Olo Rails Frequently Asked Questions

Getting Started with
ezCater Integrations
Integrating with the
ezCater Public API

What is our Olo Rails integration?

Catering Integration (whether it’s via Olo or other method) is designed and functions for sales/inventory reconciliation. It is also intended to reduce the operational lift from the store operators by not requiring them to manually enter orders into the POS. This reduces errors and ensures that proper sales are being recorded. It is not intended to be for fulfillment purposes. Catering orders bring with them a very different workflow than smaller retail/personal orders.

How are orders accepted?

As a part of the natural workflow with ezCater, all orders when placed, must be accepted via ezManage. Store Managers and/or those managing the catering orders will be notified of new orders via email, sms or iOS Push Notifications (whichever is configured as a part of your onboarding). This notification then leads the operator into ezManage, where they will review the order details and click a button to acknowledge and “Accept” the order. By doing so, they are making a commitment to fulfill and should be considered aware of the order. If this is a new ezCater Brand/Caterer, as a part of onboarding, we will train this process as well provide details on additional reminder notifications.

Once the order has been accepted, when is it sent over to Olo?

Immediately upon acceptance, the order is sent to Olo Rails. From there, the configuration of Olo Rails determines how the order is treated. It will sit in a scheduled state and be visible in Olo Rails until the configured Lead Time. Further details on this should be explored with your Olo Rep as at this point, the order resides within the Olo environment.

When does the order fire? Does it fire based on some preset make time, or do all advance orders fire at the same time?

Ultimately, this is for your Olo Rep to provide details. ezCater does not control what happens on the Olo side. That being said, it is our understanding that each order will fire to the POS based on your Olo configured Lead times.

What information about the order / delivery is passed through to Olo and visible in Olo?

At this time, the Order details (Menu Items and selections) are passed through based on mapped ID’s between Olo Rails and ezCater. The Fulfillment date/time is also provided. The customer for all of these orders is ezCater. As such the customer information is all based on ezCater. The Email address passed is an ezCater email that references the order number. There is no phone number passed. Any questions should go through ezCater Customer Support (This will be trained as well during onboarding). Self delivery and ezDispatch are supported through this integration. We send through all delivery details (delivery address, delivery fee, delivery time, delivery instructions, and tip).

Is ezCater still acting as the payment processor and the billing/commission structure is the same?

Yes, that is correct. Please note though, that with the Olo Integration comes an additional $0.50 per order, which is a pass-through cost imposed by Olo.

What are your operational practices if Olo is offline (either due to disabling/closure or due to internet connection/outages)? If the order doesn’t fire, what happens?

In the event that Olo is unreachable, a notification is sent to the Catering Order Manager (same that received the original order notification) that the order was not able to be passed into Olo and thus this order will need to be manually entered. Since integration is not intended for fulfillment, there is no cancellation of the order, it is still expected to be fulfilled as the details remain available via ezManage.

What is the menu/pricing tier requirement?

We require brands to have all locations fit into 10 unique menu and pricing tiers. Per ezCater guidelines, you agree that the pricing you provide us for menu items, service and other fees to display on your ezCater pages for a given location will match the lowest prices and fees you charge customers through your, or any other, website or online channel for substantially similar offerings at that location.

Please note that 86’ing items is not supported with the integration.

What ezCater orders will transmit through the API?

ezCater Marketplace and ezOrdering orders will transmit through the API. Direct Entry and Relish orders will not pass through.

How do modifiers work?

Nested modifiers are supported in a limited capacity. While the ezCater UI/UX does not support nested modifiers, our integration to Olo can support sending certain selections in a multi-level format. Your implementation team will review with you how this works.

An example of the required modifications is shown below:

Are there any order sources not supported?

Direct Entry and Relish orders are not supported through the integration

What are the reasons an order might fail?

There are a number of reasons for an order to fail. A few are as follows:

  • Store Closed
  • Item Unavailable (86’d)
  • Transmission Failure / Failed to integrate 
  • Updated/Canceled order – Locked/in past
  • Special Instructions
  • Error Validating Basket (unknown reason)
  • Missing Required Selection
  • Order total difference between ezCater/Olo is greater than $10 (Tax Exempt)
  • Order cannot be ready 
  • Online Ordering unavailable
  • ezCater user does not have access to Store
  • Time settings and lead times not matching between the platforms

Interested in our Olo Rails integration?

Our team at ezCater is currently working through a long list of partners to get them onboarded with Olo Rails. If you’re interested in this integration, please reach out to api_support@ezcater.com to find out if you’re already on the list, or how you can be added.