Parents will see a padlock icon against certain dates in School Gateway, indicating they are unable to book meals for that day. This is determined by the lead days and cut-off time; if a parent is seeing this icon, it will likely mean they are past the cut-off time for that day:
You can check the cut-off times and lead days via Cypad > Settings > Site Info > Whiteboard – “Pre-order lead days” and “Parent pre-order cut-off time” settings.
Current cut off times:
Parent pre-orders
- Cut-off time is determined by the Parent pre-order cut off time in Cypad > Settings > Site Info > Whiteboard.
Whiteboard
- Recording selections for current day – 12pm
- You can still access the whiteboard after 12pm to record PM attendance (if enabled)
Pre-orders tab for current day (e.g., adding/removing pre-orders manually)
- Only available until 12pm (greyed out afterwards)
Transactions tab for current day (e.g., adding meals retrospectively that weren’t pre-ordered)
If you have a tablet
Only accessible the following day (so any meals for the current day that weren’t pre-ordered need to be added to the tablet and a sync run, otherwise they can only be added the following day).
If you don’t have a tablet
Accessible all day but you should still record any pre-orders via the Pre-orders tab to ensure your meal selection reports populate correctly.