This guide takes you through the sixth step to setting up a meal in Arbor, adding Regular Meal Choices for students. This step is optional. This part of the setup assigns each student a preset meal choice, eliminating the need for teachers or administrative staff to enter this information manually each day.
If any changes occur during the day, an administrator can still modify the pre-filled choices on the day.
This guide is the seventh in a series of eight. The other guides in this series are:
- Setting Up Meals - Introduction
- Setting Up Meals - Step 1 - Adding a Meal
- Setting Up Meals - Step 2 - Adding Provisions
- Setting Up Meals - Step 3 - Adding Prices
- Setting Up Meals - Step 4 - Scheduling Meal Sittings
- Setting Up Meals - Step 5 - Managing Attendees
- Setting Up Meals - Optional - Regular Meal Choices
- Setting Up Meals - Frequently Asked Questions and Further Reading
Regular Meal Choices
Setting a regular meal choice for a student allows you to pre-set a meal for students on your meal register before the register opens.
This makes it easier for staff to complete a meal register on the day of the meal and saves on admin. Pre-populated Meal Choices can still be changed via a meal register if needed, so these choices act as a template for your daily meal register.
For example, if you know a student always brings in a packed lunch, you can use a regular meal choice to automatically add the packed lunch meal choice for that student to your meal register every day.
If a student is marked as absent in the lesson register before the meal, their regular meal choice is automatically replaced with the Absent provision you set up in Step 2 of this setup process.
If you use Rotating Meal Menus, you won't have the option to add Regular Meal Choices, as menus will be pre-populated with the options parents make instead. More on how Rotating Meal Menus work and how to set these up here: Set up, edit or delete Rotating Meal Menus
Adding Regular Meal Choices
To add a Regular Meal Choice:
- Go to School > Meals > [on the left-hand side] Setup.
- Click on Regular Meal Choices, the sixth option under your meal's heading.
- Select the Students Without Meal Choice tab.
- Click the green "Add Meal Choices" button in the top-right corner, or use the tick boxes to select specific students from the table and then use the "Bulk Action" button to Add a Meal Choice.
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On the Add Meal Choice slideover that opens:
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Select or adjust the students you want to add a meal choice for using the Attendees dropdown
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Tick the days the students will be taking the provision.
- Choose the meal provision you want to assign from the Meal Provision drop-down.
- Update the Effective and End dates to specify the range of dates for which the meal choice should be automatically pre-filled.
- Click Save Changes to confirm your choices.
Repeat these steps if you need to set different provisions, dates or days for different students.
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Managing and Editing Regular Meal Choices
To see or edit already added meal choices:
- Go to School > Meals > Setup.
- Click on Regular Meal Choices, the sixth option under your meal's heading.
- Select the All Meal Choices tab.
On this page, you will find a list of all students who have a regular meal choice, along with the provision they have been assigned, the days of the week to which the option applies, and the dates during which it is valid.
To edit an individual student's meal choice:
- Click on the student's name
- Click the orange Edit button on the slideover
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Make your edits:
- Use the Meal Provision dropdown to change their meal choice
- Use the Days of week tick boxes to change the days of the week your choices apply to
- Use the Effective and End dates boxes to change the period during which the choices apply
- Click the red Remove Meal Choice button to remove a meal choice fully
- Click the green Save Changes button to confirm your choices
To bulk change students' meal choices:
- Tick the boxes next to the students you want to edit
- Use the green Bulk Action button to Change Provision
- On the Slideover, use the New meal provision dropdown to select the new meal choice you want to set
- Click the green Change provision dropdown to confirm the change
To bulk delete meal choices (this does not affect already completed meal registers):
- Tick the boxes next to the students you want to delete from the list
- Use the green Bulk Action button and select Delete Meal Choices
- Confirm the deletion on the pop-up using the red Yes, delete button
This is the last guide in the setup portion of our Meal Setup series. For further guidance, please refer to the previous guide in this series: Setting Up Meals - Optional - Regular Meal Choices
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