Create a Restaurant Order Form In 3 Steps

How to Build a Restaurant Order Form

In this guide, we outline the steps necessary to create and launch a restaurant order form using Five’s advanced form builder.

The process involves:

1. Creating the Database
2. Designing the Form
3. Deploying the Form

We will also cover securing the form with logins, authentication, and permissions, although this is an optional step.

What is a Restaurant Order Form?

A restaurant order form is an interface used to collect, manage, and process customer orders. These forms capture essential information such as customer details, order items, quantities, special instructions, and payment preferences, which can be used for order processing, tracking, and reporting.

Restaurant order forms can range from simple web forms to more complex systems integrated with databases and analytics tools.

Key Components of a Restaurant Order Form

• Web Forms: Online forms that customers fill out to place their orders.
• Databases: Systems like MySQL, PostgreSQL, or MongoDB that store collected order data in an organized manner. (Don’t worry if you’re not familiar—Five makes it easy.)
• Data Security: Measures to protect sensitive customer data from unauthorized access and breaches.
• Analytics Tools: Software that allows users to query the database, generate reports, and visualize order data.
• Dashboards: Interactive interfaces that provide real-time insights and trends on order volumes, customer preferences, and sales performance.

Why a Traditional Form Builder Might Not Cut It

Restaurant orders often require managing complex relationships between various pieces of information, such as customer details, menu items, and special instructions. Standard form builders typically struggle to handle these complex data structures, making it difficult to create a comprehensive order management system.

Security and compliance are also important considerations in handling customer data. Restaurant orders can include sensitive information, requiring security measures to protect this data and comply with regulations.

Unfortunately, most off-the-shelf form builders lack the necessary security infrastructure to handle sensitive data safely and in compliance with these regulations.

Furthermore, restaurant order forms often require advanced functionalities such as real-time inventory updates, order tracking, and generating detailed sales reports. Many standard form builders have limited capabilities, lacking the ability to perform these tasks efficiently and accurately.

Lastly, the need for advanced reporting and analytics is crucial in the restaurant industry. Restaurants require comprehensive tools to analyze order data, track sales performance, and generate detailed reports.

Most traditional form builders offer only basic reporting features that fall short of these needs.

Building a Restaurant Order Form with Five

Creating a restaurant order form in Five offers significant advantages over traditional form builders, making it ideal for those who need robust, secure, and analyzable order data.

Unlike traditional form builders, which only store submitted data, Five allows you to directly connect your order form to a database. This connection enables you to query your database and generate visual representations of your data, making it easier to identify trends, patterns, and sales behaviors. Most traditional form builders require exporting data to third-party tools for analysis, adding extra steps and potential for errors.

While traditional form builders may suffice for very basic order processing tasks, they often struggle with large datasets or high order volumes. Five’s database-connected solution, on the other hand, is designed to handle substantial amounts of order data efficiently, maintaining performance as your order volumes grow.

One of the standout features of Five is the ability to create login-protected forms. This ensures that only authorized users can access and process order data, enhancing the security of your restaurant order process. Traditional form builders often lack these advanced security features, leaving your data vulnerable to unauthorized access.

In addition to its advanced data management and security features, Five allows you to build dashboards and generate detailed reports directly from your order data. You can create visual data representations such as charts and graphs, providing a clear overview of order statuses, sales trends, and customer preferences.

With Five, you can:

• Quickly deploy your order form with a secure database.
• Build a user-friendly interface that protects sensitive data with login authentication.

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Step 1: Database for Your Restaurant Order Form

To get started, sign up for free access to Five and create a new application by navigating to the Applications section and clicking the yellow plus button.

Create a New Application:

• Click the yellow plus button.
• Name your application (e.g., “Restaurant Form”).

• Confirm by clicking the check icon in the upper right corner.
• Click on the blue Manage button to enter the development environment.

Create Database Tables:

1. Go to Data > Table Wizard, a user-friendly interface for creating database tables.
2. Name your table descriptively (e.g., “Orders”).

