How can the chef or cook know how many students will eat lunch at school?

Some schools offer a food service, mainly in primary or secondary schools. This is practical for parents who both work full-time to know their kids do not have to come back home to eat their lunch. The school generally counts with a building for the canteen (or cafeteria) with a kitchen to cook meals. The restaurant's chef orders in advance and prepares meals for lunch.
How many lunches to prepare is good to know in order to avoid food waste or, on the contrary, run out of food. It directly depends on how many students attend school on that day, those who are sick, or those who prefer to eat outside. So, how can a system like RosarioSIS help you determine how many students will eat lunch on a certain day?

1. The first solution involves the Attendance module, a core module in RosarioSIS. This is a simple solution that involves teachers. They simply ask their students if they will eat at school on a certain day and save their preferences. The administration staff can later consult lunch attendance and count the results.
2. The second solution is more elaborate and involves the Food Service Premium module. Being a Premium module, it is only available in the PREMIUM plan at rosariosis.com. This module provides a reservation system with reports. Students or their parents can make reservations ahead of time, and cancel them if need be. They can also choose between various meal options in case the school restaurant offers that.

Below are step-by-step instructions to implement one of the two solutions.

First solution: Lunch Attendance

To set up the first solution, we will rely on the Attendance module and specific attendance codes.

1. Go to the Attendance > Attendance Codes program.
2. Click on the "+" tab, and enter "Lunch" in the Title field. Click Save.
3. Click on the "Lunch" tab. Enter the "Eating" code in the Title field and give it a Short Name of "Y" (Yes). Check the Default for Teacher checkbox. Click Save.
4. Enter the "Not Eating" code in the Title field and give it a Short Name of "N" (No). Click Save.

Next, we are going to allow teachers to take "Lunch" attendance. In a primary school, students typically have only one teacher during the day, being the same every day. But in secondary schools, students typically have various courses and thus various teachers. It is then a matter of finding the right courses so the right teachers take lunch attendance as part of their course attendance.

1. Go to the Scheduling > Courses program.
2. Select a subject, a course, and a course period.
3. On the course period screen, you should now see the "Lunch" option under the Takes Attendance field. Check it and Save.

Please repeat those steps for as many courses as needed, or even create courses dedicated to lunch attendance taking.

Now, let's see how teachers actually take lunch attendance in the system.

1. Log in as a teacher and go to the Attendance > Take Attendance program.
2. Select the right course from the left menu if need be.
3. Click on the "Lunch" tab and pick the next school date in case today is not a school day.
4. For each student in the list, select "Eating" or "Not Eating". "Eating" being the preselected / default option, you will only need to ask for students not eating. Click Save.

Finally, let's see how administrators can consult lunch attendance and the number of lunches to prepare on that day.

1. Go to the Attendance > Administration program.
2. Click on the "Lunch" link. From there, you can consult and edit the lunch attendance for the selected date.
3. To narrow the list to students eating lunch, select "Eating" in the dropdown menu on the right and click Update.

As you can see above the list, there is the count of students eating lunch.

Second solution: Food Service Reservations

To set up the second solution, we will rely on the Food Service Premium module and its reservation's system.

1. First, activate the Food Service Premium module. Go to the School > Configuration program and click on the Modules link.
2. In the list, click the Activate button. If the module is not present in the list, please switch to the PREMIUM plan if you are hosted at rosariosis.com or else, please buy the module.
3. Go to the School > Configuration program and click the Food Service tab.
4. Configure when reservations are open and the actions that students (and their parents) can take: delete, cancel, request cancellation, or only consult their reservations.

Next, we will see how parents can easily make lunch reservations.

1. Log in as a parent user and go to the Food Service > Make a Reservation program.
2. Click the Lunch tab and select from the items offered. Click Save.
3. To consult the reservation details, go to the Food Service > Reservations program.
4. To cancel the reservation, select the action from the dropdown on the left. You can leave the reason why you are cancelling.

Now, let's see how administrators can consult reservations and get the lunch count.

1. Go to the Food Service > Reservations Report program. As you can see, we have the total of students eating lunch on that day with the breakdown by reservation status.
2. To get the details of reservations by meal item, select the meal item from the dropdown on the right.
3. To get the list of students who will eat lunch at school, select the List option in the dropdown at the top of the screen.

That's all for this use case!

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