Get Started With Contests in Toast

In this Article:

Contests Basics
Contest Considerations
Set Up a Contest
- Add Your Contest to MyToast
- Boost Your Contest With Upsells
Edit a Contest
View the Live Leaderboard
When a Contest Ends
Contests FAQ

Contests Basics

Use contests in Toast Web to run friendly competitions for your staff and motivate them to drive specific business outcomes, such as to sell more steaks, increase check averages, or push a featured cocktail. You can run more than one contest at once. Contests are essentially a micro report that displays your selected data. In Toast, no changes or actions happen as the result of a contest.

Before beginning your first contest:

You must have a completed menu if you're running a menu-based contest.
You must have hired employees into Toast. If you'd like them to view the contest details in the MyToast app, create accounts for employees to allow access to MyToast.
You must have some sales and labor data; contests rely on a live and active business.

There are two types of contests you can run: menu-based and FOH-based (front-of-house).

Menu-based contests can be run in three different ways. Menu-based contests reward the individual that sells the most of the menu/group/item you select, depending on the metric you choose. If more than one menu/group/item is chosen, the combined totals contribute to the contest leaderboard.
- Menu sales: Sales from a specific menu.
- Menu group sales: Sales from a specific menu group.
- Menu item sales: Sales of a specific menu item or items.
- Learn the difference between menus, menu groups, and menu items in Create and Manage Menus, Menu Groups, and Subgroups.
FOH-based contests can be run in ten different ways, but these depend on your staff using the POS system in the same way (for instance, recording guest counts, discounts, or tips the same way). The contests will record differently based on your selection (for instance, Average turn time and Discount amount/count reward the individual with the lowest number).
- Net sales: Gross sales minus discounts and refunds. Excludes deferred items (ex. Gift cards, house account payments).
- Order quantity: Total quantity of non-voided orders. Includes orders that have no checks, no items, or only includes voided items.
- Guest count: The number of guests on the orders.
- Average order value: Average net sales per order. Calculated as net sales divided by order count.
- Average check value: Average net sales per check. Calculated as net sales divided by check count.
- Average net sales per guest: Net sales divided by guest count. Shows the average revenue per guest after discounts and refunds.
- Non-cash tips: Total value of non-cash tips received, minus refunds.
- Non-cash tips percentage: Non-Cash tips as a percentage of total payments, minus refunds.
- Discount amount: Total value of discounts on non-deferred items.
- Discount count: Total quantity of discounts on non-deferred items and service charges. Excludes discounts on deferred items.

Contest Considerations

Contests only apply to the location they're created in.
If employees use shared cash drawers (typically cashiers or bartenders), those sales will all be collected by the generic employee that the cash drawer is assigned to rather than the individual staff members running the drawer. This could skew contest reporting and leaderboards.
If the Show leaderboard to my employees on the MyToast app selection is enabled, employees will have visibility into the metric you select. If you choose a tips or sales metric, employees can view each participant's tips or sales in the MyToast app for the duration of the contest.
At this time, menu modifiers cannot be included in menu-based contests.
If two or more employees tie at the end of a contest, the leaderboard will show them all as winning the contest.

Set Up a Contest

Note: You must have permissions 4.1 Sales reports and 4.3 Labor reports to create a contest.

Navigate to Employees > Employee management > Contests.
Select Create new. This will begin a step-by-step walkthrough to help you set up your first contest.
First, name your contest.
Next, for What will the team compete on?, choose either a FOH-based metric or a menu-based metric. Select the best option for the type of contest you’re running. See the description of each metric above.
1. For menu-based contests:
  1. Choose menu item: Add the part of your menu you're tracking.
    1. If you select a menu item, make sure you're selecting the item from all applicable menus that are part of this contest. Be aware of happy hour menus, lunch/dinner menus, and seasonal menus that might contain this menu item.
    2. If you might run out of a specific menu item you're trying to push, it may be a better idea to choose multiple menu items or the menu group the item lives in. This is because once the item sells out, the contest is effectively over since you cannot change the metric mid-contest.
  2. Pick a measurement type:
    1. Dollar amount sold (total)
    2. Dollar amount sold per hour
    3. Dollar amount sold per order
    4. Quantity sold (total)
    5. Quantity sold per hour
    6. Quantity sold per order
      1. Per hour and per order metrics can help normalize the score so employees who aren’t working as many hours/days can still be competitive. When total is selected, employees who work the most hours/days will be more likely to win the contest.
  3. Promote contest with upsell reminders?: This option will display notifications on the POS during the contest, reminding employees to compete. An image on the right side of the page previews this. If you decide to enable upsell reminders, don't forget to publish them alongside your contest. Learn more below.
2. For FOH-based contests:
  1. These fields will vary depending on the metric you select.
Select Continue to advance to the second step.
You can optionally toggle Show leaderboard to my employees on the MyToast app to surface the leaderboard inside the My Toast employee app (see below to view the employee experience in My Toast).
Set the Contest duration (the start and end dates for the contest). The leaderboard will track sales during that timeframe.
1. Contests use full day data for the range selected. For same day contests, the contest will calculate the full day, even if the contest was created mid-day.
Select the participants to include in the contest. Employees are organized by job, so you can quickly add everyone in a job (for example, all servers) at once.
1. Employees with multiple jobs (for example, a server who also bartends) appear multiple times in the employee dropdown to make it easier to bulk-select by job, but they are only counted once on the leaderboard.
2. Employees are listed by their chosen name. If you can't find an employee, try searching by last name.
3. Archived employees may still appear if they are archived at your location, but still active at another location in your restaurant group.
Optionally, add a Reward description. Rewards are text-based and shown to participants alongside the leaderboard. Reward creation and distribution are managed by your business and not Toast.
Select Create Contest to save and start tracking. If you chose to promote the contest with upsells, remember to enable them by navigating to Menus > Upsells > Menu Upsells.