Add fields to your table using the plus button, specifying appropriate data types:

• CustomerName (Text): Stores the name of the customer.
• OrderDate (Date): Records the date when the order was placed.
• OrderItems (Text): Contains details of the items ordered.
• TotalAmount (Float): Captures the total amount for the order, with two decimal places.
• PaymentStatus (Text): Indicates whether the payment is pending, completed, or failed.
• SpecialInstructions (Text): Records any special instructions or requests from the customer.

Remember to choose appropriate data and display types to ensure your data is stored and displayed correctly. If you are unsure, just ask ChatGPT.

Save Your Database Table:

After adding all relevant fields, save your table by clicking the check icon in the upper right corner. Your database table is now ready to store restaurant order data.

Side Note: This might seem more advanced than what you were expecting, but creating a comprehensive system often involves a bit more setup. Five excels at building complete applications, meaning you can expand your form into a fully-fledged order management system capable of much more than a standard form builder.

Step 2: Designing the Restaurant Order Form

Next, navigate to Visual > Form Wizard in Five to design your restaurant order form.

Select Data Source:

• In the Form Wizard’s General section, select the “Orders” table you created as the main data source. This links your backend (database) with your frontend (form).

Finalize the Form:

• Click the check icon in the upper right corner to complete the form creation. Your form is now ready and connected to your database.

Add Form Submit/Cancel Buttons:

1. Navigate to Visual, then select Forms and scroll down.
2. Under Complete Caption, you can add your submit button (you can change this to whatever you’d like). You can also change the Cancel Caption.
3. Remember to click the tick to save afterwards.

Add Your URL:

1. Next, you need to add your URL. Navigate to Setup, then select URL and add an item. You must make this lowercase.
2. Also, select your form in the action field.

Step 3: Deploying the Restaurant Order Form

To deploy your restaurant order form:

Deploy to Development:

1. Click the “Deploy to Development” button in the top right corner. This action opens your restaurant order form in a new browser tab, allowing you to preview it.

Once you run your application, your default URL will look something like this: https://control-default-restaurantform-ryan.5au.dev/?reloadSchema=023d4640-ccda-4806-a25d-edefb95cf490&inspect=false

2. Delete the URL section ?reloadSchema=023d4640-ccda-4806-a25d-edefb95cf490&inspect=false and replace it with what you named your URL above.

Based on this demo, the new URL would be https://control-default-restaurantform-ryan.5au.dev/url/form, which will lead you to your form.

Enhance Your Form:

Consider adding themes or additional features, such as conditional logic to guide customers through the ordering process or automated emails confirming their order.

Securing Your Restaurant Order Form: Logins, Authentication, Permissions

Remember that Five’s capabilities go beyond simple data collection. Five allows you to build web applications with custom logic and dashboards. Although the process may not be as “conventionally easy” as Google Forms, Five’s overall capabilities are more advanced.

Here are the steps to add user roles and logins:

1. Turn your application into a multi-user app by automatically adding a login screen.
2. Create user roles with specific permissions. For example:

• Customer Role: Can place orders and view their own order history.
• Admin Role: Can review orders, update statuses, and access the dashboard summarizing all orders.

Explore More Security Features:

Utilize Five’s documentation for detailed instructions on securing your restaurant order form with authentication and permissions to ensure only authorized users can access or modify data.

To add a completely custom URL such as restaurantorderform.com, you’ll need to sign up for a paid plan with Five.

To learn more about Five and expand your form, check out some of our code-along articles.

Conclusion: Building a Restaurant Order Form

Building a restaurant order form with Five’s application development environment offers numerous advantages over traditional form builders.

The process involves three key steps: creating the database, designing the form, and deploying the web form. Five provides security features, including login protection, authentication, and user permissions, ensuring that your restaurant order form is secure and only accessible to authorized users.

By using Five, you can directly connect your order form to a database, enabling efficient data management and real-time analysis through custom charts and reports.

This capability allows you to easily track orders, monitor sales, and manage customer data effectively—tasks that are often cumbersome with traditional form builders that require exporting data to third-party tools.

With Five, you can improve your order management process, enhance data security, and leverage analytical tools to gain insights, making it the superior choice for creating a comprehensive and efficient restaurant order form.

What Else You Can Do With Five

Explore more advanced forms, such as property booking, to see Five’s calculation capabilities in action.