The Capacity Report provides deeper insights into why guests may not be able to make reservations online. It helps you uncover the reasons why availability is restricted for specific restaurants at certain times.
You can open the report from the Availability Scan and it opens as a slide-out panel with a detailed capacity chart.
The report features several metrics that allow you to drill down and answer online bookability questions for any restaurant, service and time.
How to Access the Capacity Report
Navigate to Distil Diagnostics.
Select a week from the horizontal week selector.
Open the Availability tab.
Click on any restaurant in the timeline grid.
In the pop-up window, select Capacity Report.
The report will open as a slide-out panel on the right side of the screen.
Understanding the Capacity Chart
The Capacity Report displays capacity and booking information in 15-minute intervals, so you can see how reservations build through a service.
The chart shows:
Covers in the books
Number of reservations
Revenue value based on average spend per head
Confirmed and unconfirmed group (GRP) reservations
Scroll controls allow you to move left and right across the timeline, helping you investigate booking patterns throughout the service.
The level of detail in the Capacity Report helps you identify the reason behind an availability blocker, which could be related to:
Capacity limits
Flow control settings
Table occupancy
Covers in the Books (ALC & GRP)
The Capacity Report shows both À la carte (ALC) and Group (GRP) covers, providing full visibility of total demand across the day, giving a complete view of:
Total covers already booked; confirmed and unconfirmed
How ALC and GRP bookings combine to impact availability
When scrolling across time periods, GRP rows move in sync with the rest of the grid, ensuring the full demand picture remains visible.
This helps teams quickly determine whether unavailable time slots are caused by:
True capacity constraints
High demand from group bookings
Pacing and operational limits
Capacity Metrics Explained
The Capacity Report highlights several key metrics that explain why online availability is limited or blocked.
Online Reservability
Shows the percentage of tables available for online booking that are already reserved online.
If only some tables are bookable online, this metric reflects usage within that available share.
For example, if 50% of tables are available online and 60% of those tables are booked, then online reservability will show 60%.
Flow Control
Shows the percentage of seating capacity blocked due to flow control settings.
Flow control limits how many guests can arrive within a 15-minute period to manage service pacing and kitchen capacity. It shows the absolute Cover Pacing Limit alongside the Flow Control percentage, giving more context when reviewing pacing settings.
For example, if your pace control is set to 40 covers and you have 20 covers already booked within that time window, the flow control metric will display 50%.
Table Occupancy
Shows the percentage of tables currently occupied based on active reservations aligned with the restaurant’s seating plan.
For example, if half of the tables are booked, table occupancy will show 50%.
Navigating in the Capacity Report
You can swipe left and right to navigate the Capacity Report, using your trackpad, smart mouse, or Shift + scroll on a scroll mouse. Swipe left to see later time slots, swipe right to see earlier ones. If you prefer to nudge things along 15 minutes at a time, use the arrow controls.
When you reach the end of a day, swiping continues into the next or previous day automatically.
You can switch to a different day directly from inside the Capacity Report. In the header of the Capacity Report, next to the current date, you'll find a calendar control. Click it, pick a new date, and the report reloads for that day, keeping the same time slot.
Only valid dates within the Availability Scan range are selectable. Dates outside that range are greyed out, so you can't accidentally pick a day with no data. If you jump to a different week in the Capacity Report and then close it, the Availability grid behind will be showing that same week, so your context carries over.
Create and view Monitor from the Capacity Report
When you spot a capacity issue in the Capacity Report and have a plan to address it, you can create a Monitor without leaving the report. This means you don't need to navigate back to the Forecast view to set up tracking.
In the top-left, next to the day and date, you'll see a Create Monitor link. One click creates a Monitor for the restaurant, week and service currently being viewed. Once you've created a Monitor - or if one already exists - the link switches to View Monitor. Clicking it opens the Monitor Details slide-out directly over the Capacity Report. When you're done, click Back to Capacity Report to land exactly where you left off on the grid. The close (X) button takes you back to the availability grid.
Learn more about Monitors in Distil Diagnostics.
Good to Know
Capacity data is displayed in 15-minute intervals for detailed analysis.
In-books values exclude cancellations and no-shows.
Capacity insights are available only when the Virtual Data Warehouse connection is enabled.
Your ALC and GRP split is determined by the Minimum & Maximum Party Size Online Reservable setting. Learn more about Configuring your Party Size Settings.
Visit our blog to find out more about how to turn Capacity Analysis insights into revenue.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.