Meal Plans

Use the Meal Plans app to share what's on the menu at your setting with parents

Julia Rose avatar
Written by Julia Rose
Updated over a week ago

How do I add which meals and snacks we offer in our setting?

Your 'Meal Plans' are the digital menu for your setting, to share with parents.


To edit the meal plan settings, you'll need the 'Edit opening hours, info etc.' permission enabled.

Before creating a meal plan, you need add which meals or snacks you offer in your setting, for example, Breakfast, Lunch, and Tea. To do this:

  • Open the 'Meal Plans' from the 'Home' icon and then click the 'Open Meal Settings' button, at the bottom of the tab to the left.

  • A new window will open (as below), showing your existing meal or snack types (if you've added any), in the order they're offered throughout the day.

  • To add a new meal or snack, click 'Add meal type' at the bottom of the list, then enter the name of the meal. You can also choose a colour to represent this meal.

  • Place the new meal or snack in the correct spot, by using the arrows to the right of the names to move the new meal up or down in the daily order.

  • You can also delete a meal or snack from the day, by clicking the 'X' to the left of the coloured boxes.

  • Click 'Save' when you've finished.


How do I create a new Meal Plan?

Now you've added which meals and snacks are available throughout the day, you can create your Meal Plans. To do this:

  • Click 'New' in the Meal Plans box, to the left of the page

  • A new window will open, where you will enter who this Meal Plan is for in your setting.
    You can create meal plans for:
    - specific rooms (such as a baby room)
    - specific tags (such as halal, vegan, kosher)
    - for individual children.
    For example, if you have a number of children attending your setting that are vegetarian, you would use the tag function to tag these children as vegetarian, and then use their tag to create a meal plan.
    If you do create meal plans for specific rooms, tags and children, but then want a meal plan for the rest of the children (that do not fit in to your earlier meal plans), then you would choose 'Everyone/Everyone else'.

  • Click 'Save.'

  • A screen will open (as below), with your new Meal Plan in the Meal Plans box, on the left. On the right, you can input the food and drink for each day of the new meal plan by typing it in the appropriate box.
    Once a food item is created, it will be saved and searchable in the future.

  • When you've finished entering all the foods and drinks, click 'Create'.

Screenshot_2020-04-23_at_11.32.32.png

When recording meals for the children each day, the food items entered in the meal plans will automatically be suggested for each meal.


Sharing the meal plans with parents

Parents will see their child's food consumption in the Activity Feed of the child's profile and see the menu each day in the Calendar (as below)


Why aren't meal plans showing on parents' calendars?

If you have created meal plans for the children in your care, but the plans aren't showing in parents' calendars, this is usually because a tag is overriding the menu displayed. For example, if a child has an individual meal plan already, even if it is empty, parents will see this empty plan, instead of the general plan for the setting or room.

The child's individual (empty) meal plan should be removed, in order for the plan to default to the hierarchy of meal plans, as below:

1. By child (even if the meal plan is empty).

2. By tag (even if the meal plan is empty).

3. By room (even if the meal plan is empty).

4. Anyone else (this will only be displayed if none of the others meal plans apply to a child.


Removing a meal option

There may come a time when a specific meal option you've entered is no longer relevant, or something you will be serving again. It can be helpful to remove the meal options you no longer use to keep your list of food and drink tidy.

There are two ways to do this, depending on which meal plan feature flags your setting has enabled.

To do this, go to one of your room overviews, and click on one of the children (as if to log a meal item for them).

You will then see a list of all of the food items you have ever listed in Famly. If you hover your cursor over one of them, you will see a small rubbish bin icon. Clicking on this will delete it from your platform.

You won't be able to delete any items that are currently listed in a meal plan/menu, but you will be able to tidy up all of the ones that are no longer being used.

If you're not seeing this option instead go to Settings to Meal Plans. Here you should see a screen such as this:

Here you can edit which items are included in the menu by adding a new one or clicking the x to remove unused ones.

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