Product

A Tour of the ServQueue Dashboard: Every Screen, What It Does

A guided walkthrough of the ServQueue staff dashboard — the queue board, customer chat, broadcast SMS, settings — with screenshots of what actually changes when you tap each button.

By ServQueue Team

The ServQueue staff dashboard is the thing your front-desk team will spend the most time in. It's also the part of the product we iterate on most often, so this post is a current snapshot — May 2026 — of every screen and what it does. If you're evaluating ServQueue or onboarding a new staff member, this is the page to read first.

The shape of the dashboard

The dashboard has four primary screens:

  1. Queue board — the live list of people waiting.
  2. Chat — two-way conversations with customers in queue.
  3. Broadcasts — one-to-many SMS to people currently waiting.
  4. Settings — business hours, service times, SMS sender ID, team.

Everything else (reports, billing, multi-location switcher) sits in the top nav and is used weekly rather than hourly.

1. Queue board

This is the screen reception keeps open all day. It shows, from top to bottom:

  • Now serving. Who's currently with staff. Tap Mark Served when they leave.
  • Up next. The next person in line, highlighted. Tap Call Next and they get an SMS and their phone page flips to a large green "You're being served" panel.
  • Waiting. Everyone behind them, with position, join time, current wait, and party size / service if you collect those.
  • Skipped / no-show. A small section at the bottom for people who didn't show when called. Tap to recall, dismiss, or message.

Two non-obvious bits:

  • Drag to reorder. If a triage nurse decides someone's urgent, drag them up the list. The system instantly recalculates wait estimates for everyone behind, and sends a quietly updated SMS only to customers whose new wait differs by more than five minutes. We don't spam everyone every time the list shuffles.
  • The "ghost" entries. Customers who joined but haven't confirmed their mobile via the initial SMS appear in a lighter grey. If a number is fake or mistyped, they show ghost — easy to spot and remove before they hold up the line.

2. Chat

Every customer in your queue can two-way message your front desk. They hit "message reception" on their queue page; you see the conversation on the Chat screen.

Common uses:

  • "I'm running 10 minutes late, can you hold my spot?"
  • "I'm in the car park, is it OK to wait out there?"
  • "Can you tell the doctor I also need a script renewal?"

Chats are persistent — they survive the customer being served, so you can look back at what was said. If chat sits unanswered for more than two minutes and you're offline, the customer's message is escalated by SMS to your nominated mobile, so you don't lose anything overnight.

3. Broadcasts

A one-tap message to everyone currently in your queue. Use cases we see most:

  • "Dr Lee is running 20 minutes late — feel free to grab a coffee."
  • "Power's out for 10 minutes, we'll resume shortly."
  • "Closing in 30 minutes, last walk-ins now please."

We deliberately rate-limit broadcasts (max 3/hour per venue) — they're a high-leverage tool and easy to abuse. The broadcast log is also kept for 90 days for audit.

A broadcast is not a marketing channel. Don't put "20% off this weekend" in here. That breaks the Spam Act's transactional/marketing boundary and we'll quietly flag the account.

4. Settings

The settings screen has more than most operators realise. Worth skimming once:

  • Business hours. When the queue accepts joins. Outside these hours the QR shows a friendly "we're closed, back at 9am" screen.
  • Average service time. Drives the wait-estimate maths. Set it honestly — overestimating annoys customers, underestimating makes them think you're slow.
  • Custom fields on join. Party size, service type, "first visit?", anything you want. Each adds one line to the customer's join form.
  • SMS sender ID. Defaults to "ServQueue" but you can use your own brand name (e.g. "JoesCafe") subject to a one-time AU carrier approval (~24 hours).
  • Team. Add staff with their own logins. Each tap of Call Next / Mark Served is attributed, which becomes useful in reports.

What's not in the dashboard (on purpose)

Two things people often ask for, that we don't have:

  • A built-in POS. Use Square, Lightspeed, or whatever you already run. We're not in that business.
  • A clinical / appointment scheduler. Use HotDoc, Cliniko, or your PMS. We're the walk-in layer, not the calendar.

Adding either would dilute the part of the dashboard that needs to remain glanceable in the middle of a busy lunch service.

How to get there

Every paid plan and every trial includes the full dashboard, no tier gating. If you'd like to poke around, start a free 7-day trial and the dashboard is yours within five minutes of sign-up. No demo booking required.

For the customer-side experience, see how a virtual queue works. The features overview and the pricing page cover what's included on each plan.

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