Arbor Meal Integration FAQ - How to setup Arbor mappings and Groups

How to setup Arbor mappings and Groups

Manually selecting the attendance type mappings

This section will allow you to customise the mappings from Arbor into ParentPay for a true reflection based on your school attendance processes.

Add the attendance marks you need, go to Attendance, meals & events > Import > Other settings.  

The default Attendance type mappings are shown with the tick against them, these codes are used to correctly generate a meal charge for the pupil or staff member.

After you have selected any additional attendance marks click the Update meal type mappings button and click the Save changes button.

NOTE The following are the standard marks used to record attendance and will enable the correct charges to pupil or staff meals.  The import will only be looking at Morning registration information.

Creating Meal Groups

Setup your groups and patterns, go to People > Group.

To create your group, follow the following criteria:

1. Pupil
2. Meal
3. School Meal

Click the Edit group button to open the Group Settings screen where you can set the following:

1. Name of Group
2. Checkboxes 
   • Visible in register the data will be visible in the register reports
   • Visible for parents if ticked the group name will be visible on the pupil’s profile in the parent's ParentPay application.  It is not necessary to select this option.
   • Usable by all managers in school ensures that all managers are able to see relevant reports and make changes to the group when necessary.

NOTE If a School meal group has never been created there will be no pupils added to the group, the Groups page will confirm this.

In the Find people to add field use the Choose group 1 and Choose group 2 to Search and add the relevant pupils and staff to the group in order to create their meal pattern. 

NOTE Choose Group 2 select a Year group, Registration group or leave as All.

Arbor attendance will only work for those children who have a school meal, packed lunch or go home for their meals every day.  It will not work if the child changes meal preferences on a daily basis.

Once you have your search results, select the pupil/staff who have a school meal daily and click the Add to group button.

If the search results are limited to a Registration Group or Year you will need to repeat the Search and selection process until all school meal pupils have been added to the group, then click Save.

NOTE All children who have a school meal should be added to the group, whether they pay or not.

You can edit the group at any time (i.e. if you have a new pupil/staff start the school) to add them to the group and meal pattern. 

If a pupil/staff no longer has school meals remove them from the group and delete the pattern against them.

NOTE You will also need to create a group for Home and Sandwich pupils to ensure these accounts to do not appear with a warning in the Attendance Import Report.

Creating a group meal pattern

• Select Pupil
• Select Meal
• Select School meal
• Click Create group meal pattern

When the Meal pattern screen appears follow the steps below

• The Choosetimeand Choose type should be set appropriately
• The day(s)for the pattern will need to be selected, for the Arbor Attendancefacility this will usually be Monday to Friday
• Enter the Start date
• you can choose to add a Defined end date, or you can set the pattern to Open-ended.  Open endedwill mean the patternwill continue until you choose to end it manually
• The Consider closing days option should remain ticked to ensure attendance is not marked on school closure days
• Click Saveto ensure the patterns are recorded against the relevant accounts.
• Repeat the above steps for the Staff Meal,Homeand Sandwich