhauled to be faster, smarter, and error-proof.
- Greater Booking Precision: For restaurants with 15-minute time slots, the reservation window now displays all available increments, not just 30-minute blocks. This gives your staff more granular control to stagger bookings and maximize your seating capacity throughout the service.
- Flexible Experience Management: Your team now has full control over Eperiences. Hosts can internally assign an experience to any booking or change an experience selected by a guest online. The system indicates if an experience is available at the selected time, giving you the flexibility to customize a guest's visit while still being guided by availability.
- Clearer Availability Status: The new window intelligently shows why a time slot may be limited. For example, it will now specify if a slot is unavailable for online booking but still has tables available for internal reservations. This crucial detail gives your host a complete and accurate picture of availability, preventing both lost opportunities and common errors like accidental overbooking. It empowers your team to confidently book guests over the phone or in person, knowing exactly what is available.
- Intelligent & Guided Booking Flow: The new reservation window is designed to prevent common booking errors before they happen. As you fill out reservation details, the other options dynamically adjust. For example, if you select a party of 2, any experiences unavailable for that party size will be grayed out. This intelligent, guided process ensures every booking is valid from the start, significantly reducing errors and speeding up the reservation process. While the system guides you, you always retain full control to override its suggestions when needed.
- Secure & Simple No-Show Protection: Securing a reservation with a credit card is now easier and more secure for both your staff and your guests. For internal bookings that fall under a No-Show Policy, the new reservation window introduces a mandatory confirmation step. This design is crucial as it prevents the common error of forgetting to secure a valuable reservation. A key enhancement is the option to send a secure link directly to the client via email or SMS. This allows the guest to enter their credit card information on their own device, ensuring a PCI-compliant and professional process without your staff ever having to handle sensitive card details.
For a step-by-step guide on using these new features, please see our detailed article on How to add a new reservation.
Navigating the New Dashboard
The new dashboard is organized into three main sections for maximum efficiency: the Top Bar Navigation, the Reservation List, and the Bottom Navigation Bar.
1. Top Bar Navigation
The top bar contains all the essential tools for viewing and managing your service for a specific date.
Date Selector:
Quickly switch between dates using the arrow buttons, or click the date itself to open a full calendar view. The calendar now clearly indicates if a date is available or closed.
Service Selector:
Choose the specific service you want to view (e.g., Lunch, Dinner).
Capacity:
This summary now sits in the top bar for easy reference. Click it to see a detailed pop-up showing the number of reservations, seats, and walk-ins, as well as current table availability.
Current Clients:
During the active service, this counter displays the number of currently seated clients versus upcoming clients, helping you anticipate the flow of your service.
Floor Plan Selector:
If you have multiple floor plans, you can easily toggle between them here.
Edit Menu:
Located at the top right (next to the floor plan selector), this menu contains powerful editing tools:
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- Edit Floor Plan: Access the mode to modify your table layout.
- Edit Server Sections: Create your list of servers and assign them to specific tables or sections.
- Edit Notice: Add or update the daily note for your service.
- Show Colour Legend: View the POS color codes for different meal statuses.
- Print Floor Plan: Generate and print a physical copy of your current floor plan, perfect for pre-service briefings or to display at different work stations.
2. Reservation List from the Floor Plan View
The central part of your dashboard is dedicated to your reservations, with key improvements for faster operations.
Walk-in and Reservation Buttons:
These two critical buttons have been moved above the reservation list. They are now larger and more prominent for quick and easy access during a busy service.
Reservation, Waiting & History tabs:
These new tabs allow for a better and clear view of your reservation list according to the statuses:
- Reservations that are Approved, Confirmed, Requested & Seated will fall into the Reservations tab.
- Reservations that are Partially Arrived will fall into the Waiting tab.
- Reservations that are No-Showed, Cancelled or Completed will fall into the History tab.
Reservation List:
All the familiar functionalities are still here, but we’ve improved the sizing and spacing of buttons and information to make the list easier to read and manage.
3. Bottom Navigation Bar
This persistent bar at the bottom of your screen allows you to instantly switch between the most important views.
