General program settings for food bank standard program types

This article provides an overview of the general program settings for all food bank standard programs including the following Program Types: 

The Food Bank Standard program in the US includes:

• Christmas Program- Enrollments for an annual Christmas program.
• CSFP Program- Commodity Supplement Food Program for seniors.
• Delivery- tracking deliveries separate from walk-ins.
• Emergency Response - Pantry - Emergency program separate from general distribution of food.
• Health Mobile- Mobile pantry serving food for health initiative.
• Health Pantry- Traditional pantry serving food for health initiative.
• (Standard) Pantry- Traditional pantry that does not use TEFAP food.
• Produce- Produce-only program.
• School Mobile- Mobile pantry at a school.
• School Pantry- Pantry that resides in a school.
• Senior Mobile-Mobile pantry serving seniors.
• Non-TEFAP Market- Market that does not use TEFAP food (i.e. farmer’s market).
• Non-TEFAP Mobile- Mobile pantry that does not use TEFAP food.
• TEFAP- Traditional pantry uses TEFAP food.
• TEFAP Market- Market that uses TEFAP food (i.e. farmer’s market).
• TEFAP Mobile- Mobile pantry that provides TEFAP Food
• TEFAP Trade Mitigation-Program that provides TEFAP food specific to trade mitigation.
• USDA Pantry- Traditional pantry that issues USDA food (not TEFAP or CSFP).

In Canada, only the four Program Types below are available and apply to these settings:

• Christmas Program
• Delivery- tracking deliveries separate from walk-ins
• Emergency Response
• Food Bank (Standard Pantry)

This article covers the following topics: 

• How to access and review program settings
• Visit Options 
• Appointment Options
• Signature Options
• Food and items provided
• Disclaimers / Agency Exceptions / Program Options Change History

How to access and review program settings

In order to access the appropriate program settings you will want to first ensure you are logged into the correct organization. 

• Network: to edit a network program.
• Agency: to edit an agency program. 

Once logged into the appropriate organization you will follow these steps to access the program settings: 

1.  Click on Open on the case management tile. 
2.  On the left-hand side click on Administration then Network programs or Agency programs depending on the organization you are signed into. 
3.  Navigate to the program you would like to edit or review the settings for then select the orange edit button next to the program in the list. 

When viewing the program settings you will see the following headings at the top before the settings break down into additional expandable sections: 

• Name: the name of the program.
• Summary: a short description of the program (this will appear on the label of the program button). 
• Type: program type this program has been set up with.
• Active: shows whether or not the program is active.

   

Visit Options

The first expandable blue box you will see would be visit options. This allows you to set various requirements for visits under this program.

• Visit Reason: When selected visit reason will be asked for this program. 
  
  • Visit Reason Required: Only appears when Visit Reason is selected - Determines whether or not it is mandatory to provide a visit reason. 
• Delivery Options: Determines whether or not you wish to have a yes/no dropdown list stating whether or not delivery was needed for the visit. 
• Referred To: Indicated whether options of referrals to the client should be tracked. 
  
  • Referred To Optional: Only appears when Referred To is selected - when selected makes selecting a referred to option not required. 
• Allow Same Day Visits: Allows users to record more than one visit at the same program, at the same agency on the same day. 
• Visit Frequency: When selected allows you to enable Visit Frequency rules for this program. 
  
  • x visit(s) every x Day/Calendar Week/Calendar Month/Calendar Year (For more information on the Visit Frequency Feature navigate here. 
  • While this setting is similar within TEFAP program settings, there are some slight differences. For more details, please click here. 
  • Enforce Visit Frequency: Only appears when Visit Frequency is selected - indicates whether visit frequency is enforced and visits cannot be booked outside of the frequency set. 

If you are ever unsure what a setting does there is a little question mark icon beside each option. If you hover over it, it will provide you with a description of what checking off each option would do.

Note specific to visit frequency in the Christmas Program: As this program type is set to auto-adjust to reflect a yearly frequency when it is modified to a monthly or daily frequency and "saved" the frequency field reverts to yearly, which may give the impression that the new monthly/daily setting has not been saved; the settings have been saved and can be confirmed by scrolling down to the bottom of the program settings and reviewing the change history, the system is just resetting the default setting put in place to ensure that the settings default to yearly for individuals first setting up the program. 

