Duration: 20:37
PART 1 — Analytical Summary 🚀
Context 💼
This session is led by Quentin from Odoo’s POS expertise team, showcasing a end-to-end integration between Google Reserve (Google’s “Reserve a table” flow in Google Maps/Search) and Odoo — specifically Odoo Appointments and Odoo POS (Restaurant). The talk frames a common, stressful scenario: manual bookings via phone and scattered tools that lead to errors, missed confirmations, and lost revenue. The solution aims to match customer booking habits (Google-first discovery) with restaurant operations in Odoo, delivering a frictionless, 24/7 reservation experience.
Core ideas & innovations 🧠
The integration puts the “Reserve a table” button directly on a restaurant’s Google Business Profile, surfacing live availability from Odoo and letting customers complete a reservation in a few clicks. Customer details entered on Google are written into Odoo Contacts and the booking appears instantly within the restaurant’s POS floor plan and Booking pipeline. Staff can visualize booked slots and tables, check in diners upon arrival, mark no-shows, and drag-and-drop reservations across tables to resolve conflicts. Color status codes make the status obvious at a glance: default blue (booked), green (checked-in), red (no-show).
Behind the scenes, configuration happens in Odoo Appointments with a Google-specific appointment type (“Google booking”). Restaurants link their Google Business Profile (merchant), align name and address for a match, and enable Google compliance options: availability based on resources (tables), auto-assignment, a scheduling window (up to 31 days), pre-booking and cancellation lead times, and email reminders. The powerful “linked resources” feature lets operators combine tables dynamically (e.g., auto-reserve two 2-seat tables for a 4-person party) and see potential double bookings in the floor plan. In POS settings, table booking must be enabled and mapped to the correct appointment type; tables in the floor plan should match the “resource” records to keep capacity accurate.
From the customer’s side, the Google flow is fast and clear: check live availability, pick the party size and time, confirm details, and receive an immediate confirmation. Customers can modify or cancel via email links and add the reservation to their Google Calendar for reminders. From the business side, everything centralizes inside Odoo, removing the need to juggle phone calls, spreadsheets, sticky notes, or third-party dashboards.
Impact & takeaways ⚙️
- Improved customer experience: last-minute or planned bookings happen where customers already look — on Google Maps/Search — with clear confirmations and calendar integration.
- Operational efficiency: a single source of truth in Odoo unifies table availability, bookings, and service status; drag-and-drop tools and table linking streamline exception handling.
- Revenue growth: always-open booking reduces friction and improves conversion, while reminders decrease no-shows. Google’s prominent “Reserve” entry point also boosts visibility and can help SEO.
- Practical constraints: deposits or prepayments to deter no-shows are not supported “yet” (feedback acknowledged). “Click-to-reconfirm” is not required because bookings are auto-confirmed; reminders can be sent. OpenTable compatibility is unknown. Parallel bookings from Odoo Website and Google can coexist, with conflicts visible on the floor plan and manageable via reassignment. Contact creation from Google flows into Odoo Contacts; duplicate handling depends on overall contact sync practices.
In short, the Google Reserve ↔ Odoo integration simplifies the journey end-to-end: customers book in seconds, staff manage everything in one place, and restaurants reduce manual work while serving more guests. 💬
PART 2 — Viewpoint: Odoo Perspective
Disclaimer: AI-generated creative perspective inspired by Odoo's vision.
Our aim is always simplicity with depth. People discover restaurants on Google — so reservations should start there and end where operations live: in Odoo. By making availability resource-driven and tied to the floor plan, we reduce friction for customers and eliminate coordination headaches for staff.
Integration is not just about APIs; it’s about trust and community feedback. We heard the call for deposits and advanced rules, and we’ll keep iterating. What matters is giving restaurants a unified, intuitive workflow that scales from a neighborhood bistro to multi-room venues — without sacrificing user experience.
PART 3 — Viewpoint: Competitors (SAP / Microsoft / Others)
Disclaimer: AI-generated fictional commentary. Not an official corporate statement.
Aligning Google Reserve with a unified POS and scheduling model is a strong UX move. It captures demand at the source and shortens the path to confirmation. For SMBs and mid-market venues, Odoo’s end-to-end approach is compelling, especially with visual floor planning and resource linking that operators can actually understand and use.
The challenges will emerge as enterprises scale: multi-location governance, complex compliance (GDPR, regional reservation rules, deposit handling), and advanced deduplication across multiple booking channels and CRMs. Payments and deposits for no-show mitigation will be important, as will auditability and uptime SLAs. There’s clear momentum here — continued investment in controls, data quality, and financial safeguards will determine how far up-market this can go.
PART 4 — Blog Footer Disclaimer
Disclaimer: This article contains AI-generated summaries and fictionalized commentaries for illustrative purposes. Viewpoints labeled as "Odoo Perspective" or "Competitors" are simulated and do not represent any real statements or positions. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.