CACFP & SFSP - School Year – Link2Feed

This article covers the following topics:

This article covers everything you need to know about CACFP & SFSP School Year Meal Services. It’s thorough, but if you’re just after the essentials, save time by checking these quick step-by-step guides for starting, joining, ending, viewing, editing, or exporting a School Year Meal Service.

Quick Links to Core Actions:

The School Year CACFP & SFSP program runs during the school year. To use the program, log in to the site where you will be recording meal services.

Every completed meal service is saved in the School Year Meal Services table, accessible from the left navigation pane under Meal Service → School Year.

The table provides the following details:

User & Organization: Name of the user and the organization where the meal service occurred.
Date: Date of the meal service.
Start Time / End Time: When the meal service began and ended.
Status: Current state of the meal service (e.g. Completed, In Progress).
Meals: Total number of meals served during the service.
Notes/Comments: Displays up to 70 characters; click Read More to see additional text.
Actions: Options to View, Edit, or Delete the meal service.

How do I add the School Year program to a site?

To assign the CACFP & SFSP School Year program to a site, a Network Administrator or Network Manager can follow the steps below:

Navigate to Administration → Organizations in the left navigation pane.
Locate the site where you want to assign the School Year program.
Check the box next to CACFP & SFSP – School Year.
Click Save Changes to apply the update.

Once saved, the site will have access to the School Year program and can start recording meal services.
Note: Users will also need the CACFP & SFSP application enabled within their user settings in order to see the program.

How do I start a new School Year Meal Service?

To start a new school year meal service you will need to be logged into the agency that is running the meal service.

You'll want to create a new school meal service at the time your meal service is about to begin, NOT the time you received the food.

You can start a new meal service in two ways:

Click the School Year button on the Dashboard page.
Alternatively, from the left navigation pane click the Meal Service heading, click School Year, and then click the +New School Year Meal Service button on the top right-hand side of the page.

Clicking the School Year button on the Dashboard or clicking the School Year option under the Meal Service will both direct you to the School Year Meal Service Details page, where you will complete all required fields before scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking the blue Start Meal Service button.

Fields on the School Year Meal Service Details page

Number of meals from previous day: how many meals are being used in this service that were meant for a previous service. This is an optional setting, see Agency settings for instructions on how to enable and disable fields.
Number of meals received: how many meals were obtained for this service. This is an optional setting, see Agency settings for instructions on how to enable and disable fields.
Do the meals match the planned menu?: are the meals received those that were expected? If the answer is NO, a text box will appear asking you to Please type the EXACT meal received.
Temperature of Meals Received: the temperature of the meals when they arrived (must be less than 200). This is an optional setting, see Agency settings for instructions on how to enable and disable fields.
Temperature of Milk Received: the temperature of the milk when it arrived (must be less than 99). This is an optional setting, see Agency settings for instructions on how to enable and disable fields.
Date: this is the date of the meal service. Only a network administrator or network manager can record a meal service for a date in the past.
Time received: the time the meals were received (default to the current time). This is an optional setting, see Agency settings for instructions on how to enable and disable fields.
Time meal service will end: the scheduled time the meal service should end (defaults to 45 minutes after the current time).
Meal Type: select from the dropdown what type of meal it is.
- Note: if multiple meal types have the same hours of operation users can select the meal type while creating the meal service.
Meal Style: check all that apply to the style of the meal being served. This is an optional setting, see Agency settings for instructions on how to enable and disable fields.
- Note: Administrators can edit meal styles under the Lists section.
Signature: signature of program distributor starting the meal service. The user can use their finger (on a touch screen device) or mouse (on a computer) to sign in the Signature box.
- Click on Clear to redo the signature.
- The Signed By section will automatically be the name of the user logged in. The date will automatically be the current date.
- Click on Start Meal Service to start the meal service.

Once the meal service is started you will land on the School Year Meal Service page.

A green banner across the top of the page tells you that the meal service has been created.
Below this will be the Countdown clock; counting down in real-time until the Meal Service ends.
Next to this will be the field that counts in real-time Total First Meals Served.
- IF your agency tracks second meals you will see another field that counts in real-time Total Second Meals Served.
- IF your agency tracks third meals you will see another field that counts in real-time Total Third Meals Served.
You can add a new participant during the meal service directly from this page by clicking on the Add a Participant button on the right-hand side of the section housing the countdown clock and meals served counter boxes.

The next field is the Meal Recording field, this field holds the table of participants. The table lists in columns:

The last name of the participant.
The first name of the participant.
The age of the participant (if date of birth is tracked).
The number of meals the participant received.
An optional column of the participant's classroom.
An optional column of the participant's grade level.
A participant ID, if applicable.

