What’s on the screen
The board is designed to be read at a glance, from a distance, without touching anything.- Status rail (top) — a fixed count for each stage: Unconfirmed, Confirmed, Ready, Out For Delivery, Fulfilled, and (if your shop uses courier fulfilment) With Courier, plus your overall progress percentage and a clock. The stages never move around, so your team learns where to look.
- Make-up tickets (middle) — one large ticket for every order that still needs preparing. Each ticket leads with a big order number, then the recipient name, a one-line item summary, and stickers for the fulfilment type (delivery, collection, relay, courier), the time, and who it’s assigned to. Orders past their stated time get a red Overdue sticker and jump to the front; unconfirmed orders are tagged and shown ahead of confirmed work.
- Handoff strip (bottom) — once an order is made it drops to a compact number-and-name card in a colour-zoned section: Ready (indigo), Out For Delivery / With Courier (purple), Fulfilled (green). Each section has its own tinted background and dark header so the zones stay distinct even on a TV that washes colours out. Out For Delivery cards also carry a small time sticker (AM, BY 12:00, a time range) and timed deliveries sort to the top, so when a customer rings to ask “is it still out?”, the answer is one glance away.
- Tomorrow’s queue — whenever today’s work leaves spare room on the canvas, the board fills it with the next work date’s make-up tickets below a dark Tomorrow divider. Shops that make tomorrow’s orders today see their real queue all day instead of a blank screen; shops that work day-of see it appear as the afternoon frees up. Empty days are skipped, so a Saturday board previews Monday.
- Due soon — an order with a stated time turns orange within an hour of its deadline, and red with an Overdue sticker once the time has passed. Urgent work automatically moves to the front of the grid.
- New orders — an order that has just arrived pulses briefly so it catches the eye from across the room.
- Make-up complete — a green badge appears in the header once everything for today is made, and the rail shows a count for the next work date so the afternoon shift can see what’s coming.
- Not updating? — if the board can’t reach the server it shows a red “Not updating” banner with the time of the last successful refresh, rather than quietly displaying old information.
Board options
A small settings row sits at the bottom of the board. Set it up once from a computer — your choices are saved into the page address, so a display that restarts comes back exactly as you configured it.- Display — TV (the default) sizes everything to be read from across a room. Desk shrinks the board about 20% for a monitor at arm’s length — the right choice if the board runs on a computer screen next to the till rather than a wall TV.
- Progress target — whether the progress percentage tracks orders marked Ready (how far through making you are) or Fulfilled (how much is out the door).
- Addresses — adds the delivery address to each make-up ticket. Useful if the same screen guides van loading.
- Night dim — blanks the board to a dark clock between 10pm and 6am, which protects the TV panel from displaying a static image all night. On by default; turn it off if your hours don’t suit it.
- Date — open the board without a date (the best kiosk bookmark) and it follows the calendar for you: today’s orders stay on the board all day, and the next work date’s make-up queue appears below the Tomorrow divider as space allows. Opening the board while the dashboard is on today gives you this self-updating mode; opening it from a different date pins the board to that date. Add
?date=allto the address to show every upcoming order at once. Multi-shop businesses can point each screen at its own branch by adding?location=with the location’s ID.
Choosing a screen
Any TV or monitor with an HDMI input works. What matters is size against viewing distance:
A few buying pointers.
- 1080p is fine. The board’s text is sized for it. A 4K set is slightly sharper but makes no practical difference at these distances.
- Prefer a standard LCD/LED TV. Avoid OLED for this: the board is static for hours at a time, which is exactly what causes OLED burn-in.
- Bright room, bright screen. Workrooms are usually well lit. A screen rated around 350 nits or more holds up much better against glare, and a matte screen beats a glossy one.
Setting up the TV
Consumer TVs ship with settings that fight a computer picture. Five minutes in the TV’s menus makes a big difference:1
Set the picture size to exact fit
Find the aspect ratio / picture size setting and choose Just Scan, Screen Fit, Full Pixel, 1:1, or your TV’s equivalent. Without this, the TV crops the edges of the picture (overscan) and you’ll lose the edges of the board.
