Meals lets employees reserve a published meal at your location. As an administrator you turn the feature on, set default deadlines, publish meals with a quantity, correct bookings, and close each meal as served or archived.

Availability: if this option is greyed out or missing, contact your Vizmo account manager.

Before you start

• People with the Admin role, or the Location Admin role for this location, can manage Meals.
• To turn the feature on, you also need permission to update settings.

Turn Meals on

1. Sign in to the Vizmo portal and select the location.
2. Go to Location Settings > Location.
3. In the Product Settings card, find Meals and switch Enable on.

   

4. Click Save at the top of the page.

Once Meals is on, the menu shows Meals with Meal Bookings, Meals and Settings, and employees see Meals in the employee portal. Until then, administrators see a Meals page that explains the feature.

Set the default deadlines

1. Go to Meals > Settings.
2. Under Meal Deadline Settings, set the Booking Deadline. This is how long before a meal's start time bookings close, in hours (0 to 24) and minutes (0 to 59), with a maximum of 24 hours in total. At 24 hours, set the minutes to 0. It starts at 24 hours.
3. Set the Cancellation Window. This is how long after booking an employee can still cancel, in hours (0 to 12) and minutes (0 to 59), from 1 minute up to 12 hours in total. At 12 hours, set the minutes to 0. It starts at 2 hours.
4. Click Save.

   

These are only the starting values in the create form. Changing them does not change meals that already exist.

Create a meal

1. Go to Meals > Meals and choose the Service Date.
2. Click Create Meal. If it is disabled, the tooltip says "Choose today or a future service date". You cannot create meals for past days.
3. Fill in:
   • Meal Name (up to 100 characters)
   • Description (Optional) (up to 500 characters)
   • Meal Type: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner or Snack
   • Category: Vegetarian or Non-vegetarian
   • Total Quantity: a whole number from 1 to 100,000
4. Set the Booking Deadline and the Cancellation Window as hours and minutes. The booking deadline is counted back from the start time, and must fall on or before it.
5. Under Recurrence, leave Does Not Repeat for a single meal. For a series, choose Daily or Custom. Under Custom you can pick Weekly on a day, Every Weekday (Monday to Friday), or your own days. Then set the End Date.
6. Enter the Service Date (Service Start Date for a series) and the Start Time, which goes in 15-minute steps.

   

7. Click Create Meal (Create Meals for a series).

Times are in the location's time zone. A series must create at least 2 and at most 100 meals, and a weekly pattern must include the weekday of the first date. Each date in a series is a separate meal with its own quantity and bookings.

Manage meals

The table lists Meal, Type, Category, Service Date, Booking Closes, Bookings and Status. The summary for the chosen date shows Meals, Served, Total, Booked and Remaining. Archived meals are not counted, and served meals are. Turn on Show Archived to see archived meals.

• Edit an active meal dated today or later to change its name, description, type, category, deadlines or quantity. You cannot change the service date, start time or location. The quantity cannot go below the number of booked and served places.
• Bookings opens the roster. Use Add an Employee, Select Employee and Add Booking to book someone in. Use Cancel on a Booked row, or Delete to permanently remove a Cancelled row. You can add or cancel a booking after the employee's deadline has passed, but not above the meal's quantity or twice for the same employee.

  

• Mark Served closes a meal after service. It is available for active meals dated today or earlier, but not for future dates. Confirm Mark as Served. Every active booking becomes Served. This cannot be undone.
• Archive takes a meal out of availability and cancels its active bookings. For a recurring meal, choose This meal or This and the following meals. Booking history stays as Cancelled. This cannot be undone.
• Meals dated before today cannot be edited or archived.
• Tick several meals to use Mark Served (n) or Archive (n). The number counts only the selected meals that qualify. If any fail, a Meal Bulk Action Errors window lists them.

Work across meals on Meal Bookings

Go to Meals > Meal Bookings and choose a date preset: Today, Tomorrow, Next 7 Days, Past 7 Days or Custom (up to 31 days).

• Book Meal: choose the Service Date, Meal and Employee.
• Edit Booking on a Booked row: choose another meal under Move to Meal and click Save Changes. You cannot change the employee. Cancel the booking and book someone else instead. Past bookings, and bookings on served or archived meals, cannot be edited.
• Cancel Booking and Delete Booking work on single rows. Tick several rows to use Cancel (n) or Delete (n). Rows that do not qualify are left as they are. Only cancelled bookings can be deleted, and deleting is permanent.

Emails

Vizmo sends Meal Booking Confirmed and Meal Booking Cancelled emails. No email is sent to an employee with no email address, or when email notifications are off for the employee or the location.

Things to know

• Served and archived meals are final. You cannot edit, reopen or book them.
• Turning Meals off does not delete anything. While it is off, employees cannot book or cancel, and administrators cannot create, edit, archive, serve or change bookings. Everyone can still view meals and bookings.

Troubleshooting

• An administrator cannot see the Meals menu. Check that the person has the Admin or Location Admin role for this location and that Meals is turned on in Location Settings > Location. Ask them to sign in again after a role change.
• The quantity change is rejected. The new quantity is below the number of booked and served places. Cancel some bookings first, or keep a higher quantity.
• Create Meal is disabled. The service date you chose is in the past. Choose today or a later date.
• Mark Served is disabled. The meal is dated in the future, or it is already served or archived.
• You see "Meal is busy" or "Meal changed while waiting". Wait a moment and try again.
• An employee cannot find a meal. It is sold out, past its booking deadline, archived, or already booked by that employee. If you need to correct it, add the booking from the roster.

Related

• Book, review and cancel a meal in the employee portal
• Book and cancel meals in Vizmo Pass