Cafeteria Serve Setup (Application Manager)

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This functionality is only available to customers who have purchased Campus Point of Sale as add-on functionality.

Application Manager setup occurs in three stages:

This Application Manager setup information is specifically for Cafeteria Serve functionality. The Application Manager contains a list of schools/sites where food services are offered. It also associates specific serving periods and menus to each site.

Users familiar with creating service layouts (menus) for terminals should expect Cafeteria Serve setup to be a condensed version with slight variations. The Application Manager requires setup of the following POS tools before it can be used:

Stage 1. Establish Applications

Applications are the sites at which the processing of food services takes place, generally school cafeterias. The district will need to set up an application for each Cafeteria Serve site where food service transactions are processed (e.g., if an elementary, middle and high school each serve students, an application should be established for each school).

Creating an Application

  1. Click the New Application button.
    Result
    The Application Detail editor displays.
  2. Enter a Name for the application. This name will be used for reporting purposes.
  3. Mark the Reminder Enable checkbox. This indicates that all services related to the application will display account balance and purchasable restriction alerts to cashiers (if the alert has been set for the patron on their account.)
  4. Mark the Cafeteria Serve checkbox to indicate that the application is used for Cafeteria Serve functionality. This limits options in the following setup stages to Cafeteria Serve only.

    This checkbox must be flagged when the application is created. Once the application is saved, the checkbox will be locked from editing.

  5. Click the Save button.
    Result
    The application appears in the Application Tree editor list and you can attach services to it.

Stage 2. Add Services

After an application has been established, it will appear in the Application Tree editor and services may be added to it.

No more than two services should be created for each Cafeteria Serve application.

Only Serving Periods marked Active within the Attribute Dictionary are allowed to be assigned to services. If you inactivate a Serving Period, you must complete the following tasks:

  • Reselect an active Serving Period for all Services assigned to the inactive Serving Period.
  • Reload POS data and reboot the POS to remove the Serving Period from appearing on the POS for use by a cashier during login.
  • Do NOT inactivate a Serving Period during school hours when meals are being served or during the school year.

New Service Button

  1. Select the application to which you want to add services (from the Application Tree editor).
    Result
    The New Service button displays.
  2. Click the New Service icon.
    Result
    The Service Detail editor displays.
    Service Details Editor
  3. Enter the Name of the service.
  4. Select a Service Period.
  5. Enter a Description of the service.
  6. Chose the Selected Schools to which the service and the   service layouts/menus should be assigned.
  7. Click Save. The service will now be listed under the application in the Application Tree editor. All schools assigned to the service will appear underneath it.

Stage 3. Design Service Layouts (Menus)

A service layout (menu) is a graphical representation of the purchasable items available for a specific school during a specific serving period. The service layout (menu) designed on this screen is the interface that will be seen and used by cashiers to process food service transactions. After the application's services are created, the service layouts (menus) can be designed or copied.

To save time and effort, the Service Layout Copy Wizard can be used to copy existing services and service layouts (menus). Applications cannot be copied, but must first be created manually, as described above in Stage 1.

Warning
You can use the Service Layout Copy Wizard to copy a Cafeteria Serve layout to another Cafeteria Serve layout. If you copy a non-Cafeteria Serve layout to a Cafeteria Serve layout, the layout will NOT display properly when the layout is opened in Cafeteria Serve.

New Service Layout Button

  1. Select the service for which a service layout (menu) will be created from the Application Tree editor.
  2. Select the Service Layout icon from the Campus action bar. The Java applet may take a short time to load and may require the user to accept it as a pop-up. An empty 3 x 3 grid will load:

Modifying Grid Items and Layout

The tab at the top of the grid will indicate for which service the user is creating a service layout (menu). The Item Style and Item Color editors under the grid are used to control the appearance of the grid panels.

Empty Service Layout (Menu) Grid

The following table indicates how the fields of the Item Style editor may be used:

Field/Option

Description

Item

This dropdown field contains a list of all available food service items. Items on this list are populated by active purchasable items from the   Purchasable Items   tool.  

Width

This controls the width of the selected panel. In Cafeteria Serve, the width is a fixed value and cannot be edited.

Height

This controls the height of the selected panel. In Cafeteria Serve, the width is a fixed value and cannot be edited.

Font Type

This controls the displayed font type of the Item name.

Font Size

This controls the displayed font size of the Item name.

Font Style

This controls the displayed font style of the Item name.

Modifying Grid Colors

The Item Color editor allows colors to be assigned to the panel and the text:

Item Color Editor

  1. Select a panel of the grid to modify.
  2. Select which part of the panel to modify:
    • Choose the Foreground radio button to modify the text color.
    • Choose the Background radio button to modify the panel background color.
  3. Select a color to apply.
  4. Before exiting the service layout (menu), return to the Item Style editor and click Save to apply changes.

A standard service menu layout might resemble the following.

Sample Service Layout (Menu)