Troubleshooting Meals Menus

This article provides troubleshooting steps for common issues when your Rotating Meal Menus aren't working as expected. Whether it's not being able to edit the meal menu or students being charged the wrong amount, the steps in this article will help you resolve these issues. 

Permissions

You'll need the Meals: Administer All Students permission to set up meal menus. If you don't have the permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions.

Check that you have the Meal Menus feature

Rotating Meal Menus are included in our newest Perform package. All other Arbor packages won’t have this feature by default. Want to upgrade or find out what package you’re on? Just get in contact with the Partnership Team by emailing customersales@arbor-education.com 

Meal Menu changes are not being saved

If your Meal Menu changes aren't being saved, please check if you have the following:

Red outline around a Meal Provision 

If there is a red outline around any of the meal choices, it won't let you save your options. 

To resolve this, please follow these steps:

1. Within the Meal Menu, click on the drop-down arrow of the Meal Choice that has a red outline 
2. Select the Provision again

This should remove the red outline and allow changes to be saved.

Missing Provision in Meal Menu options

If there is a missing Provision (e.g., there is no Provision selected, but there is a label written), you will need to correct the error by adding the Provision before clicking Save Changes.

To do this, please follow these steps:

1. Within the Meal Menu, click on the drop-down arrow of the empty Provision box
2. Select the relevant Provision
3. Click Save Changes

Note: You can only add the same provision once per day.

Select Save Changes One Week at a Time

If changes are being made to all weeks in the Rotating Menus, Arbor won't allow changes to be saved. Instead, you will need to save one week at a time.

For example, if you have a 3-week Rotating Meal Menu, make the changes to Week A, then click Save Changes and move on to Week B. 

Unable to edit Meal Menus

If you are unable to edit the Meal Menu, as there is no drop-down menu or pencil icon to make changes, this could be because the start date of the menu has already passed (ongoing or past menus cannot be edited) or because the Meal Menu table needs to be refreshed.

I don't see any options to edit at all

If your Meal Menu table does not show any columns to edit, even after you add new rows using the grey +Add button, the formatting of the table might need a reset.

To do this:

1. Go into the School > Meals > Setup > Meal Menus
2. Select View meal menu
3. Click the Cog Icon above the table to open your table settings
4. Click Reset table settings
5. Click the Cog Icon again to close the table settings

I see options to edit, but I can't change them

To resolve this, please follow these steps:

1. Go into the School > Meals > Setup > Meal Menus
2. Select Edit Availability
3. Change the start date for Parent Portal Menu Availability to after today (you can change this back after)
4. Click Save Changes
5. Make the changes to your Meal Menu, as normal
6. Change the date back to its initial start date 

Parents can't see the Meal Menu options

If parents can't see or make Meal Menu choices, please follow the steps here to resolve this: Parents can't see or make Meal Menu choices. 

Wrong week showing for Meal Menu after a holiday

The meal choices shown to parents do not skip weeks for holidays. This is because some schools provide meals for students during the holidays, such as through trips, clubs or childcare.

Restart your Rotating Meal Menu 

If you would like to restart your rotating meal menu on a certain week (such as Week B), you would need to:

1. End your meal menu at the end of the week before the holiday
2. Set up a new meal menu to start on the first day back after the holiday

Unable to report on Meal Menu choices in advance

If the Meal Menu choices are not showing correctly within your Custom Report, please ensure that you have followed the steps in this article - Reporting on Parent Portal Meal Choices - to create the report. This includes setting the Report Focus to Parent Portal Meal Choices when you first create the report. If you did not set this Report Focus when first creating the report, create a new one from scratch with the right focus.

Students charged the incorrect amount

Meal prices are determined by the prices set in the meal provisions. If a student has been charged incorrectly, you can check what category they fall under by going to School > Meals > Setup > Prices and selecting Meal Provision. Check the students linked to each price.

Any student group listed in the ‘Applies To’ section will set the price for the students in that category.

Please Note:

• Universal Free School Meals - Applies to students in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2. Add a price category at £0.00 for this and include these year groups.
• Free School Meal Students - This will include any students who are currently listed as recipients of Free School Meals. This will be a Tag listed as FSM on their profile and can be set under the Background Section on the Student Profile. In the 'Applies To' section, list this as Free School Meals Students.