Each column is filterable using the small arrow to the right within the column headers.

To record a meal for a participant

Click on the participant's row once, and the row will turn grey, this first click records the participant's attendance, and the # of Meals column will show the letter A.
Click on the participant's row a second time and the row will change color to green, this records that a meal was received.
Click on the participant's row a third time and the row will change color to orange, this records that a second meal was received.
Clicking on the row more times will record the number of meals for the number of clicks and will turn the row red.
If you want to remove a meal that was added by accident, click on the minus icon in the last column.

Below the participant table will be counter boxes for tracking the options that have been set by the agency, the number of boxes here will differ according to what the agency is tracking.

You will need to manually click on the +plus sign to record and track the information; using the graphic below as a reference:

Additional Children Requesting Meal: the user will hit the +plus button for every additional child requesting a meal, and the counter will count up; click the -minus button to cancel and the counter will go down.

On the right-hand side at the bottom of the page is a text box allowing you to make notes regarding the meal service.

Once you have completed recording the meal service, click the End Meal Service button at the very bottom of the page on the right-hand side.

After you click the End Meal Service button the screen will dim and a notification will appear asking if you're sure you want to end the meal service for every user who is currently accessing it.

Every other user who is currently accessing this service will also have this notification pop up on their screen.

Click OK if you want to end the meal service.
Click Cancel if you don't want to end the meal service and you'll be directed back to the meal recording page.

When you click OK to end the meal service you will be directed to the Meal Service Details page.
A green banner across the top of the page reads The meal service has ended.
Details of the meal service appear below the green banner. Click the Return to School Year Meal Services at the bottom of the page and you will land back on the School Year Meal Services table, you should see the newly recorded meal service at the top of the table.

More Meals Served Than Delivered
When recording a meal service using the School Year module, occasionally the system has stored more meals served than meals delivered. This occurs when two users simultaneously click on a name to indicate that the participant has received a meal.

We have made two additions to the system to manage this:

If the Meal Service is Running- If the meal service is actively running, the users will receive a notification that more meals have been served than have been delivered, and the system will prompt for a correction.
If the Meal Service has ended- If the meal service ends before the correction has been made, the meal will appear with an Error status in the meal service log.

Error Log
If using the Error Log feature, when creating a meal service, the end time and meal type will automatically be set based on the information entered on the Agency Settings page. The system will select the meal type that has a start time closest to the current time. See the Error Log Feature for more information.

Changing Settings
If you change agency settings while a meal service is in progress, you risk encountering an error while ending that meal service. The system expects the same options while starting the meal service to be available when ending it.

How do I start a Concurrent School Year Meal Service?

Make sure the Track multiple meal services at same time Network Setting is enabled to use this feature, click here for instructions on changing network settings.

After starting one School Year Meal Service, perform the same steps as above to start another.

After starting the first meal service, head over to the left navigation pane, click the Meal Service heading, and then click the School Year option.

You will land on the School Year Meal Services table, the screen will dim and a pop-up notification will appear informing you that a meal is already in progress and give you the options to join an existing meal service or create a new one.
- Join Existing will take you to the school year meal service that is currently in progress. See How do I enter into a School Year Meal Service that's "In Progress"? for more information.
- To run another meal service at the same time as the first you'll click the + Create Now button, complete the School Year Meal Services fields, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the blue Start Meal Service button.
You will see the first meal service in the School Year Meal Services table recorded as In Progress

How do I enter into a School Year Meal Service that's in progress?

To enter into a meal service already in progress:

From the left navigation pane click on the Meal Services heading.
Click on School Year.
You will land on the School Year Meal Services page.
A meal service that is in progress will be indicated by a light blue In Progress status and the actions column will contain just the folder icon.
Click on the folder icon and it will open up the School Meal Service currently in progress.
Click on the End Meal Service button to complete the meal service.

How do I end a School Year Meal Service in progress?

To end a meal service:

From the left navigation pane click on the Meal Services heading.
Click on School Year.
You will land on the School Year Meal Services page.
Look for the meal service that is In Progress, and click on the view folder.
Once you have completed recording the meal service, click the End Meal Service button at the very bottom of the page on the right-hand side.

How do I view a School Year Meal Service?

To view a School Year Meal Service:

From the left navigation pane click on the Meal Services heading.
Click on School Year.
You will land on the School Year Meal Services page.
Click the blue folder icon in the Actions column of the meal service you wish to view.

How do I edit a School Year Meal Service?

