Copying Menu Items to Another Menu

• About Copying Menu Items to Another Menu
• Step 1: Ensure Your Menu Exists to Copy Items To
• Step 2: Selecting Menu Items to Copy from the "Source" Menu
• Step 3: Selecting the "Target" Menu
• Step 4: Selecting What to Copy to the "Target" Menu
  • Swapping (i.e., Flipping) a Week
  • Swapping (i.e., Flipping) a Day
  • Swapping (i.e., Flipping) Meal Services
  • To Not Copy a Week, Day or Meal Service
  • Previewing a Week of the Target Menu
• Step 5: Previewing Changes
• Step 6: Finalizing Copy

About Copying Menu Items to Another Menu

You can copy menu items to another menu. This can be used to copy full weeks, copy days to days, copy meals to meals, flip meals (e.g., breakfast to lunch). 

Step 1: Ensure Your Menu Exists To Copy Items To

Ensure the menu to copy items to exists in your MealSuite account. Existing menus in your MealSuite account can be viewed on the Menus Listing screen.

If you do need to create a menu for your MealSuite account, the following options are available to do so: 

• Create a new blank menu
  or
• Copy a menu from a menu template
  or
• Making a copy of an existing menu

Step 2: Selecting Menu Items to Copy from the "Source" Menu

1. From the left navigation sidebar, select Menus & Recipes > Copy Menu. The Copy Menu screen appears with the Select Items to Copy tab automatically selected. 
   
   
    
2. If you want to copy from a “My Menu” (i.e., menu owned by your account), select the My Menus option. If you want to copy from a menu not owned by your account, select Other Menus.
3. From the available drop-down, select the menu from which to copy items (i.e., the “source” menu). The screen refreshes with the Select Menu Items to Copy section with the various menu filter fields (second screenshot below).
   
   
   
    
4. Use the filter fields listed below to select the items that will be copied. The screen refreshes accordingly with the items with each filter selection you make (note that a meal service will have to be selected for the items to show).
    
   • Weeks (not available if the “copy from” menu is a single day menu (i.e., special event menu or an also available menu set as a single day)) - select the weeks from which to copy items.
   • You are viewing - select the specific week to view its items onscreen (the week you select to view does not affect what items will be copied).
   • Days (not available if “copy from” menu is a single day menu (i.e., special event menu or an also available menu set as a single day))
   • Meals - select the meal service (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner) to copy from.
   • Menu Categories
   • Choices
     
     
      
5. With the menu items selected to copy, your next step is to select the menu to copy to (i.e., the “target" menu). Proceed to the "Selecting the "Target" Menu" instructions below.

Step 3: Selecting the "Target" Menu

1. With Step 2: Selecting Menu Items to Copy from Source Menu complete, click the Next button. The screen refreshes with the Select Where to Copy tab selected.
   
   
    

2. From the Copy To Menu drop-down, select the menu to copy items to (i.e., the “target” menu). The screen refreshes with a section for each week selected from the source menu, with each section consisting of the days and meal services that were selected to be copied from the source menu. 

   

   
   Note that the target menus available in the Copy To Menu drop-down depend on the source menu. For descriptions of each menu type, see Menu Types.
    

   Source Menu (i.e., the "copy from" menu)	Target Menu (i.e., the "copy to" menu)
   Standard	Standard Also Available Weekly Special Event
   Special Event (note that a special event menu is a single day menu)	Standard Special Event Also Available Weekly Also Available Single Day
   Also Available Weekly	Standard Also Available Weekly
   Also Available Single Day	Standard Special Event Also Available Weekly Also Available Single Day
   Snack	Snack
   Liquid	Liquid

    

3. If the target menu currently has items, then the following options become available at the top of the screen:
   • Add to Existing Menu Items - will add copied items to the target menu.
   • Replace Existing Menu Items - will replace any existing items in the target menu (but still copy even if there are no existing items to replace). 

Step 4: Selecting What to Copy to the "Target" Menu

By default, the Select Where to Copy Screen is set up to do a one-to-one copy for each week, day, and meal service to the target menu, meaning each week will copy to the same week (week 1 to week 1), each day will copy to the same day (Monday to Monday), and each meal service will copy to the same meal service (breakfast to breakfast).

If wanting to swap (i.e., flip) a week, day, or meal service  when you copy from one menu to another menu, refer to the appropriate instructions below:

• Swapping (i.e., Flipping) a Week
• Swapping (i.e., Flipping) a Day
• Swapping (i.e., Flipping) Meal Services
• To Not Copy a Week, Day or Meal Service
• Previewing a Week of the Target Menu

Swapping (i.e., Flipping) a Week

If wanting to swap (i.e., flip) a week when you copy from one menu to another menu (e.g., copy week 1 to week 2, and copy week 2 to week 1), then you must first "free up" the target weeks so that they are available for selection. Using the example of swapping week 1 and 2, the steps to swap weeks are as follows:

1. For the Week 1 drop-down, deselect Week 1.
   
   
2. For the Week 2 drop-down, deselect Week 2.
   
   
3. For the Week 1 drop-down, select Week 2
   
   
4. For the Week 2 drop-down, select Week 1.
   
   

Swapping (i.e., Flipping) a Day

If wanting to swap (i.e., flip) a day copy from one menu to another menu (e.g., copy Wednesday to Thursday, and Thursday to Wednesday), then you must first "free up" the target days so that they are available for selection. Using the example of swapping Wednesday and Thursday, the steps to swap weeks are as follows:

1. For the Wednesday drop-down, deselect Wednesday.
   
   
    
2. For the Thursday drop-down, deselect Thursday.
   
   
    
3. For the Wednesday drop-down, select Thursday.
   
   
    
4. For the Thursday drop-down, select Wednesday.
   
   

Swapping (i.e., Flipping) Meal Services

If wanting to swap (i.e., flip) a meal service when copying from from one menu to another menu: 

1. Scroll to the desired week and day.
2. Select the meal services to swap. For example, for the Breakfast To drop-down, select Lunch, and for the Lunch To drop-down, select Breakfast. 
   
   

To Not Copy a Week, Day or Meal Service

To not copy a week to the target menu, then deselect the week from the Week [X] To drop-down.

To not copy a day to the target menu, then deselect the day from the [Day] To drop-down. 

To not copy a meal service, then deselect the meal service from the [Meal Service] To drop-down. 

Previewing a Week of the Target Menu

The Quick Preview of Week [X] button opens a window with the items from the menu being copied.

Step 5: Previewing Changes

With Step 4: Selecting What to Copy on the "Target" Menu complete, click the Next button. The screen refreshes with the Preview Change tab selected to allow you to preview the items that will be copied. Items in orange will be copied. You can select the different weeks being copied via the Week drop-down.

Step 6: Finalizing Copy

1. When ready to copy, click the Start Copy button. The screen refreshes with the Finalize Copy tab selected and copy process begins with the following message: ”We are preparing your menu and will notify you once it’s completed.”

   

2. When the copy process is complete, the message changes to “Menu copy completed successfully!”, and you can then go to the target menu to see the results.

   

3. After the copy process, you can choose to copy the same “copy from” source selections to another menu by clicking the Copy Same Selection to Another Location button. Or to begin a new copy process using a different “copy from” menu, click the Copy Other Menu Items button.