Summer Break 2024 - Lots of New Features!
It's already been a busy Summer of Code here at FoodDays HQ. The biggest changes have centered around Payments Processing. Our new provider has unlocked new features, the biggest of which is Saved Card/Account Details which, if you're thinking is where we save the Parents details on file so that you can charge them later for late orders, then you'd be absolutely right! You can even insist that parents add their card to the system when they sign up.
With the card stored, adding extra items will charge the parents card automatically.
Other updates include: • Balance notification on Lunchroom Live • Automatic Card Charge on Point of Sale • Add Notes to Child for lunchroom staff • Set expiration on Free/Reduced schemes • Import Parents into Email Groups • Receipt printer prints ID Cards • Enhanced Network Connection Monitoring in Lunchroom Live with automatic retry, even if logged out • Point of Sale Terminal & Lunchroom Live now included in PTO Flavor • Lightweight reports can now run at any time • Added search in top bar • Support for Menu Flyer in multiple languages • End-of-Year tools now include moving top grade to new school • Signup from private brand page now locks down the list of schools to one • Copy/Paste Themes, Items, Ordering Runs • Loads of minor bug fixes.
We hope that you enjoy the changes and enjoy the next batch that's coming soon!
Tuesday June 18 2024 - Issue Credits, Enter Payments Direct from the Parent Editor
You can now enter a credit on a parents record right from the parent detail page.
Just expand the parent detail on Admin/Parents and find the transaction log at the bottom - Mouse over the icons to see the new options:
Monday April 22 2024 - Lightweight Delivery Report
Joining the Lightweight Vendor Report today is the new Lightweight Delivery Report.
Much like the vendor report, the lightweight version is a simple, light, text email that you can receive at any hour each morning - view on your desktop/phone or print.
Available from Admin / Settings - Reporting Tab, you can switch on the report, enter the recipients and choose the time to send the report.
Optionally, you can group the report by Grade, Homeroom/Teacher or Lunchroom and include a daily summary and summaries of each group.
Note: After you hit save, you can send yourself a test to see what it would look like!
Thursday March 28 2024 - Responsive Email Editor
Now you can send responsive beautifully designed emails from FoodDays to your parent and staff body!
As it's a big update, we've included to walk-through video showing how you can create the email below:
Here's the email that we created:
Monday March 25 2024 - Lightweight Vendor Reporting
Today we've turned the lightweight vendor reporting module on for all schools.
A lightweight vendor report is a new, simple email report that vendors can receive on a daily basis, (day off, one and/or two days in advance). The report is a simple text based report with optional inclusion of 2x1 labels for use with high-speed/low cost commercial label printers – we have a link to the recommended unit below:
If you'd like to purchase a printer for your vendor, or have them purchase a printer, we recommend the following fully tested and supported options:
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To switch on:
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Monday March 25 2024 - Global Parent Search
We've added a global search to the heading in admin today, type in a name or email or a parent or child.
Press [TAB] or [ENTER] and we'll jump straight to the parents page in a flash!
Monday February 26 2024 - Client updates for Speed & Security
"FoodDays doesn't load" - watch out for parents reporting that FoodDays isn't loading for them. We've discovered a few that have very old devices or are not keeping them up to date.
What to do - If they're hanging on the 'Loading...' screen and a few refreshes doesn't help, let them know that their device might to out of date or in need of a software update - you can also point them to us and we'll guide them through updating.
Minimum versions:
- iOS: Minimum version: iOS 16.4 - iPhone 8 or up.
- Android: Chrome 91 or newer - Android 6 or greater.
Saturday February 17 2024 - Advanced Filters on the Ordering Calendar
Here's a puzzle, how can you offer sandwiches to first graders in Diana Jackson's homeroom going on a trip on the 23rd instead of Pizza?