To edit a School Year Meal Service:

From the left navigation pane click on the Meal Services heading and click School Year.
You will land on the School Year Meal Services table.
Click the orange pencil icon in the Actions column of the meal service you wish to edit.
This will open up the School Year Meal Services (editable) Details page.
Complete your edits.
Record your reason for the edits in the Describe the extent and reasoning for your modifications text box; the edits cannot be saved unless this field is completed.
- This field can only be viewed and edited by users with the Network Administrator and/or Network Manager role, users who do not have these user roles will not be able to see or edit the text in this field.
Click on Update Meal Service to save your changes or Cancel to discard them.

The amount of fields that a user can edit depends on the user role(s) they have. Click here for more details as to which fields a certain user can edit and click here for more information on these fields.

When editing any meal service, ANY USER will be able to see and make edits in the comments field during the meal service. The most updated version of comments will be visible in the network-level meal service log

Workflow
If any participants need to be added to the list, do this before entering the completed meal service to edit it. See how do I add a New Participant? for more information on how to do this.

How do I edit meals delivered during a School Year Meal Service?

If the user tries to record more meals served than the number of meals available for that specific meal service, a pop-up will appear and users will have the option to select the following options:

Return to Meal Service: the user will be taken back to the meal service.
Change Meals Available: a secondary pop-up window will appear with text boxes for:
- Number of meals from the previous day.
- Number of meals received. The initial entries will appear with the ability to be updated and saved. This can only be done by the user who created the meal service.
End Meal Service: the system will ask the user to confirm they want to end the meal service. This can only be done by the user who created the meal service.

How do I export a School Year Meal Service?

To export a School Year Meal Service:

From the left navigation pane click on the Meal Services heading and click School Year.
You will land on the School Year Meal Services table.
Click the blue folder icon in the Actions column of the meal service you wish to export.
This will open up the Meal Service Details page which contains a summary of the meal service.
In the top right-hand corner of the page are two export options, PDF and XLSX.
- PDF: click this button for a PDF download of the meal service.
- XLXS: click this button for a copy of the meal service to download to your device.

How do I track attendance after the Meal Service?

Complete a meal service by clicking the End Meal Service button.
You will land on the Meal Service Details page.
Click on the Track Attendance button on the right-hand side directly below the table of participants.
A Record Attendance table will appear, click the checkbox to the left of the participant's name to confirm attendance.

How do I start a new School Year Meal Service using the Error Log feature?

The steps to starting a new School Year Meal Service when the Error Log feature are the same as starting a new meal service without using the error log feature, with one exception, if a user other than a Network Administrator attempts to start a meal service outside of the meal times set for the agency, they will not be permitted to and will receive a red error message indicating that they are outside of designated time periods, and the Meal Services table will list the meal service for that date as in Error.

When creating a meal service using the Error Log feature, the end time and meal type will automatically be set based on the information entered on the Agency Settings page. The system will select the meal type that has a start time closest to the current time. Network Administrators will see the meal service in Error in the Meal Services Log in the Network See the Error Log Feature for more information.

Click here for instructions on how to start a new meal service.

User Permissions
Network Administrators can start the meal service at any time. Agency Managers and below can't start the meal service early, it has to be between the start time and end time set in the Agency Settings.

How do I delete a School Year Meal Service using the Error Log feature?

To delete an Error Log meal service :

From the left navigation pane click on the Meal Services heading.
Click on School Year.
You will land on the School Year Meal Services page.
Meal services that did not occur during a time period indicated in the Agency Settings page will be in an Error state on the Meal Services log.
To delete a meal service in an Error state:
- Click on the red trash icon in the Actions column to delete that meal service.
- Be absolutely certain because once deleted, NO information from that meal service can be retrieved in the back end of the system.

User Permissions
Network Administrators can both edit and delete a meal service in an error state.
General CACFP & SFSP users cannot delete a meal service in an error state but can edit it.

How do I enter a past School Year Meal Service using the Error Log feature?

To enter a past School Year Meal Service using Error Log :

From the left navigation pane click on the Meal Services heading.
Click on School Year.
You will land on the School Year Meal Services page.
Meal services that did not occur during a time period indicated in the Agency Settings page will be in an Error state on the Meal Services log.
To enter information for an empty meal service in an Error state:
- Click on the orange edit icon to view a completed school year meal service.
- Complete your edits, every field is editable
  - Click here for more details as to which fields a certain user can edit, and click here for more information on these fields.
- Record your reason for the edits in the Describe the extent and reasoning for your modifications text box; the edits cannot be saved unless this field is completed.
  - This field can only be viewed and edited by users with the Network Administrator and/or Network Manager role, users who do not have these user roles will not be able to see or edit the text in this field.
Click on Update Meal Service to save your changes or Cancel to discard them.
This meal service will be saved as being edited by the current user logged into the system.

When editing any meal service, ANY USER will be able to see and make edits to comments entered during the meal service.

The most updated version of the comments field will be visible in the network-level meal service log.