- Floor Plan: Tapping this button returns you to the main floor plan view.
- Reservation List: This button takes you directly to the detailed list view of all reservations.
- Servers: Access the list of your staff and manage server section assignments directly on the floor plan.
4. Reservation List View
The Reservation List now features a major visual upgrade for a clearer, more organized view. Reservations are grouped chronologically, and large, color-coded buttons on the right allow you to see and update a guest's status at a glance. This clean layout helps you manage your service more efficiently.
Action Menu:
Located in the top-right menu (represented by three dots), you'll find several key actions for managing your service:
- Print Reservation List: Generate and print a physical copy of the reservation list for the selected service. This is ideal for hosts, managers, or kitchen staff who need a paper copy for reference during a shift.
- Add Daily Notice: Create or update the daily notice that appears for all staff on the dashboard. Use this to communicate key information for the shift, such as daily specials, important guest notes, or operational reminders.
Filter Reservation List:
To give you more control over your view, the reservation list now includes powerful filtering options. By clicking the filter icon in the top-right corner, you can instantly customize what you see. Use these filters to Hide Empty Time Slots for a more compact view, isolate Walk-ins from Reservations, or quickly find large groups by Filtering by Party Size. You can also Hide Inactive bookings (like completed or no-show reservations) to focus only on current and upcoming guests. This flexibility allows you to de-clutter your list on the fly and find the exact information you need in seconds.
The filters can be applied to print your reservation list.
Navigating the New Reservation Workflow
The new reservation window guides you through the booking process logically, presenting options and availability in real-time. Here is a breakdown of the typical workflow:
1. Select Core Reservation Details:
Start by selecting the Date, Guest, and Party Size. For a broader view of availability, you can unselect the current service to see all available time slots for the entire day.
Remember, the window is designed to be intelligent. As you make a selection in one step (like party size), the options in the other steps will automatically update to show you what's available, ensuring a fast and error-free booking process.
2. Choose an Experience or Seating Area (Optional):
In this section, you can assign an Experience to the booking, such as a tasting menu or special event. The window will show you which experiences are available based on the party size and time you've selected. You can also assign the reservation to a specific Seating Area.
3. Select time slot
The time selector will display all available time slots and will clearly indicate their availability status (e.g., online available, internally available) to guide your selection.
4. Add Final Details, Tags, and Notes:
Before confirming, review all the information and add any final touches. This is the place to add Reservation Tags (e.g., 'VIP', 'Anniversary') and include any important internal Reservation Notes to ensure a smooth service.
5. Secure the Reservation (If a No-Show Policy Applies)
This step only appears if the reservation falls under one of your active No-Show Policies. When this step is present, it is mandatory to complete, which prevents the error of forgetting to secure a guaranteed reservation. You will have three options:
- Send a secure link for the guest to enter their credit card details.
- Enter the card details manually if the guest provides them over the phone.
- Waive the fee if you need to override the policy for this specific guest. This option can be protected by a staff code, ensuring only authorized team members can bypass the fee.
6. Confirm the Booking
Once all details are verified and the no-show policy is handled (if applicable), click Save reservation to add the reservation to your service.
Reverting to the Previous Version & Providing Feedback
We understand that adjusting to a new layout takes time. While we are excited about the Libro 8.0 dashboard, you can easily switch back to the previous version at any time from your Back Office.
Please note that this option to revert is temporary. To ensure a smooth transition for all our users, the new Libro 8.0 dashboard is scheduled to become the permanent layout starting in January 2026. At that point, the previous version will be retired and will no longer be accessible.
To revert to the previous dashboard:
- Navigate to your Back Office.
- Go to the My Restaurants section and click on Settings.
- Locate the Dashboard Preferences section.
- Uncheck the box to disable the new dashboard layout.
- Be sure to click Save.
After switching back, a "Give Feedback" button will appear. We strongly encourage you to share your thoughts with us! Your comments on what you liked, what was challenging, or what you'd like to see are essential for us to perfect this new experience. Your feedback will directly help us build a better dashboard for everyone.
