When using Spreadsheet Integration to create your menu Product inventory, you will need to download a blank excel spreadsheet from the Products section of the software.
Dietary Icons Note: If dietary icons need to be displayed on your menu, you will need to do this first by setting up Additional Attributes for each icon. When set up correct, dietary icons can be enabled/disabled from either the product spreadsheet or editing the Product Detail directly from the Products Library. The steps below will walk through creating Icon Attributes for your Products — do this first before downloading the excel spreadsheet to create your product inventory.
Please start by Obtaining Aramark Dietary Icons below.
Product Automation Note: If your menu products need to be automated on weekly cycle, please contact videosupport@spectrio.com to turn on Weekly Cycles for your menus. This will need to be done before downloading your Product Spreadsheet in the Download the Excel Spreadsheet to Create the Product Inventory step below.
Obtaining Aramark Dietary Icons
You will need to have the latest dietary icons in PNG format before creating Icon Attributes in EngagePHD.
Upload the Dietary Icons
Before creating your icon Attributes, you will need to upload your dietary icons to the Assets Library.
1) From the main navigation, click on the ‘Assets‘ icon:
2) Click on the ‘Upload Media’ tab:
3) Drag and drop your icons into the upload box, or click on the box to locate the files on your computer:
Creating Additional Attributes for the Icons
1) From the main navigation, click on the ‘Products’ icon:
2) From the Products menu, click on ‘Attributes’:
2) Click on the ‘Create New’ button:
3) Type the name of the icon attribute in the Name field. Depending on the icons you are using, you must type the name as they are showing below:
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Eat Well
- Whole Grains
- Get the Good Stuff
- Halal
- No Dairy
- Cool Food Meal
- No Gluten
4) Set the Type dropdown to Yes/No:
5) Click ‘Edit’ on the Image option and select the icon file from your Assets:
6) Click ‘Save’ to save the icon attribute.
7) Repeat this process to create all the icons you need.
Download the Excel Spreadsheet to Create the Product Inventory
1) Go to ‘Products‘ from the main navigation to open the Product Library. Then click on the ‘Upload or Download Products‘ tab:
2) Leave all checkboxes unchecked and click the ‘Download‘ button:
3) Open the Excel spreadsheet and enabled editing. Please do not change any formatting on the spreadsheet, this will cause problems with the software reading the file when you upload the spreadsheet back to the Product Library.
Adding Product Information to the Spreadsheet
Below are the most important columns of the spreadsheet to automate your cycle menus. If you would like to sign up for a training call to review the Excel spreadsheet in more detail, please contact onboarding@spectrio.com to schedule a training call.
Product Number
The Product Number can be any letter/number combination you’d like, but it is not a requirement. You can leave this column blank and the software will automatically generate a number.
Product Name
The way you type the Product Name is exactly the way the product name will display on your menus.
Category
The Category is important for automating your menu products. Categories are commonly added by station name first, then the meal period, separated by a dash. For example:
- Grill – Breakfast
- Grill – Lunch
- Grill – Dinner
- Grill – Brunch
- Deli – Breakfast
- Deli – Lunch
- Deli – Dinner
- Etc..
It’s important to remain consistent with the way you add your Categories to the spreadsheet. The software will see any typos as a new category.
Yes = Grill – Lunch
No = Grill- Lunch
Price
If required, add prices to the Price column. Decimals are accepted. Do not include a currency symbol. (Example: 2.00)
If a price is not needed, leave 0.0000 in each cell in the Price column.
Medium and Large Price Options
If required, there are Medium and Large Price options that can be used. In most cases these are not needed and left as 0.0000.
Description
If required, add descriptions for your products to this column. The way you type the description is exactly the way the description will display on your menus.
Enabled
The Enabled column should have “Yes” added to each product. This ensures that the product is enabled/active when the spreadsheet is uploaded. If a product should not be active, you can type “No” in the cell to make the product inactive/disabled.
Calories
If required, add your calorie numbers to the Calories column. Adding “Cals” or “Calories” is not needed, you can enable a feature in the Product Table in the Layout Designer that will automatically show “Cals” or “Calories” when calories are active.
Supported Formats:
- 300
- 200-30o
Sub Category
If you need to have multiple zones within your menu that display different products, Subcategories will be helpful. For example, if you want your Entrees to show on the left side of your Grill menu, and Sides should show on the right side, you would need to add Subcategories to your products, which can then be used to sort products in Product Tables (example menu below for context)
Please also see: Managing Product Tables with Campus Dish Automation
Weekly Cycle and Day of Week
The Week column will be the weeks that your products will show. For example, if you have a 4 week cycle and a product should only show for week 1, add a “1”
If you have products that need to show on the menu each week, add all weeks separated by a comma (1,2,3,4).
The Day of Week
The Day of Week column are the days in your weekly cycle where the product should show on the menu. If you have products that should display each day of the week, type the full name of the day, separated by commas.
Save and Upload Spreadsheet
1) When you are done populating your spreadsheet, save the Excel file.
2) Go to the Products page from EngagePHD, then click on the ‘Upload or Download Products‘ tab:
3) Click on the upload box to locate the Excel file on your computer, or drag and drop the file into the upload box:
4) Depending on how many products you have, the upload process might take a couple of minutes. A green status bar will indicate that the file is uploading:
5) You will see a green checkmark if the file uploads correctly. You will see a red checkmark if the file does not upload successfully.
A red checkmark often indicates that the formatting was changed on the spreadsheet. Do not change fonts, add or remove columns, or change any other formatting. If you have questions or trouble with the spreadsheet upload, please Contact Support.
Managing Products Directly from the Product Library
1) Once you’ve uploaded the product spreadsheet, you can go back to the Products tab and click on any of your products to view and edit the product:
2) Changes can be made from the Product Detail. Click the ‘Save‘ button to save any changes:
Setting Up Menu Layouts and Product Tables
For instructions on how to set up Product Tables in your menu Layouts, please see: Managing Product Tables with Campus Dish Automation or Product Spreadsheet Integration