Overview of Taps on Taplist.io

Taplist.io has built-in, optional support for "taps". This article describes how taps are modeled in Taplist.io: how they work, their limitations, and how you can use them.

What is a tap?

Taps are type of record meant to correspond to the physical draught beverage lines you have in your bar, brewpub, or restaurant.

The main benefit of using taps is to help you more accurately model & track what's going on at your location, in Taplist.io. For example, instead of just specifying that Pale Ale is now on the menu, you can additionally indicate which tap it is on.

Properties and constraints

Taps have a handful of simple properties and constraints:

• Taps are per-location. If you manage multiple Taplist.io locations, each has its own set of taps.
• You create the taps. By default, new Taplist.io accounts do not have any taps defined—you need to create them in the dashboard.
• Taps are sequentially numbered. When you create a tap, it will be automatically numbered, starting from 1: Tap 1, Tap 2, Tap 3, and so on.
• Taps have a state. At any given time, a tap is in either one of two states: connected to keg, or is empty.

Overall, taps exist to help you with your workflows and record-keeping.

Taps are optional

Using taps is entirely optional: Many of our customers use Taplist.io without using any of the features that relate to taps. Even if you have taps at your physical location, there's no requirement that you tell Taplist.io about them.

Taplist.io features which use taps

Here are some features of Taplist.io which kick in when you start using taps:

• Menu item numbering: Some themes have an option to show the tap number next to a menu item.
• Menu item sorting: You can configure a menu section to sort items by tap numbers.
• Automatically replace kegs: When you connect a keg to a tap, if there is already a keg connected to that same tap, the existing keg will be ended.
• Pinned taps: Add a "pinned tap" to a menu section. Whenever a keg is connected to that tap number, it will be automatically placed in that menu section.
• Automatic keg room transitions: When you place a keg on a tap, it will transition out of "Available" (or "On deck") and into the "On tap" portion of the keg room.

What are "Pinned Taps"?

Pinned Taps are a special feature of our menu editor that is designed for certain advanced usage.

Normally, when you add something to your menu, you have a few options:

• You can add or create a Beverage or Product, and place it in a menu section directly.
• You can add a Keg from the Keg Room and place it in a menu section directly.
  • When add a keg this way, you can optionally specify a tap number.

"Pinned Taps" are an additional, special thing you can add to a menu section. You can think of them like a virtual menu item: When you add a pinned tap to a section, you specify what tap should be pinned, (for example, "Tap 2"). Now, whenever a keg is added to Tap 2, that keg will automatically show up in the menu section. When the keg is ended, it will automatically stop showing in the menu section.

Here is a sample menu illustrating the concept:

In the menu above, there are three things on the menu:

1. The first item is a Pinned Tap that always shows the contents of Tap 1.
2. The second item is a keg. We've additionally indicated that it's connected to Tap 2.
3. The third item is just like the second item, another keg, this one on Tap 3.

Why would I use pinned taps?

The most common reason to use pinned taps is to create a menu section that always shows some specific taps in a specific order.

For example, if you wanted to create a menu section called "Upstairs Taps", which are taps 5-8 at your business, you could do this by creating a menu section with those 4 pinned taps on them.

Similarly, some customers have multiple TVs above their pour walls, and like to make sure their TV menus correspond to the rough location of the taps. You could do this by creating menu sections like:

• Section: Left TV
  • Contents: Pinned taps 1-4
• Section: Right TV
  • Contents: Pinned taps 5-8

If you don't have a strong need to keep taps in exactly one place on your menu, you probably don't need to use pinned taps.