CampusBite
A college-canteen ordering app. Students order from their phone, pay in advance or at the counter, and get a token number with an estimated time. Orders route live to three kitchen dashboards — Veg, Non-Veg and Snacks — where staff prepare and mark them ready, and a super-admin sees everything in one place. This document specifies the student app, the kitchen dashboards and the consolidated admin CRM.
1. Overview
1.1 Purpose
CampusBite lets college students skip the canteen queue: browse the menu, add items to a cart, pay online or choose pay-at-canteen, and receive a token number and estimated ready time. Every order routes to the right kitchen station — Veg, Non-Veg or Snacks — where staff see it, prepare it and mark it ready, which pushes a notification to the student. A super-admin can run a single kitchen or switch to a consolidated view of all three. This document covers the student app, the three kitchen dashboards, and the admin CRM.
1.2 Product vision
Turn the canteen rush into a calm, fair, token-based flow — students order and get on with their day, kitchens work an orderly queue, and the canteen owner sees live demand and revenue across every station.
1.3 Surfaces
Three surfaces ship together: the Student app (menu, cart, payment, token & tracking, reviews, profile), the Kitchen dashboard (one CRM that each of the three kitchens uses by picking its station), and the Super-Admin view (the same CRM with "All Kitchens" selected for a consolidated picture).
1.4 Scope
In scope (v1): phone-OTP login with name & class/college; menu with Veg / Non-Veg / Snacks; add-to-cart & checkout; online payment (gateway) and pay-at-canteen; token number & estimated time; order tracking with ready-notification; ratings & reviews; the birthday-gift capture (in-order prompt + profile) with an auto birthday reminder; the three kitchen dashboards; and the consolidated super-admin CRM. Delivered lean to fit the ₹30–50k budget.
Out of scope (v1): table reservation, delivery to classrooms, loyalty wallet/points, multi-campus rollout and deep analytics — all candidates for a later phase.
2. Personas
| Persona | Description | Primary goals |
|---|---|---|
| Student | Orders food between/after classes. | Skip the queue, pay easily, know the token & time, get pinged when ready. |
| Kitchen staff | Runs one station — Veg, Non-Veg or Snacks. | See incoming orders, prepare in order, mark ready to notify the student. |
| Canteen super-admin | Owns the canteen. | Run any single kitchen or a consolidated view; track live demand, tokens & revenue. |
3. Login & Onboarding
Students sign in with a phone number + OTP, then add their name and class / college so the canteen knows who's ordering. It's a single quick step — no passwords — and the profile can be topped up later (including the birthday field in Section 8). See login → order → token → ready in the demo →
4. Menu & Cart
The home screen shows the canteen menu grouped by Veg, Non-Veg and Snacks, each item with a veg/non-veg marker, price and an Add button. Students filter by category, search, and build a cart with quantities. The cart shows the bill and a single button to check out. Item category also decides which kitchen the item routes to.
5. Payment
At checkout the student chooses Pay now — via the payment gateway (UPI / card) — or Pay at canteen (cash/UPI at the counter on pickup). Either way the order is placed and a token is issued; pay-at-canteen orders are marked unpaid until collected, so the counter can reconcile.
6. Token & Order Tracking
On placing an order the student gets a token number (e.g. V-42, prefixed by kitchen) and an estimated ready time. A live tracker shows the order move through Received → Preparing → Ready for pickup. The same token appears on the kitchen dashboard so staff call it out, and on the student's screen for the counter to match.
7. Reviews & Ratings
After pickup, students can rate the order (stars), pick quick tags (e.g. "Tasty", "Hot & fresh", "Slow") and leave a short comment. Reviews feed back to the canteen so the owner sees which items and stations are landing well.
8. Birthday & Surprise Gift
CampusBite captures each student's date of birth to send a birthday treat. A gentle pop-up appears a little while into ordering — "Tell us your birthday for a surprise gift 🎁" — and the birthday field also lives in the Profile. On the student's birthday an auto reminder fires and a surprise gift (e.g. a free snack or a discount) is unlocked — a simple, delightful retention hook.
9. Kitchen Dashboards
Each of the three kitchens — Veg, Non-Veg, Snacks — runs the same dashboard, scoped to its station via a dropdown. Staff see incoming orders with token, items, student and time; tap Start preparing to move an order into the queue, and Mark ready when done — which notifies the student. A live KPI strip shows the day's orders, pending queue, average prep time and revenue for that station.
10. Super Admin — Consolidated CRM
It's one CRM: staff pick their kitchen from the dropdown to run that station, and the owner selects "All Kitchens" to get a consolidated super-admin view — total orders and revenue across all three stations, a per-kitchen breakdown, the live order feed, and menu/price management. One tool, three kitchens, one owner's-eye view.
11. Notifications
Push notifications keep students informed: order confirmed (with token & time), order ready for pickup, and the birthday reminder / gift. Notifications are the heartbeat that lets students walk away and come back exactly when their food is ready.
12. Non-Functional & Scope
Performance
Menu & cart load under 2 seconds; kitchen dashboard updates in near-real-time.
Payments
Razorpay UPI/card for pay-now; pay-at-canteen reconciliation at the counter.
Notifications
Push (FCM) for confirmed / ready / birthday; graceful fallback to in-app.
Budget-fit MVP
Lean build to fit ₹30–50k — core flow first, extras phased later.
Security & privacy
OTP login, encrypted transit, DOB stored for birthday use only.
Reliability
Works on modest campus Wi-Fi; kitchen view refreshes and recovers cleanly.
13. Order Status Model
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Placed | Student checked out; token & estimated time issued; routed to its kitchen. |
| Received | Kitchen has the order in its incoming queue. |
| Preparing | Staff tapped "Start preparing"; order is being cooked. |
| Ready | Staff tapped "Mark ready"; student notified to collect at the counter. |
| Collected | Picked up (and paid, for pay-at-canteen); order closed. |
| Reviewed | Student left a rating / review (optional). |
14. Open Questions
- Token scheme — per-kitchen prefixes (V/N/S) with daily reset, or one running series?
- Pay-at-canteen — hold the order until a counter confirm, or trust-and-prepare with reconciliation?
- Estimated time — fixed per item, or dynamic from the live kitchen queue length?
- Surprise gift — free snack, flat discount, or a coupon; and any per-year limit?
- Menu management — who edits items/prices/availability, and how often do items sell out mid-day?
- Devices — kitchen dashboards on a shared tablet/PC per station, or the owner's phone?