Importing and Updating Meal Eligibility from an Excel Sheet

**New Release**

This update enables the ability to add and update meal eligibility by importing from an excel spreadsheet. This import will add/update the student's meal eligibility and can also update all existing attendance records from the Effective Status Date if there are meal attendance records in the system. 

To access this feature:

Set up your Preferences

• Go to Tools -> User Options -> Preferences
• In the Preferences pop-up, select School -> Meal Attendance
• Click on the system preferences tab, you will see a line named 'Meals to Import' with 'Breakfast' and 'Lunch' filled in. This preference lets the system know which meals the attendance records or the attendance updates should be applied to.
  1. To update your system's preference, click on the magnifying glass to open the Meal Options. Check the meals you would like to include as your preferences and click 'OK'.

Import Meal Attendance Spreadsheet Requirements

The spreadsheet used for this import requires the fields below. Next to some field are the details explaining what this field is used for in the import.

1. ActId
2. StdId
3. TermName
4. FirstName
5. Eligibility - This column must have one of the options below. If there is an empty 'Eligibility' field, the system will not import or update anything - even if they are marked as 'Declined'.
   1. Free
   2. Reduced
   3. Paid
6. EffectiveDate - This is the column that the new or updated eligibility status should take effect. 
7. Declined - This column can be 'True', 'False' or left blank. 
   1. True - This means the student will be declining meals. There can still be an eligibility status in the 'Eligibility' column if the eligibility record needs to be imported or updated.
   2. False - This means the student is not declining meals.
   3. Blank - If a column is left empty, the system will include it as 'False', which means that this student will be marked as not declining meals.
8. UpdateExistingMea - Use the options, 'True' and 'False' for this column. This column will tell the system whether to update an existing meal eligibility for the effective date and dates after.
9. Optional: LastName - The import will work with or without this field included in the spreadsheet.

To Import the Spreadsheet:

1. Go to Tools -> Standard Web Import
2. By the file field, click the 3 dots and select your spreadsheet file. 
3. Click 'Load'
4. Click 'Select All' and then press the 'Import Data' button to complete the import.