Meal Ordering
Take residents' meal orders a day ahead and give the kitchen a clear, printable list.
Turning on Meal Ordering
The organisation owner turns on Meal Ordering in Settings > Modules. By default every member of staff can record and edit residents' meal orders, and owners, admins and managers can view kitchen orders and print kitchen lists. Change this in Team > Manage role permissions. The Food Diary and Fluid Diary work whether or not this module is turned on.
Taking a meal order
Go to Meal Ordering and choose a resident. The service date is tomorrow by default and can be changed. Pick the meal, then choose Ordered and select dishes from that day's menu, use Browse full menu to choose anything from the home's menu, or select + Other to type a dish. Add a course and notes if needed, then select Save order. If an order has already been taken, it opens so you can change it.
When a resident won't need a meal
Instead of Ordered, choose No meal required, Away or Declined, and add a note if useful. This records the reason for that meal and cancels any dishes already ordered for it.
Kitchen Orders
Kitchen Orders shows every resident in the selected home for a chosen date and meal, with what they have ordered or why they won't need a meal, and "No order yet" for anyone still to be asked. Each row shows the resident's room, dining unit, texture level, dietary needs and a red Allergy badge where relevant. A count at the top shows how many residents have been completed.
Dietary and dining details
Each resident's dining unit, texture level, dietary requirements and daily fluid target are set on their profile: open the resident, select Edit, and fill in the Dietary & dining section. Choose a dining unit already used in the home so names stay consistent, pick a texture level such as an IDDSI level or type your own, and add dietary requirements as tags (for example Diabetic or Gluten free). These details appear on Kitchen Orders and kitchen printouts. Allergies are recorded separately on the resident's profile.
Printing the kitchen list
From Kitchen Orders, select Export / Prepare Printout. Sort the list by kitchen serving order, room, name or dining unit, filter by dining unit or dietary need, drag rows into a different order, or untick residents to leave them off. Select Generate Kitchen PDF to download the list. Dietary, texture and allergy needs are printed as short codes with a key.
Kitchen serving order
In Meal Ordering settings, set the order the kitchen serves each home, using room numbers or dining unit names. Kitchen Orders and printouts follow this order by default.
Meal orders and the Food Diary
When staff record a Food Diary entry, the dishes a resident ordered for that meal are filled in automatically, with their pictures. Staff then record how much was eaten. Anything a carer has already added is never replaced.
When staff record a Food Diary entry, the dishes a resident ordered for that meal are filled in automatically, with their pictures. Staff then record how much was eaten. Anything a carer has already added is never replaced.
Menus
Meal Ordering uses the menus set up in Menu Management, opened with Manage menu on the Food Diary form. Owners, admins, managers and senior carers can edit menus by default.