When something goes wrong
Twelve tangles we see often, what causes each one and what to do about it. If yours is not here, write to hello@haila.md.
You cannot sign in
#You type the email and the password and nothing happens, or you get in and land on the guest page instead of the dashboard. On a phone, the app says you have no permission and throws you back out.
It is nearly always one of three things: you are trying with the guest account instead of the team account, you opened the wrong app for the venue plan, or the account came from an email invitation, and an account made that way does not open anything yet. The last one is a known problem on our side, not something you did wrong.
- Check what you are signing in with. The restaurant team signs in with an email and a password everywhere. A phone number and an SMS code belong to the guest account, which is a separate account even for the same person, and it opens none of the restaurant side.
- Try it in a browser, at haila.md/en/owner/login. If you get in there, the account is fine and the problem is with the app on the phone.
- If the message says you have no permission, it is not the password. It is the venue plan, or the app you opened. Read on, at the wrong app.
- If the account came from an emailed invitation, stop here. The account is created but it opens nothing. Write to hello@haila.md with the name, email and role of the person and we make the account ourselves, the same day.
- If you cannot remember the password, reset it in a browser. The phone apps carry no password recovery.
- If none of this fits, write to hello@haila.md with the account email and the venue name.
The list under Settings, Team, keeps a record, not access. Someone removed from it keeps signing in with the same rights, and so does someone you set to suspended. When a person leaves your team, write to us the same day and we cut their access ourselves.
The app throws you out at sign-in
#On an iPhone or an iPad the app says "You don't have permission to access this app", in English whatever language the app is in, and returns you to the sign-in screen. Retyping the password changes nothing.
The Pro app needs at least one venue on the Pro plan. On a Lite plan it refuses the sign-in and signs you out on the spot. It reads like a broken account and it is the wrong app. The same message appears when the account has no venue attached to it at all.
- Look at what you installed. On iPhone and iPad the Pro app is called HaiLa for Restaurants in the App Store, and the Lite one HaiLa for Restaurants Light.
- If the venue is on the Lite plan, install HaiLa for Restaurants Light and sign in with the same details. There is nothing to change about the account.
- If the venue is on the Pro plan and you still cannot get in, write to hello@haila.md: most likely the account is not attached to the venue.
- On Android there is nothing to choose and nothing to hunt for. There is one app: Google Play calls it HaiLa for Restaurants Light, and the icon on the phone reads HaiLa for Restaurants. The Pro workspace lives inside that same app.
- On an iPad, a venue on the Lite plan has no app at all: the Lite one is built for iPhone. Work from the dashboard, in a browser.
Nothing stops you in the other direction, so do not read too much into it: the Lite app on iPhone accepts a venue on the Pro plan too, it simply carries no Pro workspace. Signing into Lite successfully tells you nothing about the plan.
A venue section opens empty
#You open a venue section in the dashboard, the page loads, and there is nothing inside, or a message says you have no rights. It worked an hour ago, and the same data shows on the phone.
The dashboard holds two connections at once: one for the page and one for the venue data. The first lives longer than the second, so the page still counts you as signed in while the part that fetches the data no longer is. Nobody took a right away from you.
- Reload the page once.
- If it is still empty, sign out and back in. Press Exit in the top bar: it takes you to your account page, where Sign out sits.
- Sign in again at haila.md/en/owner/login.
- Open the venue from Portfolio, then the section.
- If it is still empty after that, write to hello@haila.md with the venue name and the section.
Before you conclude anything, look at the venue name at the top of the page. On an account with several venues, an empty section can simply be a different venue. And if Menu or Guests are missing from the list of sections entirely, nothing is broken: those two only show on the Pro plan.
No notifications on an iPhone or iPad
#New requests only appear when you open the app yourself. The phone stays silent and shows nothing on the lock screen.
There are two separate switches and the second one is easy to miss: the phone permission, and your own account preference, kept separately for each venue. Notifications are set per person, not per venue.
- In the Pro app open More, then Notifications. In the Lite app open Settings and go to the notifications section.
- If a message asks you to enable notifications in the phone settings, press Open Settings and turn them on there.
- Check the top switch first, the one that turns all notifications on, then the one for new reservations. Their names differ slightly from app to app.
- On an account with several venues, do this on the venue whose alerts you are waiting for. The preferences are kept separately for each one.
- Look at the phone too: silent mode and Focus mute the sound as well.
