After items, recipes and menus have been created by Central Office staff and before manufacturing and production can occur, meals must first be planned. Planned counts help to determine ordering quantities.
Establish Meal Planning Counts
Step 1: From the Home tab, select Meal Planning.
Step 2: Establish meals and meal counts for each day.
View - Allows you to change how you view the calendar.
- Include Saturdays
- Include Sundays
- Show Recipe Detail - Shows all items included in the recipe for the meal.
- Row Height - Allows you to adjust the size of the rows so all items are visible when more than one recipe is allocated for a day or when viewing recipe details.
Edit Day - Allows you to edit details for the day. You may also edit a day by double-clicking in a cell.
Reset to Template - Resets the entire meal planning calendar to the template established at the District level. Additionally, meal counts are reset to zero.
Automatic Planning - Looks at the last time a menu was used and allows you to apply those meal plans to an upcoming menu in an established date range.
The Automatic Planning option allows you to automatically apply past Planning or Serving records to a future date range.
In order to apply automatic planning, menus and menu counts must first be established.
Establish Auto-Planning options. Then, click Ok.
Select the date range by using the calendar menu.
You must select a date range after the last planning record in order for automatic-planning to be implemented.
- Select the type of record to use in planning.
- Past Planning Records - Looks at past planning numbers of meals and applies those counts to future planning days.
- Past Serving Records - Looks at past serving numbers of meals and applies those counts to future planning days.
The progress bar will appear as automatic planning is established.
- Select the Meal Type by using the drop-down menu and choose the correct meal for which you are planning.
- Select a date and click Edit Day or double-click in the cell to select/edit menus and recipes.
The 
icon indicates that there are no meals planned for that day.
Yellow background - Meal planning counts are not complete.
Green background - Meal planning counts have been planned.
No background - No meal planning counts have been planned.
Blue background - The currently selected day (not to be confused with current operating day).
Menu text in black have meal counts planned.
Menu text in grey have had no meal counts planned.
The calendar view indicates production Serve Type.
 | Indicates the meal has High Participation expected. |
 | Indicates the meal has Low Participation expected. |
The calendar view indicates production status.
 | Meal has been produced |
 | Meal has been partially produced |
 | Meal has not been produced |
Step 3: Use the drop-down menu to select the meal serve type from the list.
- Normal - Selected for every day operation and the default option if recipes exist.
- Low Participation - Selected when meal participation is low such as upcoming holiday periods and the end of the school year.
- High Participation - Selected when meal participation is high - typically on days a popular meal is being prepared.
- No Meal - Selected if a recipe has not been created by Central Office such as holidays or other days when meals will not be served.
Step 4: Enter estimated meal counts for each menu and serving group. You may collapse/expand each recipe by clicking the expansion arrow 
. This will allow you to view one menu at a time to simplify the screen, focus on one menu at a time, and adjust extra servings for items (such as à la carte sales).
In some cases, one menu component may be less/more popular than another. If your District used offer vs. serve (for example), these numbers can be adjusted as displayed with menu LR C/T Salad 1 below.
Meal counts assist in determining which items need to be ordered.
*The M Market Wk 4 M menu is collapsed.
** Total counts for the M Pizza Wk 4 M menu (Cheese Pizza and Pepperoni Pizza) equal 121.
Clone Menu Counts
Cloning Menu Counts allows you to duplicate the planned counts for future meals.
Step 1: Select the menu in which you wish to clone menu counts. Then, click Clone Menu Counts.
Step 2: Establish Clone Menu Planning Counts options. Then, click Ok.
Select the date range by using the calendar menu.
You may select Overwrite Manual Planning. This will overwrite any existing planned menu counts which have already been established.
The progress bar will appear as menus are cloned. Repeat the process to clone additional menu counts.
Add a Menu or Recipe
Step 1: Click the Add button to add a menu or recipe to an existing menu item.
Step 2: If a menu or recipe is selected when clicking the Add button, you will be prompted to choose between adding a new menu or adding a recipe to one of the existing menus. Make your selection. Then, click Ok.
Step 3: Use the Search box to locate a specific menu or recipe. Select the correct menu/recipe. Then, click Ok.
Remove an Item, Recipe, or Menu
You can remove an item, recipe, or menu by selecting the item, recipe, or menu and clicking Remove.
Once you are done adding/removing items/menus, establishing menu counts, and cloning menu counts. Click Ok.