Rotating Meal Menus - Setting up a Menu

This guide walks you through the first step of creating a Rotating Meal Menu, adding a blank menu and giving it a name.

This guide is the second in a series of six. The guides in this series are:

1. Rotating Meal Menus - Introduction
2. Rotating Meal Menus - Setting up a Menu
3. Rotating Meal Menus - Adding Provisions to Menus
4. Rotating Meal Menus - Making a Menu available
5. Rotating Meal Menus - Managing Meal Menus
6. Rotating Meal Menus - Frequently Asked Questions

Setting up a menu

Arbor's Rotating Meal Menus feature allows frequent meal changes and lets parents pre-book their child's meals via the Parent Portal and App. 

Before you start, your meal setup on the School > Meals > [on the left-hand side] Setup page might look something like the screenshot below with green ticks or crosses next to each section you completed within steps one to five of the meal's setup (Meal Name, Provisions, Prices, Meal Sittings Scheduled, Attendees, Regular Meal Choices).

Once you finish adding a meal menu, the bottom option (Regular Meal Choices) no longer be visible.

The Meal Menus section will show a tick if there's an active meal, and will show a cross between active meal menus (for example, during a school holiday).

Adding and naming a new menu

To add a meal menu:

• Go to School > Meals > [on the left-hand side] Setup
• Click on Meal Menus in the table under the heading of the meal you want to add a menu for
• On the next page, click Add meal menu in the top-right corner
  
• On the slide over, add your Menu's name.
  • This name is visible to parents on the Portal, so make sure you use a clear and appropriate name.
  • You might want to name your menu based on when it will be available, such as for the 'Autumn Term', for example, or if you're running a special seasonal meal, you might name it something like 'Christmas Meal'.
• Next, use the Rotate every dropdown to choose how often you want the menu to repeat. You can choose between 1, 2, 3 or 4-week menus.

  • The number you set equals the number of unique consecutive menus you can create. Set this to 1 week, and each week the same menu will be available. Set this to 4 weeks, and you will have four separate menus - one for each week - that repeat every four weeks.

    

• Press the green Save Changes button to confirm your choices

You'll now see your menu when you go to School > Meals > [on the left-hand side] Setup > Meal Menus, together with any meal menus you have created previously for the meal in question.

Now that you have added your meal menu and given it a name, you are ready to move on to the next guide in this series: Rotating Meal Menus - Adding Provisions to Menus