Answer: Theme Filters on the Calendar:
Here you can see that by clicking on the filter button, we can add two rules to the themes (that are processed in order)
- Pizza: Allow Everyone but block Diana Jackson's First Grade Homeroom
- Sandwich Day: Block everyone but allow Diana Jackson's First Grade Homeroom
The result is that everyone except Diana Jackson's First Grade Homeroom sees pizza who instead see Sandwiches for their field trip.
Friday February 2 2024 - New Admin App going mainstream!
We've made the new Administrator App the default when you log in!
The app is available to all administrators today - Give it at try!
Watch the Video
You can always go back to the old admin this month but you'll be missing out!
If you'd like a personal tour of the new features, feel free to book time on my calendar for a demo.
Friday December 15 2023 - New Admin App!
Much like the update that we made to the client app, we've done the same for the Administrators experience!
The app is available to all administrators in beta today - Give it at try!
We've added a whole list of new features to make set up and use of the platform more initiative and quicker, including:
- Expanded Emailer with option to send to custom groups.
- Parent Groups.
- Enhancements to Volunteers.
- Improved media manager for images and documents.
- Grid view for Free/Reduced lunch management.
- Inline Help.
- Super-fast search for Parents, Children and more.
- Build your own reports & labels (coming soon in 2024).
To try out the new Admin App, visit https://adminapp.myfooddays.com or choose Admin / More / Try the New Admin App from the menu on the current admin.
Let us know what you think and, if you'd like to see a demo to both familiarize yourself and see the new features, feel free to book time on my calendar for a demo.
Watch the Video
Sunday September 10 2023 - Lunchroom Live updates: Recording Refused & Absent plus adding in lunches for those that forgot!
Mark as Refused or Absent
You can now click 'Refused' or 'Absent' buttons to track those that reject or don't show up for lunch.
Add the lunch they didn't order
For children that didn't order, you can now add in the lunch that you served, quickly and easily from the Lunchroom Live display. Make sure to add 'No Orders' switch to see those that haven't ordered.
Even Faster!
You can also now print lunch lanyard cards and scan to open in Lunchroom live instantly!
Friday September 8 2023 - New Quick Add+
You might have used the Quick Add+ feature in the past but we've made a change to how it operates based on your feedback!
The Quick Add+ feature, found in admin under Admin / Setup / Quick Add+now creates a complete account without the parent needing to do anything to complete the process, indeed, you can go in yourself and start adding children right from the tool.
Why?
Increasingly we're needing to add parents into the system ourselves, either because they need help or, because we want to track lunches served to parents on the 'No Cost Lunch' program who might otherwise never sign in. The parent is sent an email with their password automatically.
Tuesday August 22 2023 - School-wide PTO Dues
We've added a new option to the Credits feature - Global, School wide credits... but why?
PTO Dues
We've had a few requests to create a mechanism to collect PTO dues each year in a way that ensures that all parents must pay it. The answer is to apply a debit to everyone's account.
We've added a global credit option - put in a negative number and give it a meaningful name and it'll post a debit on everyone's account, a debit that they'll have to cover when they come to place orders.
There's a twist
What about parents that sign up late or later in the year? We've accounted for that too. If you're careful about naming the debit in the comment, for example 'PTO Dues 2023' and you use the exact same name again, the system will skip parents who've already received that debit. Oh, and it doesn't care about the amount so, at the beginning of the year, it could be $50 and later in the year, $25 but it won't get added to the original parents that paid full price.
Monday July 10 2023 - New Lunchroom tools: Lunchroom Live & Point of Sale Terminal
We're excited to announce the availability of the Lunchroom Live & Point of Sale Consoles.
Lunchroom Live
Lunchroom Live provides an electronic mechanism for displaying and marking off orders in the lunchroom using a tablet, Chromebook or even a phone. Optionally, the system can be set to send an email to the parent as each item is served.
Point of Sale
The Point of Sale terminal brings new sale opportunities in the lunch room to track sales of snack items or additional lunch options such as forgotten lunch!
