Catering Menus

Written By Natalia Povrozniak (Administrator)

Updated at March 3rd, 2026

Feature available in app version 2023.02 onwards.

With added features in the following releases:

  • 2025.04 Catering Menus customisable export and assisted import
  • 2025.02: Additional cut-off time per menu
 

Here's where Catering Menu is located within the catering-related dependencies:

  1. Dietary Terms
  2. Catering Suppliers
  3. Order Policy
  4. Catering Items
  5. ✅Catering Menus
  6. Catering Template
  7. Catering Orders
  8. Pantry Timeline as another option to view catering orders

Catering menu is a set of catering items that is shown to the end user given the time of the order and notice period for catering items that is set by the order policy. It means that the user will only see those items on the menu that are available and can be prepared for their space booking, and there's sufficient time allowed for kitchen operation time and food or drink preparation time.

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Create catering menus for each building separately if your organisation has more than one office building. A menu can be assigned to the whole building, and there can be a menu defined for one or more spaces.

⚠️ But a space can have one menu only. For now, we recommend not to apply any user role restrictions to the menu until further functionality is introduced.

On the Catering Menu page, you can view the list of existing menus. From here, you can delete, disable, enable, select an existing menu to edit it, or add a new menu if you have these permissions enabled for your role.

Adding a menu

To add a new menu, do the following:

  1. Click +ADD from the Catering Menus page.
  2. Fill in the fields in the Menu popup that opens
  1. Define Name (A) and Short Description (B) for your new menu.
  2. Set the dates (C-D) for this menu to be available.
    Note: Keep end date of the menu far in advance for people who book far in the future to see the active menu. Otherwise you'll need to manually move forward the duration of the active menu.
  3. Set the cut-off time for the menu to be available for order depending on the weekday:
    1. (E) Set the weekday on (from Monday to Sunday) if you'd like to allow catering orders to be made for this day of the week.
    2. (F) Indicate a number for Advanced Cut-off Days when you'd like the catering orders to stop being created for that weekday.
      For example: entering 2 for Monday will mean that the last day when users can order for Monday is on Friday.
    3. (G) The Order By Time setting defines time of day when the orders can still be created on the last day before cut-off time.
      For example: entering 11:00 for Mondays with 2 days set up under Advanced Cut-off Days will mean that users can order for Monday until Friday 11:00 AM. After this time, they can only order catering for coming days depending on other settings.
  4. Set the Status (H) to active or inactive.
    Use this option to prepare menus in advance or keep them after they expire to reuse later.
  5. Add a menu image (I) that will be visible when selecting this menu.
  6. Click Save. The next sections open to be filled in.

(J-K-L) Add items from the categories Beverage, Snack, Food that were added previously in Catering Items.

(M) ❌ For now, we recommend not using the Available to Roles setting, or you can allow all users to see the menu. Otherwise, the space booking permission and menu availability permission may conflict and prevent users from being able to make catering orders.

(N) Select the spaces where this menu should be available to use after the space booking.

Click Save.

Now, depending on what you have set, your menu is stored in OneLens 360. If set as active, it can be visible to your organisation in Flex on the set dates. Users can create catering orders before the cut-off time only, as set in the menu.

Importing a catering menu

Should you require to upload multiple menus for your organisation, do the following:

  1. Click Import on the Catering Menus list page.
  2. Download Template to ensure that your data is formatted correctly for IBSS system to consume.
  3. Click Select File when you have the file ready for upload.
  4. Confirm your action by clicking Upload and Process.

If you have a corresponding permission, you can view the progress of your import on the Background Processes page. If the upload is successful, you will see new records listed on the page.

Exporting a catering menu

On the Catering Menus list page, you can export existing records and choose what fields to include in the export file.

If you have a corresponding permission, you can view the progress of your export on the Background Processes page. After the export process is finished, you will receive an email with the link to your file.