For those looking for something more than posting PDF’s of menu, recipes and nutrition on the web for parents and nurses, School Menu has a solution. School Menu does the set up and processing of your menus and posts your finished documents, with nutrition, for interactive display on the web. Changes and updates are processed quickly and efficiently for update to the web. Multiple languages are supported, as well.

TrakNOW customers can export menus or menu items, and other customers can submit their menus in any format from any software program.

Schoolmenu.com has a long search history that makes it easy for parents to search on the internet, as opposed to trying to find the information buried somewhere on the district’s web site.   

Schoolmenu.com includes easy access to wellness information for students and their families (including content from Fruits & Veggies — More Matters) and an opportunity for parents to opt-in for email reminders to check the upcoming week’s menu, plus an optimized mobile site that “right sizes” the display for any phone. And they can help with and/or integrate with digital signage solutions as well.

SchoolMenu can be your media and communications platform to make your menu listings and nutritional information more available to your families at a very reasonable cost.   

Contact Gabe Aiello, Director of Product and Business Development, for more information [email protected]  

As the 2013-14 school years comes to a close your PCS team is busy delivering the latest program releases with new features and functions, plus program updates for regulation changes (please see TrakNOW – New Release and POS Hardware – Technical Update, below).  Most of this was covered in PCS User Groups directed by Dov Abramson and Tony Diers, who crisscrossed the country in April and May, joined by regional account managers and product specialists. They brought back tremendous energy and plenty of ideas from the meetings and Dov’s report is included in this newsletter. Support webinars are coming soon, see dates and content below.

We look forward to seeing those of you attending the Kentucky, Utah, Texas, Washington, and Minnesota SNA shows and the upcoming SNA ANC in Boston. Please contact your account manager to set up a meeting time during the exhibits,or just drop by.

A new PCS Solutions Partner is featured in this issue, see School Menu, below, along with Support Person of the Month, Betty Zimmerman.

Enjoy your summer! See you next school year.

Starting in late April, PCS staff members will be heading to User Group meetings hosted by Customers in various regions. As always, the agenda will include important information about new software releases, new features, new products, and plenty of time for Questions and Answers. A webinar is available for those who are not able to attend. Emails with date, time, local agenda and location are on their way. Please give us your valuable feedback when we send a survey of the questions you would like answered at the User Group.

Some Topics will include: RighTrak/FasTrak & Net POS Changes, TrakNOW Updates, POSNOW-new web browser and cloud versions, New PayPAMS Features, Online FR Options and Support Training.

User Groups are currently being planned for: Florida, South Carolina/Georgia, Dallas, TX, Houston, TX, Minnesota/Iowa/Wisconsin, and California/Alaska.

See the Events page for date, time and location details.

Eric Garcia

Eric is a Support Supervisor with eight years of experience implementing and troubleshooting PCS free and reduced, meal accountability and POS systems.

“I don’t know where to begin to express the amount of respect I have for Eric Garcia and his skill set. I’m always comfortable and confident that each issue with PCS will be resolved to complete satisfaction whenever he is involved. I’ve worked with countless support personnel from PCS, as well as, other vendors; his dedication to ensuring the job is performed adequately and with compassion is without a doubt an extreme asset to your organization.”

“I believe that customer service is the foundation of the IT industry: simple return calls, a polite email, answering the phone in a calm tone or even a listening ear are all traits that are needed for exceptional customer interaction. Eric has consistently demonstrated all of these qualities on each call, and this is why I believe he goes beyond the call of duty, and I appreciate each opportunity I get to work with him. “

Kevan Hinchen – Arlington ISD, TX

TrakNOW will be releasing a new version in April with several great improvements to the system. Some of these include:

• A complete redesign of the Item Activity Detail report to better show the sequential actions of an item and the effect on stock level.
• Production Menu Nutrient Analysis reports will now display the menu items as they appear in site production without referencing the original menu template.
• The addition of a planned number of servings field when adding a Pattern to a menu.

Full details on all improvements will be provided in the release notes.

School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties, SC

District 5 has used PCS’s point of sale system for over 20 years. This year they implemented TrakNOW for inventory management and menu planning. They have also added online F & R applications to make the process more accessible for parents and easier for the district. Todd Bedenbaugh, Laurie Dodson and the whole team at District 5 are doing a great job. They are on top of new regulations and have already established a district wellness policy that is up to next year’s standards. In addition, they were also the only school district in South Carolina to receive a $100,000 USDA Farm to School Grant. With all the good things cooking at District 5, PCS is proud to be their nutrition technology partner.

“We, at Lexington Richland District 5, have implemented TrakNow this school year for our Production and Inventory. We have been very pleased with the Customer Service and hands on help we have received from PCS. We’ve appreciated their Team jumping in and adding recipes and items for us and going the extra mile to get us up and running at the start of the school year. Miss Ava is always willing to answer questions and offer her expert assistance. We’ve appreciated everyone’s patience in getting us going! It’s been a lot of work but we’re looking forward to reaping the benefits.”

Laurie Dodson – Student Nutrition Bookkeeper/Accountant

On our way to LAC, the SNA Legislative Action Conference, in February, we were happy to hear that the weather forecast was for little or no snow here in the northeast, only to find out that Washington D.C. was in the cross hairs of yet another winter storm. In spite of the weather, we learned at conference that:

• Since the new standards took effect 1 million fewer students have school lunches each day.
• More than 9 out of 10 school meal programs reported food costs were up last year.
• 47% of school meal programs reported revenue declines.
• On average, after labor and expenses, only $1 is left to spend on food for the entire meal.
• Competitive foods account for 15.8% of revenues and strict new standards add to financial worries.

Turning toward Spring with renewed resolve to meet the above challenges, we greet the season with the delivery of software releases with new features and requested improvements, plus updates required for regulation changes. What better way to get acquainted with these improvements and reacquainted with each other than to attend one of our upcoming regional user groups. A preliminary list is included below and emails are on their way for each region. If you can’t attend, don’t worry, there will be follow up webinars for everyone.

School Nutrition Industry Conference

Gabe Aiello and Regional Sales Director Denise Lessard attended SNIC. As always we are happy to renew acquaintances and catch up with old friends. Attendance was greater than ever and the General Sessions concentrated on great marketing ideas. PCS customers were well represented with three present and former customers receiving FAME awards and Jessica Shelly (former Fame Award winner, Cincinnati PS) and Bertrand Weber (Minneapolis PS) serving as panelists for the USDA update session.

Congratulations to FAME Award winners!

Jane Wynn, MS, LDN, winner of the Gertrude Applebaum Lifetime Achievement Award. Jane was President of the national Association in 1987-88 and is retired school nutrition director of the School Board of Broward County, FL

Bertrand Weber, winner of the Silver Rising Star Award, director, culinary and nutrition services, Minneapolis Public Schools.

Reginald Ross, winner of the Silver Spirit Award, former area supervisor, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, NC.

Mark McConnell-Bailey

Mark has a rare and enviable ability to find a simple solution to the most complex problems. In the past months, Mark has done on-site and over the phone installs for PCS and delivered 100% customer’s satisfaction.

“Mark was absolutely awesome and saved us!!!”

Rebecca – Beaufort County School District

“Mark was very friendly and helpful!!”

Kelly – Oceanside Unified School District

Rangy Abines

Between January 1, 2013 until December 31, 2013, well over 13 thousand support calls were handled. We would like to congratulate Senior Support Technician, Rangy Abines taking the most calls. Michael Mildorff and Olga Vishnyakova follow.