Browse Catalogues and Items as a Guest
Guests open Catalogue V3 from a direct catalogue link, a multi-catalogue link, or a GEP entry. The guest app loads the correct merchant context first, then shows available catalogues, categories, item lists, promoted items, and item detail pages.
Use this page when managers or support teams need to reproduce what a guest sees before checkout.
Quick Reference
| Guest Step | What It Means | Staff Check |
|---|---|---|
| Load and routing | Guest link opens the correct merchant and catalogue path. | Confirm the guest is using the intended property link or demo URL. |
| Catalogue selection | Guest chooses an available catalogue. | Catalogue is active, visible, and ready for guests. |
| Notice banner | Guest sees a dismissible notice at the top of the catalogue page when enabled. | Confirm the catalogue has a title, description, and optional image saved. |
| Item browsing | Guest browses categories, promoted items, and item lists. | Categories, subcategories, and items are active and ordered correctly. |
| Staff assistance | Guest can ask for staff help when enabled. | Assistance button is enabled and staff know the follow-up path. |
| View-only catalogue | Guest can browse items but cannot order. | Confirm the catalogue is intentionally informational and shows the browsing notice. |
| Item detail | Guest reviews description, images, price, variants, options, add-ons, components, and extra fields. | Required choices are clear and available. |
| Unavailable item | Item exists but cannot currently be ordered. | Check active state, sold-out state, operating hours, availability, and show-unavailable setting. |
| Invalid item | Guest opened an invalid or outdated item link. | Check whether the item was deleted, moved, hidden, or the link is stale. |
Before You Start
- Confirm the guest is using the correct property or merchant link.
- Confirm the catalogue is active and visible.
- Confirm categories, subcategories, and items are active.
- Confirm operating hours and item availability.
- Confirm items that are temporarily unavailable are marked Sold Out in the item list.
- Confirm required languages and guest-facing labels are complete.
- If the catalogue is view-only, confirm guests should browse without ordering.
Reproduce Guest Browsing
- Open the same guest link the guest used.
- Confirm the correct property or merchant context loads.
- Open the catalogue selection page if the link shows multiple catalogues.
- Select the intended catalogue.
- Confirm any enabled notice banner appears above the catalogue content.
- Browse categories, subcategories, promoted items, and item lists.
- Open the item detail page.
- Check item images, description, price, variants, options, add-ons, components, additional fields, and Revenue Booster suggestions.
- If the catalogue is orderable, add the item to cart only after all required choices are selected. In view-only mode, review the item without adding it to a cart.
Staff Assistance
If staff assistance is enabled for the catalogue, guests can open a staff assistance modal from the catalogue experience. Treat this as a guest request path: confirm the guest can submit the request and that staff know where to handle the resulting follow-up.
Notice Banner
When notice banner is enabled, guests see a catalogue-level notice above the menu content before they browse items.
- The banner can include a title, description, and optional image.
- When an image is configured, guests see a larger image with spacing between the image and notice text.
- Guests can close the banner if they do not need to read it again.
- Longer notice text shows a read more control in the guest page.
View-Only Catalogues
When a manager enables view-only mode, guests can browse the catalogue and item details, but cannot add items to a cart or place an order. The guest page shows a persistent Browsing only notice with the message Ordering is currently unavailable for this catalogue.
Guests can still open item details and review prices. Checkout is unavailable for the catalogue.
Filter Items by Tags
When tags are assigned to catalogue items, guests can select one or more tags under Filter by tags. Included tags use an any-match rule: an item appears when it has at least one included tag. Guests can also exclude items with selected tags.
- Open the guest catalogue.
- Select Include under Filter by tags, then select one or more tags.
- Select Exclude when you want to hide items with a tag, then select the tag or tags to exclude.
- Select Clear filters to show all items again.
Catalogue sections and category tabs without matching items are hidden while a tag filter is active. If no item matches, the guest page shows No Result Found.
Scroll Catalogue Lists with a Mouse
On desktop, guests can click and drag horizontally across category, subcategory, and tag lists to reveal more choices. Release the mouse before selecting a category or tag.
Language Checks
If the catalogue offers a preferred language selector, test the guest flow in the required languages. Check catalogue names, category names, item labels, option labels, guest form fields, payment labels, and status-page text.
Troubleshooting
Guest opens the wrong catalogue
What you see: The guest link opens a different property, merchant, or catalogue than expected.
Do this:
- Confirm the URL was copied from the intended catalogue.
- Confirm whether the link is a direct catalogue link or multi-catalogue link.
- Open the catalogue demo link from the manager page and compare.
- Share the corrected URL only after testing it.
Item is unavailable
What you see: Guest can see the item but cannot order it.
Do this:
- Check item active state, hidden state, and Sold Out state.
- Check catalogue, category, and item operating hours.
- Confirm the item has valid required options, add-ons, components, price, and POS IDs if needed.
- Confirm whether the catalogue intentionally shows unavailable items.
When an item is sold out, guests cannot order it, and it is not offered as an upsell or suggestion. Turn off Sold Out after the item becomes available again.
Item link is invalid
What you see: Guest opens an item link and sees an invalid or not-found state.
Do this:
- Search for the item in the manager item list.
- Confirm it was not deleted, moved, hidden, or unpublished.
- Confirm the guest is using a current URL.
- Share the catalogue link again after confirming the item is reachable.
Notice banner is missing
What you see: The guest page loads, but the expected notice banner is not shown.
Do this:
- Confirm the banner is enabled in the catalogue settings.
- Confirm the title and description are present in the guest language.
- Confirm the catalogue was saved after the notice content changed.
- Reload the guest link and check the top of the page again.