Planning Weekly Menus

Planning Weekly Menus

This article covers how to plan your weekly menus, including adding meals to specific days, repeating meals across the week, reordering items, clearing menus, and controlling where menu items appear.

Understanding the Menu Planner

Layout

The menu planner displays as a grid:
  • Columns: Days of the week (Monday through Sunday)
  • Rows: Meal services (Breakfast, Morning Tea, Lunch, Afternoon Tea, Dinner, and Supper)
  • Cells: Each cell represents a specific day + meal service combination

Service Times

Each meal service row shows its operating hours (e.g., "Breakfast 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM").

Week Navigation

Use the Week Picker at the top to navigate between weeks. You can plan menus for future weeks.

Screen Size Tip

For the best experience:
  • Use a desktop computer with a large monitor
  • Zoom out your browser (Ctrl/Cmd + minus) to see more days at once

Adding a Menu Title

You can add a descriptive title to each week's menu (e.g., "Winter Menu - Week 1").

How to Add a Title
  1. Navigate to the week you want to title
  2. Click in the Add Title button next to the week picker at the top
  3. Type your title and press Enter
  4. The title saves automatically


Adding Meals to the Menu

1. Select a Day and Meal Service

Click on any cell in the menu grid (e.g., Monday Lunch). The cell highlights to show it's selected.

2. Choose Meals

The Menu Item Selector window opens, showing all available meals.

Search for Meals
  • Use the search box to find specific meals
  • Type partial names (e.g., "chicken" finds all chicken dishes)

Filter by Meal Type
  • Click the meal type filters at the top:
    • M = Main
    • D = Dessert
    • S = Side
    • B = Beverage
  • Click again to clear the filter

Select Meals
  • Click a meal to add it to the menu
  • The meal appears immediately in the selected cell

3. Add Multiple Items

You can add multiple mains, sides, desserts, and beverages to each meal service. For example, a lunch service might include:
  • 2 main options
  • 3 side options
  • 2 dessert options
  • 4 beverage options

4. Close the Selector

Click outside the Menu Item Selector window or press Escape to close it.

Reordering Menu Items

The order of items in each cell determines how meals appear throughout the system. This order is used when:
  • Staff collect orders in the staff app
  • Residents/family place orders in the eMeals app
  • Meals display on TV menus
  • Meals appear in the Prep Report

You may want your primary option first, followed by alternatives.

How to Reorder
  1. Find the meal you want to move
  2. Click and hold the drag handle (cross arrows icon) on the right side of the meal name
  3. Drag the meal up or down within the same meal service cell
  4. Release to drop it in the new position

The new order saves automatically and applies everywhere the menu appears.


Example

If you have:
  1. Vegetable & Potato Pie (vegetarian alternative)
  2. Chicken Schnitzel (main option)

You might reorder to:
  1. Chicken Schnitzel (making it the first option presented)
  2. Vegetable & Potato Pie

Repeating a Meal All Week

If you want the same item available every day (e.g., fruit salad as a daily dessert option), you can quickly add it to all 7 days.

How to Repeat All Week
  1. Find the meal already added to one day
  2. Click the three-dot menu on the meal
  3. Select All week
  4. The meal is added to the same meal service for every day of the week

Important Notes
  • This only works for open services (services currently accepting orders)
  • Closed services are skipped automatically
  • The meal is inserted at the bottom of the matching meal type (e.g. Main) for each day. You may need to reorder it.

Removing Individual Items

How to Remove
  1. Find the meal you want to remove
  2. Click the three-dot menu
  3. Select Remove

If Orders Exist

If residents have already ordered this meal, you'll see a confirmation showing:
  • Number of orders that will be deleted
  • Number of regular (recurring) orders that will be hidden

Review this information and confirm if you want to proceed.

If No Orders Exist

The item is removed immediately without confirmation.

Clearing the Entire Menu

Clearing removes all items from a week's menu. This is useful when you want to start fresh or rebuild a menu.
  1. Navigate to the week you want to clear
  2. Click the Clear button (red button in the top toolbar)
  3. If there are existing orders (rare), you'll see a confirmation showing the impact. Click Clear again to confirm

Only open services are cleared - closed services remain untouched.

Alert
Warning: Clearing a menu is permanent and cannot be undone.

Controlling Where Menu Items Appear (Visibility)

Each meal can be shown or hidden from different channels:
  • TV - TV menu boards in dining areas
  • Print - Printed weekly menus
  • App - Embrayse Meals App (mobile app for residents/family)

How to View Visibility Settings
  1. Click More menu item in top right of the screen
  2. Select Show Visibility



  1. Visibility indicators appear on each menu item:
    • TV icon = appears on TV menus
    • Print icon = appears on printed menus
    • App icon = appears in mobile app
    • — (dash) = hidden from that channel


How to Change Visibility

Visibility is set at the meal level, not per menu placement. To change visibility:
  1. Open the meal (edit it)
  2. Go to the Details tab
  3. Toggle the visibility checkboxes:
    • Show on TV
    • Show in Print Menu
    • Show in Meals App (if enabled for your facility)
  4. Save the meal
Changes apply immediately to all menus where this meal appears.

Visibility Strategy

Show on TV
  • Main dishes
  • Featured desserts
  • Special items you want to highlight

Don't show on TV
  • All sides (too many to display well)
  • All beverages
  • Standard items always available

Print Menu
  • Most items should be included in print menus
  • Consider hiding items only available via special request

Meals App
  • Enable for items residents/family can order through the app
  • Disable for staff-only items or items requiring special preparation

Adding "Other" Items

Most facilities have an Other meal option which is created during onboarding. This captures orders for items not on the menu.

How to Set Up
  1. Create a meal called Other (if one is not already created)
  2. Add it to every meal service, every day
  3. Use the All week feature to speed this up

When staff take orders, they can select Other and add a note describing what the resident wants.

Working with Linked Meals (Multi-site)

If your organisation uses multi-site management, you may see meals with a link icon. These are linked from other sites.


What You Can Do
  • Add linked meals to your menu
  • View (but not edit) their details
  • Duplicate them if you want your own copy

What You Cannot Do
  • Edit linked meals (managed by the source site)
  • The source site controls all properties

Tips for Menu Planning

Plan Ahead
  • Plan menus at least 1-2 weeks in advance to give staff time to order ingredients
  • Use the Copy Menu feature to duplicate weeks (see Copying Menus)

Consider IDDSI Requirements
  • Ensure at least one option per meal service is available in all textures
  • Review the "Available Food Textures" for each meal
  • Plan texture-friendly alternatives

Use Strategic Ordering
  • Put your primary/recommended option first
  • List alternatives in order of popularity or preference

Leverage Visibility Settings
  • Use TV menus to highlight special items and reduce clutter
  • Keep print menus comprehensive for reference
  • Enable Meals App only for items residents can safely self-order



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