- About Locking
- How Does Locking Occur?
- When a Forecasting Worksheet is Locked
- When the Census Changes after Forecasting Worksheet is Locked
- System Recalculation of Locked Forecasting Worksheets
- Recalculating Forecasting for a Locked Forecasting Worksheet
- Unlocking a Single Forecasting Worksheet
- Unlocking All Forecasting Worksheets
About Locking
When a forecasting worksheet is locked, the forecast auto-calculation no longer updates the worksheet so as not to override its current serving amounts, and thereby give production staff the time needed to prepare the meals.
How Does Locking Occur?
Automatic Locking
A forecasting worksheet automatically locks in the following scenarios:
- When the production cut-off time is reached for the respective meal period/day of the forecasting worksheet.
- When a serving amount is manually adjusted on the forecasting worksheet.
- When a dining area census is manually adjusted on the forecasting worksheet.
Manual Locking
You can also manually lock a forecasting worksheet by clicking the Lock button.
When a worksheet is manually locked, a timestamp and appears on the top of the forecasting worksheet screen with the ID of the user who applied the manual lock.
Note: If attempting to lock a worksheet that is more than seven days ahead of its service date, the following message appears, giving you the option to cancel or continue with the lock:
“It is not recommended to Lock your Forecast Worksheet more than a few days ahead of service date since this will prevent MealSuite from updating it according to your most recent census. Note that changes made to your active Menu may still result in updates to your forecast”
When a Forecasting Worksheet is Locked
When a forecasting worksheet is locked, then on the forecasting calendar, the lock symbol appears on the associated meal period/day cell, as per screenshot below.
Note: When a forecasting worksheet is locked, it locks specific to the date, and does not carry forward to the next menu cycle. In other words, the lock does not repeat itself for future menu cycles.
When you open a forecasting worksheet that is locked, the Lock/Unlock button displays as Unlock.
When the Census Changes after Forecasting Worksheet is Locked
When a forecasting worksheet is locked, and there is a subsequent change to the census in your MealSuite account, the associated grid of the forecasting calendar displays the census change icon (screenshot below) to inform you that your census has changed. Hovering your cursor over the alert displays “Census has changed”.
In addition, when you open the forecasting worksheet, a census change message is displayed in red.
The census is the number of diet orders (i.e., diet type and texture type combinations) in your MealSuite account established by diet order assignments to people and any dining area set up with a manual census.
- If a person in your MealSuite account is admitted, archived, or transferred, the census in your account is updated to reflect the change to the diet order numbers. Similarly, when a person’s diet order is changed, the census in your account is updated to reflect the change to the diet order numbers.
- If the manual census is changed for a dining area, the census in your account is updated to reflect the change to the diet order numbers.
Viewing the Census Changes
When there are locked forecasting worksheets and the census subsequently changes, you can view the census changes to determine if you need to recalculate the forecasting to update the numbers for the worksheets. To view the census changes for a locked forecasting worksheet:
- On the forecasting calendar, open the locked forecasting worksheet by clicking into its meal period/day cell.
- Click the View Census link to open the census window:
- See About the Census Window below to understand how census changes are conveyed.
About the Census Window
The census window presents a diet order grid (diet types as rows and texture types as columns) to convey census changes.
- Original diet type and texture type numbers are displayed in black.
- Diet type and texture type removals from the census are displayed in red.
- Diet type and texture type additions in the census are displayed in green.
- Any new diet types or texture types in the census have a (New) displayed to draw your attention that those are new.
For example:
- Two people with the house diet/regular texture were admitted, and therefore +2 appears in green in the house/regular cell.
- A person with the lactose restricted diet/regular texture was archived, and therefore -1 appears in red in the lactose restricted diet/regular texture cell.
- A soft bite sized texture type was added in the census for the existing gluten restricted diet type, and therefore New(1) appears in green in the gluten restricted/soft bite sized cell.
In the census window you can select an individual dining area tab to see the census changes specific to that dining area.
Also remember that there are two types of dining areas (see Adding and Configuring Dining Areas for more information). The census window does not identify the type of dining area.
- A dining area that people profiles can be assigned to.
or - A dining area that has a manual census. The manual census is the number of diet orders (i.e., diet type and texture type combinations) the dining area supports and must be entered by you.
Clearing the Census Change Alert and Keeping Original Forecast
You can decide to clear a census change alert and keep the original forecasting. To do so, complete the following steps:
- Open the locked forecasting worksheet.
- Click the View Census link to open the census window.
- Click the Clear Alert and Keep Forecast button.
- The alerts are cleared and the original forecasting is kept.
System Recalculation of Locked Forecasting Worksheets
When a forecasting worksheet is locked, certain menu change events will result in the system automatically recalculating the locked worksheet. When a locked forecasting worksheet is automatically recalculated, the following occurs:
- On the forecasting calendar, the red exclamation mark icon appears on the worksheet’s associated grid to indicate an automatic recalculation occurred.
- Hovering your cursor over the icon displays the reason for the recalculation.
Menu Change Events Resulting in Recalculation of Locked Worksheet
The following menu change events result in the automatic recalculation of a locked forecasting worksheet:
- A change to a menu’s start date (i.e., rescheduling a menu)
- A change to a menu’s service location
- Changes to a menu’s properties:
- active meal periods (breakfast, lunch, dinner) or, for a snack menu, its snack times (snack am, snack pm, snack hs)
- number of weeks on the menu
- number of choices
- extension type
Recalculating Forecasting for a Locked Forecasting Worksheet
To recalculate the forecasting for a locked forecasting worksheet, complete the following steps:
- Open the locked forecasting worksheet.
- There are two methods to recalculate the forecasting:
- Click the Recalculate button and a confirmation message appears (screenshot below). Click the Recalculate and Clear Adjustments button. The forecasting is recalculated to accommodate the new census.
or
- Click the View Census link and the census window appears (first screenshot below). Click the Recalculate button and a confirmation message appears (second screenshot below). Click the Recalculate and Clear Adjustments button. The forecasting is recalculated to accommodate the new census.
- Click the Recalculate button and a confirmation message appears (screenshot below). Click the Recalculate and Clear Adjustments button. The forecasting is recalculated to accommodate the new census.
Unlocking a Single Forecasting Worksheet
If it is required to unlock a forecasting worksheet to enable the forecast auto-calculation process to update the numbers, click the Unlock button.
Unlocking All Forecasting Worksheets
You can unlock all forecasting worksheets via the forecasting calendar. To do so:
- Open the forecasting calendar by selecting Production > Forecasting.
- Click the Unlock All button at the bottom right of the screen. The following message appears:
- Click the Unlock Them and Clear Manual Adjustments button. The forecasting worksheet are unlocked.