- The test-notification button only tells you that the phone displays notifications. The app makes that one itself, so it proves nothing about a notification arriving from HaiLa. If the test shows up and real requests do not, write to us.
The toggles in the dashboard, under Settings, Notifications, touch none of this. Do not rely on them. Team alerts are turned on in the app, on each account separately, so a new person has to turn them on for themselves on their own phone.
No notifications on Android
#The same silence on Android: reservations show up when you open the app, not before.
On Android 13 and newer, notifications need a separate permission, asked once, at the first launch. Once it has been refused, the switch inside the app cannot ask for it again.
- In the Lite workspace open More, then Settings, the notifications section. In the Pro workspace open More, then Notifications.
- Turn on the top switch, the one that turns all notifications on. If the phone asks for permission, grant it.
- If you press it and nothing changes, the phone does not ask a second time. The app then shows a panel that takes you into its settings on the phone: turn notifications on there and come back.
- Then check the switch for new reservations, under the top one.
- On an account with several venues, do this on the venue whose alerts you are waiting for.
- The test-notification button is the app talking to itself. It shows that notifications display, not that one from HaiLa arrives. If the test shows up and requests do not, write to us.
As on iPhone, the toggles in the dashboard, under Settings, Notifications, change nothing. Alerts are turned on in the app, on each phone and for each account.
The guest says they booked and you cannot see it
#Someone calls or turns up at the door saying they have a reservation with you. You cannot find it on that day.
Most of the time the reservation exists but not where you are looking: it is still a pending request, it is on another day, or it landed on another venue if you run a widget on your site.
- Ask where they booked: in the HaiLa app, on the venue page on haila.md, in the form on your own site, or by phone with someone on your team.
- Check the day. Today only shows the current day; for any other day go to Reservations.
- Look among the requests. A reservation that arrives through HaiLa, through the widget or through the API lands as Pending and stays there until you accept it. The widget tells the person their reservation is waiting for the restaurant to confirm, but what they remember is that they booked.
- Search by name or by phone in the search field in Reservations, and read the Source column: it tells you which road each reservation came in on.
- If a colleague took it by phone, look among the confirmed ones. Reservations your team enters are created Confirmed straight away and never pass through the requests at all.
- If you run the widget and have more than one venue, check which venue it landed on. The widget panel in the dashboard shows the first venue on the account, not the venue you have open, so the code pasted on your site can belong to another one.
- If it is nowhere, ask the guest for the reservation code and write to hello@haila.md with it.
If the request came in hours ago and nobody answered it, it can have closed itself. Read on, at the request that disappeared.
A request disappeared or cancelled itself
#A request you saw in the morning is no longer in the list, or it reads Cancelled although nobody on the team touched it.
A request with no answer closes itself: after 3 hours for the current day, after 24 hours for any other day. The window usually also closes an hour before the reservation time, and a request that arrives so late that this hour has already passed still gets 15 minutes. On expiry HaiLa sets it to Cancelled and the guest is told their request expired.
- Open the reservation and read the status. An expired request is Cancelled, and the reason says it went unanswered.
- If it is not in the list, filter that day by the cancelled status. Nothing is deleted.
- If you still want the party, call them and enter the reservation yourself. One you enter is created Confirmed straight away.
- If the reservation carries a proposed time waiting for the guest to answer, it has not expired and it cannot: while a proposal is hanging, the request is skipped when the window closes and it stays that way indefinitely. Call the guest if they have not answered by the next day.
- If the reservation is neither in the list nor among the cancelled ones, read above, at the guest who says they booked.
A request does not expire without warning: you get a reminder 15 minutes after it arrives and an urgent alert 30 minutes before the window closes. On a window of 30 minutes or less only the urgent one comes, so a late-evening request carries a single signal. Neither an expired request nor a declined one is billed.
HaiLa and the till show different things
#The tables in HaiLa do not match the ones on the till, a table you created has dropped out of the count, or a reservation cancelled in HaiLa still holds a table on the terminal.
While a venue has a POS connection running, the POS owns the floor plan and some things only travel one way. On top of that, no screen anywhere, not in the dashboard and not in the apps, tells you the connection is on.
- Ask us first whether the venue has the connection running. You cannot find out on your own: no page shows it.
- If it is running, the tables you created in HaiLa are retired at the sync. They are not matched by number against the POS ones, and there is no mapping screen, so do not rebuild them: there is nothing to attach them to.
