- About Favouring a Verified Vendor Product
- Favouring a Verified Vendor Product (Facility Accounts Only)
- What if the Product I want to Favour is not Available?
About Favouring a Verified Vendor Product
Favouring a verified vendor product for a food item is a manual function that a facility account can use to select that product for the food item. A product that is selected determines the nutrient data and price for the food item.
Favouring a verified vendor product for it to be selected for a food item takes precedence over a product that is on an approved purchasing list (APL).
Favouring a Verified Vendor Product (Facility Accounts Only)
As a facility account, you can favour a verified vendor product. To do so, complete the following steps:
- From the left navigation pane, select Procurement > Buying Preferences.
- Select the Vendor Product Selection tab (if not already selected). The Vendor Production Selection screen appears.
- In the Search field, enter the name of the food item and click the magnifying glass to return results (note that entering the food item ID in the Search field does not return results). You can also locate the food item using the necessary filter tools.
- Click the gear icon in the Actions column for the item and select Edit. The Similar Vendor Products window appears (screenshot below; right-click screenshot to open and expand in new tab). By default, the Vendor Product Linked To Food filter is selected, which lists the verified vendor products for the food item. The product that is currently-selected for the item is highlighted in yellow.
- To favour a product, click its heart icon in the Actions column. The heart turns red to indicate the product is now favoured for the item.
- Click the Save button to apply your changes and close the window.
What if the Product I want to Favour is not Available?
If in step 4 above, the product you want to favour is not available (i.e., not verified for the food item), then it is possible to select a select a vendor product that is already linked (i.e., verified) to another food item in the system. This is known as a "soft link" between the vendor product and the new food item because the vendor product is not verified for the new food item.
When you create a soft link, the price of the vendor product will update the costing on recipes and menus, but the nutrient data of that vendor product will not be used.
Using soft links may be required for a recipe ingredient that does not match exactly a product that you have. For example, the recipe states to use low sodium bacon; however your facility does not purchase low sodium bacon and instead uses regular bacon. While MealSuite recommends updating the recipe with your available ingredient (i.e., regular bacon), this may not always be feasible. Therefore you can "soft link" the regular bacon vendor product to the low sodium bacon food item for your costing purposes.
To create soft link, see Facility Accounts: Favouring a Non-Verified Vendor Product ("Soft Link")