Both new features include a brief how-to video but feel free to reach out for a demo.
Both new consoles are available now from the 'Tools' menu for Pro Flavour FoodDays schools or for PTO Flavour schools on a free one-month Pro Trial - just try the feature in Tools to start a free trial and let us know what you think!
Monday April 17 2023 - Re-open ordering for a parent
Have you ever had a parent ask to re-open ordering?
If you do, and you can, you can now allow a special one-hour opportunity for the parent to go in, place orders and pay.
This can be done from the parent details section. Clicking on “Open Ordering” will open ordering for the parent for any current ordering run for one hour - actually 70 minuets to give time to alert the parent.
** Note: All time-based boundaries are disabled. Remember to let the parent know any boundaries, for example, if you allow the parent to enter orders ‘for tomorrow’ they may be able to enter them today however, the parent is alerted and must consent to the terms before they can order.
Thursday March 9 2023 - 'Keep Logged In'
We've added a checkbox on login to allow parents to stay logged in.
However, the app will still automatically log them out if they're idle for 30 mins. If they have chosen to 'Keep logged in' however, one click is all that's needed to pick up again.
Monday February 13 2023 - View Cart in Manage Orders
Want to know if any parents have left items in their cart? Perhaps not knowing that they have to go through checkout?
We've added a view on everyone's cart in the Admin / Manage / Orders view:
Friday February 10 2023 - Automatic removal of pending order at the client
To prevent disappointment when a parent is trying to place an order near to the cut off, we've updated the client to remove cart items in real-time so that if they add orders to the cart on the top of the hour then go to cart, the items will be removed before they attempt to pay.
Thursday February 9 2023 - Side-By-Side cart display
For those with wider displays, we've added a side-by-side cart that appears on the orders page when there's room.
Parents can sort by date and child and remove items or clear the cart directly from the orders page.
Wednesday February 8 2023 - New features
We've released a few more updates:
- Check boxes in the cart display allow for items to be removed in review.
- Copy option that allows copying on the day only, i.e. bagel on just Mondays where offered.
Removed features such as order cancellation rules as they're no longer needed.
Tuesday February 7 - Update roundup
Following parent & admin feedback we've made some further updates:
- Restored the 'Pre-Pay' option
- Added the day-of-the-week to the order listings
- Adjusted the screen layout a little to allow easier scrolling on mobile
- Updated the volunteers hour tracker totalizer
- Fixed duplicate orders on themes that are on the same day twice but for different grades
- Addressed cut-off timing
- Added Admin view of un-activated runs and added color to the runs that have closed
- Added a pop-up display of the future orders on the home page
Monday February 5 2023 - Post weekend updates
Last minute bugs squashed!
Friday February 3 2023 - Launch
The new system is live and payments are flowing.
Pre Launch Assets
- All the key changes for the parents: Check out the Video
- Key changes for the admins: Check out the Admin Video
- How does FoodDays work for 'By Theme' Schools? Check out the By Theme demo video.
Major updates 2023
Starting in January 2023 we will be migrating from a 'paper-slips' model to a 'cart-model'. The change will happen with a few updates to the backend services and finally a big change to the website that the parents use to place orders. The change that the parents will see will be the most significant, on two counts: The first is the visual change, the new website is actually a web application that's fast and responsive as well as being mobile-first in design The second change is that orders entered will be placed in a pending state - they won't show in reports until paid for. This will have two positive effects - the first is that there will be no more automatic order cancelation for non-payment - the orders won't be entered until paid for. The second benefit is that future updates will allow for more control over cutoff times and reporting, i.e. if the moring cutoff is 8am, the orders to the vendors can go out at 8am because the very last order accepted will be at 8am and no seconds!
In the bulleted list above, we'll provide updates as the work continues. It's our hope to complete by the end of January and that during the transition, there will be no service impacts whatsoever, especially with regard to the reports going out to vendors.
Please check this panel each time you log on for more details.