What Happens When You Press Page
You tap Page on a Waiting entry. Three things happen instantly:
- The entry's status flips to Paged.
- An SMS goes out with your customized 'it's your turn' template (see SMS Templates).
- A timer starts, counting down the queue's page timeout (default 5 minutes).
While the timer runs, the entry sits at the top of the board with a Paged badge. Your team watches for the person to physically arrive. When they do, tap Seat to confirm and assign their resource.
Page Timeout — How Long to Give Them
The right page timeout depends on physical distance and customer behavior:
- 2-3 minutes — bank teller, deli counter, a place where the person is standing right there. A short timeout means anyone wandering off knows the rule.
- 5 minutes — most operations. Walk-in clinic, salon, service desk, government counter.
- 10 minutes — restaurant where the customer might be in their car or at a nearby bar; outdoor venues; large facilities.
- 15+ minutes — call-ahead operations where someone might be 10 minutes away when you page.
Set it in queue settings → Capacity & Timing. Change it any time; new pages use the new value, in-progress pages keep their original countdown.
What a No-Show Actually Is
When the page timeout expires without someone tapping Seat, the platform automatically:
- Flips the entry's status to No-Show.
- Sends the no-show SMS (default: 'We missed you. You've been removed from the queue. Reply JOIN to rejoin.').
- Frees the position so the next person can be paged.
The entry stays on the board (greyed out) for the rest of the day so it appears in your dashboard analytics. After 24 hours it rolls into historical data only.
If the person actually shows up after the timeout, no problem — see Requeue below.
Manual No-Show
Sometimes you know someone's not coming before the timer runs out — they walked past your door, or they explicitly told a staff member they're leaving. Tap No-Show on their detail panel to immediately flip them and free the slot. Same effect as the auto-timeout, just faster.
Don't use No-Show for cancellations. Cancel is the right button when the person voluntarily left without being paged — it doesn't get counted in the no-show metric.
Requeue: When Someone Shows Up Late
A no-show isn't always actually a no-show. Sometimes the person was in the bathroom, sometimes their kid had a meltdown, sometimes the SMS arrived with a delay. They show up two minutes late and ask what happened.
Find their entry on the board (it'll be greyed out as No-Show), open the detail panel, and tap Requeue. They go back into the live queue at a new position you choose — usually right at the top, since they were already paged. The platform sends them a 'you've been re-added, your new position is X' SMS so they're back in the loop.
Requeue is also useful when staff hits Page by accident — just requeue them at position 1.
Tuning No-Show Rates
If your dashboard shows a no-show rate above 15%, something is off. Most common causes:
- Page timeout too tight. People are showing up 30 seconds late. Loosen it.
- SMS not reaching them. Check sender setup (SMS Sender) and the dashboard's SMS-failure metric.
- Wait estimates inaccurate. People left because the line moved much slower than promised. Tune service time (see How Wait Times Are Calculated).
- Notifications template unclear. A confused customer is a no-show waiting to happen. Re-read your Paged template and make sure it answers 'where do I go?' in plain language.
Target rates by industry: restaurants 5-10%, walk-in clinics 8-15%, government counters 10-20% (high baseline because customers often have inflexible schedules).