SteepleMate’s School Features provide a comprehensive system for managing school lunch menus. From creating and scheduling menus to tracking lunches, this guide walks you through the essential steps for ensuring smooth cafeteria operations.

Step 1: Building Your Menus

Before scheduling lunches, you’ll need to create the menu items that will be used in daily or weekly menus. You can also include nutritional information for each item, helping ensure balanced meals.

1. Access the Menu Management Section:
   • From the School Menu, click Manage Menus.
2. Add Menu Items:
   • Before scheduling menus, start by adding individual items to your menu.
   • Click Manage Menu Items.
   • To add a new item, click New.
   • Complete the form with the following details:
     • Item Name: Enter the name of the food item (e.g., Assorted Pop Tarts).
     • Unit Size: Specify the portion size.
     • Serving: Define how much of the item each student will receive.
     • Approximate Cost per Serving: Enter the estimated cost for each serving.
   • Click Update to save your new menu item.
3. Editing or Deleting Items:
   • If you need to make changes to any menu item, click Edit to modify details, or click Delete to remove the item from the menu.

Step 2: Scheduling Your Menus

Once your menu items are ready, you can schedule your menus for daily or weekly meals.

1. Access the Menu Scheduling Section:

   • From the Menu Items screen, click Manage Menus. Alternatively, you can navigate to the left-side School menu and select Manage Menus.

2. Create a New Menu:

   • Click New to add a menu.
   • Complete the form with the Menu Name (e.g., Breakfast Menu), then click Update.

3. Adding Menu Items to Your Menu:

   • Once the menu is created, click the > icon next to the menu name to view details.
   • To add items to this menu, click New.
   • In the Item field, select the menu item you created earlier (e.g., Assorted Pop Tarts).
   • In our example, we’re adding 1 package of assorted pop tarts to the Breakfast menu. Complete the relevant fields and click Update to save the changes.

Step 3: Managing Lunches

Now that your menus are scheduled, you can track lunches by navigating to the Manage Lunches section.

1. Tracking Lunches:
   • From the left navigation menu, click School, then click Manage Lunches to start tracking meals based on your scheduled menus.

Example:

Here’s an example of a completed Breakfast Menu:

• Menu Name: Breakfast
• Menu Item: Assorted Pop Tarts
• Serving Size: 1 package per student

Now you are ready to move on to the Manage Lunches guide to begin tracking the lunches served.