Brightwheel’s Menu Planning feature, included in every Premium subscription, helps Admins and Managers create a detailed food menu for each room that can help keep staff informed and save time during food activity creation. Distinct menus can be created for each meal across every room and can be easily duplicated to span multiple days. Administrators can assign food items to the menu and optionally organize these items based on CACFP food categories and serving sizes.
Menus can be easily exported as a CSV or PDF to facilitate compliance reporting, and in future enhancements, menus will be visible in brightwheel to Staff and Parents!
Create a Menu
Click to expand My School and then select Menu
Choose + New Menu on the Menu Calendar tab to get started and go through the steps outlined below
Add Menu Details
Select the 'Meal Type' using the drop-down list
Select the date and time the menu should be served
Add optional instructions or a description
Select any days this menu should be duplicated throughout the week
If choosing to duplicate the menu, select when this menu should stop using the 'Up until' field
Please Note: If duplicating the menu, you will not be able to continue until selecting an 'Up until' date
Proceed to the next step by clicking Add food!
Add Food Items
If food items have already been created during activity tracking, these options will display in the 'Food' search bar to quickly add!
Use the 'Food' search bar to select an existing food item from the displayed list or type in a new food item and click enter/return to create it
Click + Add food item to add it to the menu
Add the 'USDA food category' if desired
Add a serving size in the 'Quantity' field if desired
💡This is for individual serving size, so if each student in the classroom should have 1 Kiwi, put 1 in this field!Select a 'Unit of measure' for the food item is desired
💡The USDA food category, quantity, and unit of measure are not required fields but are valuable if you use your menus to submit reporting for CACFP reimbursements.
Proceed to the next step by clicking Assign to a classroom!
Assign to a classroom
Each menu can be assigned to a separate classroom to allow for different meals or serving sizes for different age groups. A classroom can only have a single menu for each meal type on any given date.
Select which room(s) to apply the menu to
Please Note: If a room already has a menu for the selected meal type and date, a message will display in the Warning column. You can choose to continue with the new menu, which will overwrite the existing menu on that date for that room.
Proceed to the next step by clicking Preview menu!
Preview & Create
This final step allows Admins and Managers to confirm all the food items, serving sizes, dates, and assigned rooms are set up appropriately.
Review all details of the menu
Click the ✎ icon next to any field to modify it if needed
When ready, click Create menu
View and Manage Menus
Once you've created some menus, you can easily view and manage them!
Use the available 'Classroom' and 'Meal Type' filters to narrow down the menus you are viewing
Use the arrows above the menu calendar to view previous, current, or upcoming menus by week. At this time, menus cannot be filtered by month.
Use the 'Exclude weekends' checkbox to view the calendar how you prefer
Please note: Menus will only be viewable by an Admin/Manager account on the web at this time. This feature will not be viewable to Staff accounts or if using Room Device Mode. If wanting Staff to be able to view the menu please reference the Sharing Menu section further down.
Edit Menus
Click ⋮ on the specific meal type/date you're wanting to modify
Select Edit
Use the displayed pop-up to edit any details needed
💡You can modify past menus!
When choosing to edit a menu block, you will only be making changes to the block on that specific date. If the menu you're editing is duplicated across future dates and you want to bulk apply changes: edit the individual menu block and then duplicate the updated block across all needed dates to overwrite the previous menu
Duplicate Menus
Click ⋮ on the specific meal type/date you're wanting to modify
Select Duplicate
Use the displayed pop-up to duplicate the menu as needed
Delete Menus
Click ⋮ on the specific meal type/date you're wanting to modify
Select Delete
When deleting a menu, it's important to be aware that you are only removing the menu from that specific date. If the menu is duplicated across future dates, you will need to manually remove those blocks as well. Instead, you can also choose to create a new menu for the same dates in the same room(s), and the new menu will overwrite any previous menu.
Manage Food Items
Admins can add, edit, or delete custom food items from the Food items tab under Menu on the web. This allows for easy management of custom food items across your program.
To find out more about how to do this, check out our Food Tracking help center resource!
Export Menu Report
Log in to your account on the web
Click to expand My School and then select Menu
Filter the displayed menus using the 'Classroom' and 'Meal Type' options
When ready, click Export report
Select/de-select the USDA Category option
Choose the export format (CSV or PDF)
Select Download to download immediately or select/de-select the appropriate email address and click Email to # person to have the export sent via email
If choosing to sort the export by 'USDA Category,' this will quickly show the dates, meal types, and food items organized by the USDA category in one convenient view. This can be ideal when needing to share reporting with the appropriate agencies for CACFP reimbursements. The export will look similar to the below image.
If you'd like a more condensed menu view that still shows dates, meal types, and food times to share with your families, de-select the USDA category option when exporting the report as a PDF and print! The export will look similar to the below image.
Sharing Menus
This feature provides an easy, streamlined way for providers to document menus.
Please be aware that menus are not visible to and cannot directly be shared to staff or guardians yet. However, you can still create a menu and use one of the following workarounds below to share it:
Print a physical copy of your menu and display it in the appropriate classroom(s) by exporting it as a PDF as outlined above
Attach an image or PDF of your menu to a brightwheel message
Add the image or PDF as a Shared File to share with the entire program or individual rooms
Take a screenshot of the menu and share it in a Newsletter
Add the menu PDF as an attachment to student profiles
We recommend exporting the Menu report as a PDF and sharing the PDF file or taking a screenshot of the PDF to follow any of the workarounds suggested above. This PDF view provides all relevant information in an easily readable format.