Appointment Options 

Within the next section, you will indicate whether or not you would like to enable appointment options for the program. Below you will find descriptions for the Scheduling Mode options. 

• Off: Indicates you do not wish to track any Appointment Options for the program 
  
• Date: Allows you to track basic day availability for the program. These would be the days of the week that you're open. The exceptions section will allow you to block off specific days, like holidays. 
  
• Date & Time: Allows you to track basic day and time availability for this program. These would be the days and hours of the week that you're open. The exceptions section will allow you to block off specific time periods, like a lunch hour.
  
• Caseloads: When selected allows you to track day and time availability for this program, but also set a restriction on how many appointments you want to be able to book within a certain number of minutes. This would be the days and hours of the week that you’re open and the number of appointments within a number of minutes you’d like to schedule (e.g. 5 appointments every 30min). The Exceptions section will allow you to make exceptions where you increase your capacity on certain days or time periods.

• • If you have selected Caseloads you will see an option for Enforce Caseload appear this allows you to enforce the caseload setting you have applied so that people will not be allowed to overbook appointments.

Closure Dates 

Within Appointment Options, you will see a red button Add Closures this allows you to specify dates you will be closed and will not allow appointments for that full day. 

Do Not Allow Settings 

Within the appointment settings, you will see two checkboxes you can select. Each is dependent on whether you utilize CNCT or an external program with our API.  

Do Not Allow CNCT Appointments 

This setting ensures that a specific program will not appear within CNCT as an option for online booking. 

Do Not Allow API Appointments 

This setting is for organizations that use our Clients and Appointments API separately from CNCT. If you utilize our API in an app or third-party connection when this is checked off this program would not appear as an option in the API. But would still appear in CNCT unless Do Not Allow CNCT Appointments was selected. 

Signature Options

You can add a signature option if required and format your disclaimer within this section. You will also have the ability to choose your preferred allowed eSignature styles for the program here.

This is only customizable at the Network level.

For CSFP and TEFAP programs please note this option will be located within State Specific Options under the Network program settings. 

Food and Items Provided

Within this field, you will see options to specify and track the items or food provisions you would like to track. This field also allows you to add your own Quantity label to track lbs, kgs or hampers provided. 

If you would like to make it a requirement to collect both food and item provisions both Require Food Provisions and Require Item Provisions must be checked off.

• Require Either Food or Item Provisions: Selecting this will allow you to set a requirement to record either food or item provisions. 
• Require Food Provisions: This makes it a requirement to track a food provision on a visit for the program. 
• Require Item Provisions: This makes it a requirement to track an item provision on a visit for the program. 
• Visit Quantity: Allows you to specify the label you wish to use to track the quantity of all products provided (e.g. lbs, kg, hamper) 
  • Require Visit Quantity: Only displays if Visit Quantity is selected - makes it a requirement to track quantities of items provided.

Program Provisions

The next section you will see within Food and Items Provided will be Program Provisions. This section displays a list of all of your active provisions. 

If you would like instructions on how to modify this list please click here. 

In the drop-down under Tracking Type you will see the following options: 

• Count of Items: whole number count of provisions.
• Currency: dollar value of provisions.
• Weight: weight value of provisions.
• Checkbox: provides a checkbox for the provision. 

Under Status, you will see either Active or Inactive if you click on this box you will be able to turn the provision on or off for the specific program.

Disclaimers / Agency Exceptions / Program Options Change History

These are the final fields you will see in the program settings window. 

Disclaimer: Agreeing to this disclaimer helps the system to keep a log of changes made and the user who made them.

Agency Exceptions List: Only Appears at Network Level - If any agencies have been assigned this program, but have customized it at their organization in any way, this list will display what those customizations were.

Program Options Change History: This is a log of changes made. It indicates the date, user, field, previous value, and new values of the updates made to that program’s configurations.

How to request a new program

Only Link2Feed Support can create new programs in the system.

If you are not a Network Admin:

Please reach out to the Network Admin at your site. They will be able to submit the request on your behalf.

If you are a Network Admin:

Submit a support ticket by following the steps here. Be sure to include the following details in your request:

• Program Name
• Program Type
  • Whether the program should allow bulk recording, individual client recording, or both (for generic program types).