- Change table numbers and room names in the POS, not in HaiLa. They come across with the morning floor-plan sync.
- A reservation cancelled in HaiLa never reaches the terminal. Close it there as well, or the table stays held all evening for nothing.
- A pending request is not visible on the till at all. It crosses over only the moment you confirm it, so read your requests in HaiLa, not on the terminal.
- A reservation made on the terminal shows up in HaiLa within about a minute during service. Wait that minute before entering it by hand, or you end up with it twice.
Reservations that come from the terminal are billed at the API rate, 0.50 EUR plus VAT, not as reservations your team entered. Stopping the connection is also asked of us: there is no disconnect button anywhere.
The venue name or address is wrong
#The venue name, address, phone or cuisine reaches the guest wrong, and you cannot find where any of it is changed in the dashboard.
The dashboard does not edit the venue details for anyone, the owner included. The note at the top of Settings says we hold them, and for the dashboard that is true. It does not mean they are locked, though: the Pro app has them.
- If the venue is on the Pro plan, open the Pro app, More, then Settings. The name, address, phone and cuisine are changed there.
- Save, then check the result on the venue page on haila.md.
- If the save errors, do not push it: it means the rights on your account do not match what the venue asks for. Write to hello@haila.md.
- If the venue is on the Lite plan, write to us. Neither the dashboard nor the Lite app carries these fields.
- For the description and the photos write to us either way: those change from no screen at all.
If the venue has a POS connected, room names and table numbers are not solved on this road: those come from the POS and change there. The venue details stay with us and with the Pro app.
The venue photos or description are old
#The venue photos, or the text under the venue name, are out of date and you cannot find anywhere to change them.
You cannot find it because it does not exist. The description and the photo gallery are the only two venue details with no editing screen at all: not in the dashboard, not in the Lite app, not in the Pro one.
- Write to hello@haila.md with the new text and the photos.
- Send the photos as files, not as links, and tell us which one is the cover, meaning the first one a person sees.
- Tell us what to take down as well, if the old gallery needs clearing.
- Do not confuse these with event photos: you set those yourself, on the event, and they never come past us.
- The menu is not here either. You change the menu yourself, from the dashboard on the Pro plan and from the app on both plans.
With the menu you have the opposite trouble, and it is worth knowing: in the Lite app, a menu read from a PDF saves itself the moment the read finishes, without asking you anything. A price read wrong reaches the guest within about a minute, with no draft and no undo. So read the menu straight after uploading it. The dashboard and the Pro workspace ask you to confirm before they save.
An event was rejected and you cannot edit it
#The event reads Rejected, with a reason written on it, and you cannot find the edit button.
It is not hidden. A rejected event can no longer be edited and no longer be sent again, on any screen, not in the dashboard and not in the apps. An event is only editable while it sits In review.
- Read the rejection reason, written on the event in the list. It also reaches you by email and in your notifications.
- Create a new event and write it corrected. That is the only way back.
- Send it for review.
- Leave the rejected one where it is: you cannot delete it either. Use the filters at the top to keep the list readable.
- If the reason is not clear to you, write to hello@haila.md before rebuilding it, so it does not come back rejected for the same thing.
While an event sits In review it edits freely, so make your corrections then. And one more thing worth knowing: the review has no deadline. The screen says the event goes through a review, but nothing holds us to a given day, and if it is forgotten there, nobody tells you. Glance at the In review count at the top of the screen now and then, and if an event has been sitting for a few days, write to us.
You forgot the password
#You cannot remember the password, or the one you know stopped working, and the app on your phone offers no recovery at all.
It offers none because a password is reset in a browser only. Neither the Pro app nor the Lite ones carry it.
- Open haila.md/en/owner/login in a browser. A phone browser does the job too.
- Press Forgot password?
- Type the account email. The field is labelled Phone or email, but only the email works: a phone number gets the same thank-you screen and nothing goes out.
- Open the link from the email and set the new password. If you do not see the message, look in spam.
- Sign in with the new password, both in the browser and in the app on your phone. It is the same password everywhere.
The screen after you submit says the same thing whether the address belongs to an account or not. That is deliberate, so that nobody outside can work out which addresses we hold. So if nothing arrives within 5 minutes, it is most likely not the account address: write to hello@haila.md. And remember the password belongs to the person, not the venue: changing it changes it for your account, not for the team.