Add Your Contest to My Toast

Adding a contest to My Toast is a great way to keep competition top-of-mind throughout a shift. If your employees use the My Toast app, toggle on Show leaderboard to my employees on the MyToast app on the second screen of creating a contest. Employees included in the contest will see the live leaderboard in the app, including their own rank, the reward, and the contest end date.

Remember, the contest leaderboard refreshes every hour, but you can refresh the contest to show employees the latest results. Navigate to Employees > Employee management > Contests, select the caret icon for a contest, and select the refresh button on the contest to force a live pull.

Boost Your Contest with Upsells

When you create a menu-based contest, you can choose to automatically generate menu upsells for each contest item. This is a great way to put contest menus, groups, and/or items in front of your servers/cashiers without anyone having to remember to push them.

When you enable upsells:

They are created as standalone recommendations, so they appear on their own and don't need to be paired with a driving item.
They appear on Toast Go handhelds during the contest period.
The start and archive dates match the contest dates exactly.
They are managed in Menus > Upsells > Menu Upsells.

Note: Menu upsells must be manually published on the Menu Upsells page before they go live on your handhelds. Be sure to publish before your contest starts. For more information on menu upsells, see Get Started With Menu Upsells On The POS.

Edit a Contest

There are restrictions on how you can edit a contest, but you can edit certain pieces, even for a completed contest. To edit a contest:

Navigate to Employees > Employee management > Contests.
Select the caret icon for the contest you’d like to edit.
Select the edit pencil icon on the top right of the leaderboard.
1. What you can edit on an active contest: the participants, reward, Show leaderboard to my employees on the MyToast app toggle, and the end date (you can extend the contest, but you cannot change the start date).
  1. What you cannot edit on an active contest: the metric and the start date.
2. What you can edit on a completed contest: the participants included and the reward.

View the Live Leaderboard

Once a contest is active, the leaderboard updates automatically every hour on the hour. If you want to see the latest results between updates, navigate to Employees > Employee management > Contests, select the caret icon for a contest, and select the refresh button on the contest to force a live pull. This works on a per-contest basis. You can also select the printer icon to print the leaderboard and share it with your team.

When a Contest Ends

After a contest ends, check the Past contests section of the Contests page. This shows impact metrics that compare contest-period sales to a matching prior period.

Specifically, sales of the contest items during the contest are compared to the same days of the week from the prior period. For example, a Tuesday to Wednesday steak contest is compared against the previous Tuesday to Wednesday's steak sales. It includes a percentage change so you can see whether the contest moved the needle.

Contests FAQ

Can the same employee count twice on the leaderboard if they have multiple jobs?

No. Even if an employee is selected under multiple jobs (for example, both Server and Bartender), they will only be ranked once on the leaderboard. Their stats between the two or more jobs will be combined.

Why is an archived employee showing up in my employee list?

The employee is likely archived at your location, but is still active at another location in your restaurant group.

Why didn't my menu contest upsell appear on the handheld?

Menu upsells must be manually published before they go live. In Toast Web, navigate to Menus > Upsells > Menu Upsells and publish your upsells before your contest starts (or during if the contest has already begun).

Why are my employees saying the contest isn't tracking correctly?

This typically occurs during menu item-based contests. If the contest does not include every instance of a menu item throughout your entire menu, then it will not record every time the item is sold. Since you cannot edit the metric on an active contest, the fix for this would be to restart the contest or track the item's sales manually by using menu reports.

Can I change the metric in the middle of a contest?

No. To change the metric, create a new contest. To cancel an existing contest, navigate to Employees > Employee management > Contests, select the caret icon for a contest, and select the trash can icon before selecting Cancel contest. The contest will not appear in the Past contests section.

How often does the leaderboard update?

The leaderboard updates every hour on the hour. You can also force a live refresh at any time using the refresh button on the contest. Navigate to Employees > Employee management > Contests, select the caret icon for a contest, and select the refresh button on the contest to force a live pull.

Does a same-day contest start at the time I create it?

No. A same-day contest tracks sales for the full business day, starting from when your day opened, not from the moment you created the contest.

Can I set up a company-wide contest rather than a contest for a single location?

No, contests are location-specific. If you would like a contest at every location in your company, you'll need to set up a new contest at each applicable location.