How do I use a School Year report?

This report provides meal service metrics for the School Year Program.

This article covers the following topics: 

• Additional steps following basic setup
• Table overview
• Export options

Additional steps following basic setup

Please see Report Setup Foundations for all reports' basic setup steps. 

When running a report, users will see a Show Inactive toggle option. By default, it will be off. When enabled, sites that are inactive will show on the organization's list so they can be reported on. 

Additional steps: 

1. After completing the Report Setup Foundation you will need to select the Meal Types you would like to include on the report.
2. Participant Types you want to include in the report (Adults, Children, Non-Program Adult, etc.). 
3. You will also need to indicate which Program Types you want to include data for.
4. Click Create Report at the bottom, your report will be found in your Report Inbox on the left-hand side of the screen under Reports. Alternatively, you can hit Save Template if you want to save this as a template for future use. More on templates can be found here.

Table overview

Table and Query Definitions

The report is separated by meal type to help prepare the state report. Each meal type will have a total row at the bottom of the data set.

• Site ID: Custom ID of the organization. This can be set in the Agency Settings.
• Organization: Name of the organization. A row for each organization will appear in the report.
• Meals Carried Over: Meals that have been carried over from the previous meal service.
• Total Attendance: Total Number of people in attendance for this meal type. Note: This will only appear if your organization tracks attendance.
• Average Attendance: The average number of people in attendance for this meal type during the reporting period. Note: This will only appear if your organization tracks attendance.
• Delivered: Total number meals delivered during this reporting period for this meal type. Note: This will only appear if your organization tracks the number of meals received.
• First Meals: Total number of first meals served during this reporting period for this meal type.
• *% First Meals: First meals/meals delivered x 100= % of meals delivered that were served as first meals during this reporting period for this meal type.
• Second Meals: Total number of second meals served during this reporting period for this meal type.
• Third Meals: Total number of third meals served during this reporting period for this meal type.
• Total Served: Total number of meals that were served in the reporting period for this meal type. This is calculated by adding all first meals for this meal type plus all second meals for this meal type plus all third meals (if tracked) for this meal type.
• Unique Individuals: The unique number of children served for this meal type during the reporting period. Each child is counted only once regardless of the number of meals for this meal type received.
• Average Daily Served: The average number of people served for this meal type during the reporting period. Most state reports will use the number found in the total rows at the bottom of each report section, but a calculation is provided for each organization Note: This total is not a sum of the average daily served for all agencies, but the actual average number of people served across all agencies for this meal type.
• Max # of Meals: Highest number of total meals recorded for this meal type on an individual day in the reporting period. Also can be considered a "One Day High" of all meals for some state and national reports.
• Max # of First Meals: Highest number of first meals recorded for this meal type on an individual day in the reporting period. Also can be considered "One Day High" of first meals.
• Total Damaged/Incomplete/Non-reimbursable: This is the total amount of meals that were tracked as damaged, incomplete or non-reimbursable.
• First Meal Waste: This number is calculated by subtracting the total first meals served from the total meals delivered. Note: This will only appear if your organization tracks the number of meals received.
• Total Waste: This number is calculated by subtracting the total meals served from the total meals delivered. Note: This will only appear if your organization tracks the number of meals received.
• # of Days Served: Number of unique calendar days this meal type was served Note: This total is not a sum of the number of unique days served by agency, but the total number of unique calendar days this meal type was served by any agency.
• Sites that Served Meals: Count of organizations that served meals during the reporting period.
• Additional Meals: The number of meals served after the meal service ended. Note: This will only appear if your organization tracks additional meals served after a meal service ends. This does not include additional participants requesting meals.
• Meals Carried Forward: The total number of meals that are eligible to be carried over to the following day. Note: This will only appear if your organization tracks eligible carryover meals.

* % First Meals: % of First Meals

• Formula= First Meals Served/Total Delivered
  • This section is usually used to answer the question "Are the meals we are delivering turning into reimbursable meals" and not "How many meals consumed were first meals"
  • This total is accurate when counting over multiple meal services/over longer periods of time so you can get an idea of the count of reimbursable meals (doesn't double count any meals that were carried forward)
  • The number could be confusing when looking at just one meal service (would make % seem higher because not counting carried-over meals)

Export options

• Click on the Export button to download the report as a CSV file to open in Excel.
• Click on the Print View button to see the printer-friendly version of the report.

Queue times explained:

When it comes to generating reports, we acknowledge the importance of minimizing wait times for our users. Currently, our metric for determining the wait time is based on the number of organizations included in the report as well as the duration covered. Let's delve into the details of our report queues to provide a clearer picture.

For comprehensive reports that span over 3 months and encompass more than 50 sites, we classify them as "Big Reports." Due to their complexity and scale, these reports are processed in a separate queue, which can sometimes result in significant wait times, typically measured in hours. We recognize that this can be inconvenient, and we are actively working towards optimizing the processing time for such reports in the future.

On the other hand, we have the "Small Report" queue, which handles reports consisting of approximately 50 sites and covering a duration of 3 months or less. Generally, these reports are generated swiftly, taking only a few seconds. However, there are instances where these "small" reports can take longer, ranging from 20 to 30 minutes each. Furthermore, it's worth noting that even a quick report may experience further delays if there are several 20-30 minute reports ahead of it in the queue.

As we are actively working towards optimizing the processing time for reports in the future, your feedback is crucial in this endeavor, so please don't hesitate to share your thoughts and suggestions with our Support team if you are a Network Admin. By doing so, you contribute to the ongoing efforts of our team to improve and streamline this process for a better user experience.