Common problems and how to fix them

The questions that come up most often, each with the likely cause and the one thing to check first.

Some of these depend on what your venue sells. The sections about events, tickets and the door apply to venues that publish events and admit guests against them; the rest apply to every plan. Your Noctessa subscription says where to look up which plan you are on.

Why can't guests see my event?

Work down this list — it is almost always the first item.

1. Its status is not Published. Open Events. A Draft or Unpublished event is invisible to guests, no matter how complete it looks. Open it and use Publish.
2. It has already happened. An event drops off the public list about six hours after its door time, so a late one stays up through the small hours and then goes. If you meant a different date, edit the event.
3. You archived or cancelled it. Archive takes an event off the upcoming list — a past one moves into the archive on your site, a future one simply disappears. A Cancelled event still shows, with a cancelled notice on it.
4. Your venue is paused. If your public site says it is temporarily unavailable, nothing at all is showing — see "My account is paused" below.
5. It is missing from the marketplace but fine on your own site. That is a different setting. Check Hide from the marketplace on the event, and List this venue on the marketplace in Venue settings.

Fastest way to be certain: open your own public site in a private browser window and look, rather than trusting the panel.

Why can't guests book a table? Why is a table showing as taken?

A table is unavailable to a guest for one of these reasons.

• Somebody already has it. A table is held by any reservation that is not Cancelled or Declined — so New, Contacted, Confirmed and Waitlisted all keep it locked. To free it, open the reservation in Reservations and either set its status to Cancelled or Declined, or use Clear table.
• It is the wrong kind. A guest booking a table is only offered tables; a guest booking VIP is only offered VIP. A free VIP table will never appear to a standard booking. Check the table's Type in the floor plan editor.
• It is too small. When Noctessa assigns a table automatically it only picks one with enough seats for the party. A party of eight is never put on a four-seater.
• The event is marked full. If its Tag is set to Full, the reserve button is replaced by a "reservations full" notice. Clear the tag to reopen bookings.
• The party is bigger than any table you have. Online bookings cannot exceed your largest table. The guest is told the maximum and asked to call you.
• They left it too late. Your venue can have a cut-off before doors, after which online reservations close. The guest is told how far ahead bookings close.

If guests are getting no choice of table at all, check Guest picks the table on the event. With it off, Noctessa assigns the nearest free table itself and the guest never sees a map.

Why didn't my post go out?

Open Publishing and look at the post's Publish results — each channel says what happened to it.

• "skipped · not connected". That channel has no account linked. Scroll to Connections and use Connect with Facebook — one connection covers both the Facebook Page and the Instagram business account linked to it.
• No image. Instagram will not take a post without a picture. Add an Image URL and publish again; a post with no image is skipped on Instagram and can still go to Facebook.
• It is still scheduled. If you filled in Schedule, the post waits for that time. Leave Schedule empty and use Publish now to send it immediately.
• It is still a draft. A post saved with Save draft, or composed while nothing was connected, sits as a draft until you publish it.
• The connection has lapsed. Connections shows each account as connected, disconnected or not connected, along with when its access expires. If it is not connected, connect it again.
• "Publish failed". Facebook or Instagram turned the post back, and the reason they gave is on the failed line — most often a picture they could not fetch or a caption they would not accept. If the reason is about the picture, do not re-export the flyer: send that exact line to the Noctessa team. Preparing a picture for Instagram is our job, not yours.
• You cannot find Publishing at all. Publishing has been switched off for your venue; ask the Noctessa team to turn it back on.

My account is paused — what now?

There are two different states, and they read differently.

Payment is past due. You will see a banner saying so, and your panel keeps working normally. Go to Billing and use Manage payment to update your card. Do this promptly: if the balance is not settled, the account is suspended a few days later, and you are emailed a warning before that happens.

Account suspended. Signing in shows Account suspended, and your public site tells visitors the venue is temporarily unavailable. You cannot lift this from inside the panel — contact the Noctessa team.

Either way, nothing is deleted. Your events, reservations, floor plan and staff are all still there and come straight back when the account is reactivated.

If Manage payment tells you there is no subscription to manage yet, no plan was ever activated for your venue, so there is no card on file to fix. Contact the Noctessa team.

A guest says their ticket does not work

Have the door read out what the screen said. Each message means something different.

• NOT CONFIRMED — DO NOT ADMIT. The reservation has not been confirmed. Open it in Reservations and set it to Confirmed — that is what turns a request into a valid ticket and sends the guest their e-ticket. This is by far the most common one.
• REVOKED — DO NOT ADMIT. The reservation was set to Cancelled or Declined, which kills its ticket. If that was a mistake, set the status back to Confirmed and a fresh ticket is issued.
• ALREADY ADMITTED — ANOTHER DEVICE. That exact ticket was already scanned on a different phone. Either the guest is already inside, or the code has been forwarded to somebody else. Check Expected guests — anyone already in is marked.
• Already in (this device). The same phone scanned the same ticket twice. Harmless — carry on.
• INVALID / EXPIRED. The code did not check out. Usually it is a ticket for another venue, a mistyped code, or a ticket used long after the event — tickets stop working roughly eight hours after doors.

The guest says they never got an e-ticket at all. E-tickets go out by email only, and only once the reservation is Confirmed. So check two things: that the reservation is confirmed, and that it actually has an email address on it. A guest who booked with only a phone number gets no e-ticket — there is nothing to send it to. They are not stuck at the door: their reservation and table are still in Reservations and on the Floor plan, so seat them by name.

If the camera will not read the code, use Manual entry at the door and type or paste the code from the guest's email.

I'm not getting emails when a reservation comes in

Reservation alerts go to the addresses shown in Venue settings, under Operational settings, as Notification recipients. If that row is empty, no alerts are sent to anyone.

That field is set up for you and is shown read-only, so ask the Noctessa team to set or change the address. Your Dashboard flags it too — the Finish setting up checklist has a line for the reservation notification email.

Also check the spam folder of whatever address is listed, especially in the first week.

Where is the door screen?

Not every venue runs a door. If yours does: it is not in the sidebar. Staff you invite with the Door role land on it automatically when they sign in — they see the scanner and the guest list for tonight and nothing else in the panel.

If you gave somebody the Admin role by mistake, they will see the full panel instead. A person's role is fixed when you invite them and cannot be changed afterwards — inviting the same email address again does not change it either. Ask the Noctessa team to correct the role.

A guest has asked me to delete their details

You can do that yourself in Venue settings, under Erase guest data. The full steps, and what erasing does and does not cover, are in Privacy and guest data.

Is money being taken from guests without me setting it up?

No. Taking payment before arrival stays off until you turn on Enable prepayment in Venue settings, on the Payments tab, and it only works once you have entered the details of your own Payment processor account. Until then a booking is recorded and nothing is charged. Any money that is taken later goes to your account, never to Noctessa.

If something still looks wrong

• Sign out and back in. A stale session explains a surprising number of "it vanished" reports.
• Check your own public site in a private browser window rather than a tab you have had open all evening.
• Check the Activity log. If a setting changed on its own, it will tell you who changed it and when.
• If the whole panel is behaving oddly on one phone, try a different one before assuming the account is broken.

Which plan am I on, and why is a screen missing?

Open Billing from your account menu — your plan is at the top. Your plan decides which screens your panel shows, and a few screens can also be switched off per venue on top of that. Your Noctessa subscription lists the plans; Restaurants and the Dining plan and Concerts and the Live plan describe two of them in full. If a screen this help centre describes is not in your menu, that is the first place to look, and the Noctessa team is the second.