2
Label the input as PC
If your TV lets you rename or set the type of the HDMI input, set it to PC. This switches the TV into a mode that renders text sharply and turns off video processing.
3
Turn off motion smoothing and eco features
Disable motion smoothing / motion interpolation, noise reduction, and dynamic contrast — they blur and shimmer static text. Then check the eco menu: turn off auto power-off, sleep timers, and no-signal standby, or the TV will switch itself off mid-afternoon because nobody touched the remote.
4
Set brightness for the room
Turn the backlight up high enough that the board stays readable at the brightest time of day, and position the screen so windows and ceiling lights aren’t reflected directly in it.
Driving the screen
The board is a web page, so it needs something running a browser plugged into the TV. Two good options, in order of preference.- A spare PC or Mac mini — the most reliable option, and quick to log in on. Any cheap refurbished mini PC is more than enough.
- A laptop you already own — fine to start with; set it to never sleep while plugged in.
Run it as a kiosk (optional)
For a screen that comes back on its own after a power cut, launch Chrome in kiosk mode with your board’s address (copy it from the browser after setting your options). On Windows, save the command as a shortcut in your Startup folder. On Mac, run it in Terminal, or wrap it in an app added to System Settings > General > Login Items.- Windows: Settings > System > Power — set screen and sleep to Never while plugged in.
- Mac: System Settings > Displays > Advanced — prevent automatic sleeping; and in Displays, keep the resolution at the TV’s native setting with browser zoom at 100%. The board compensates automatically if the scale is wrong (and shows a small amber note in its settings row when it is), but the picture is only pin-sharp at the native setting.
Common questions
Why don't I see every order as a big ticket?
Why don't I see every order as a big ticket?
Big tickets are for orders that still need making (unconfirmed and confirmed). Once an order is marked ready it moves to the compact strip at the bottom — at that point the job is handoff, not production, so the number, name and (for deliveries) the time promise are all that’s needed. The strip grows to show every card when the canvas has room; anything that still doesn’t fit rotates through each section’s final row, and clicking a section header opens the full list.
The text is cut off at the edges of the TV
The text is cut off at the edges of the TV
That’s overscan. Set the TV’s picture size to Just Scan / Screen Fit / 1:1 (step 1 above).
The TV keeps turning itself off
The TV keeps turning itself off
Consumer TVs switch off after a few hours without remote-control input. Turn off the auto power-off / eco sleep settings (step 3 above).
Does the board update by itself?
Does the board update by itself?
Yes — every 30 seconds. If the page has been hidden (the computer slept or the input changed), it catches up as soon as it’s visible again.
Why is the board showing tomorrow's orders?
Why is the board showing tomorrow's orders?
A board following today automatically uses any spare space to preview the next work date’s make-up queue — those tickets sit below a dark Tomorrow divider, carry a Tomorrow sticker, and never show as overdue. Today’s orders always stay on the board; the preview only borrows room today isn’t using, so a busy morning pushes it off the screen automatically. If tomorrow is empty the board looks ahead up to a week, so a Saturday screen previews Monday. A board opened on a specific date stays on that date.
Why do some cards say 'made ahead'?
Why do some cards say 'made ahead'?
If you make orders the day before, the ones you’ve already marked ready count as made ahead in the Tomorrow divider rather than showing as tickets — they’re finished work, not queue. At midnight they roll into the new day’s Ready section automatically.
The board looks too big (or too small) on my screen
The board looks too big (or too small) on my screen
On a wall TV, leave Display on TV — and if an amber note about display scale appears in the settings row, set the screen to 1920×1080 and browser zoom to 100% for the sharpest picture (the board compensates either way). On a desk monitor, switch Display to Desk for a denser layout sized for arm’s length.
Can I see who's making each order?
Can I see who's making each order?
Yes. If order assignments are enabled in your settings, each make-up ticket shows a sticker with the assigned team member’s name.