Using the Cafeteria App

The Cafeteria App is part of the Menu Boards & Tables App category. As the name suggests it is useful for daily changing cafeteria menus. This is just one possible application. Use this App every time you want to list something which changes by the day and time of day.

Examples: A health clinic with specialized doctors, a university with consultation hours of the professors, a conference with various workshops, a gym with diverse classes, and many more.

cafeteria app

The maximum tables on one page will be three. If you have more tables on a day, they will be shown on the next page. If you have only 1 or 2 tables on a given day, only 1 or 2 columns will be shown for that day.

Example with 2 tables on Monday:

cafeteria app with two tables

This App gets its contents from a Data Feed. The App tells us the required information:

  • a number column for the Day Of The Week.
  • a text column for the parent category which is the table header, here named Meal Name. Think of it like Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner.
  • a text column for the individual entries, here named Menu. Think Müsli and Pancakes.
  • and an optional text column for the time of day called Schedule. It will show as a second line in the table header.
cafeteria app requirements

Create a Data Feed with the content for the App

create new data feed

This can be a manual Data Feed on the OnSign TV platform or an outside source like CVS, Google Sheets, and so on. We create a Manual Data Feed.

  1. Column: Day Of The Week
    column day of the week
    The day of the week is a number field. 1.00 represents Sunday, 2.00 Monday, 3.00 Tuesday, and so on.
  2. Column: Meal Name
    column meal name
    The meal name is the table header and is a text field.
  3. Column: Schedule
    The schedule is a line under the table header to give additional information on the column. It is also a text field and the only optional field.
  4. Column: Menu
    The Menu contains all table data under the table header. Separate each entry by a comma.
  5. Populating the Data Feed
    To reflect four times per day, you need four rows with the number 2.00 as the Day of the Week for Monday.

    To fill out your app completely, you need as many rows as you have

    days of the week  X  times per day

    In this case 4 X 7 = 28 rows.
    filled out data feed
    The App will work just the same with less rows. If you don’t have any service on Saturday (Day of the Week = 7.00) or Sunday (Day of the Week = 1.00), these days will be skipped.

Create the Cafeteria App and connect it to the Data Feed

  1. Select New > App > Menu Boards & Tables > Cafeteria App.
  2. Name the App and connect the Cafeteria Data Feed.
    configuring data feed for the cafeteria app
  3. Confirm if the columns are assigned correctly.
  4. Personalize the duration on each page, font, colors, background, labels, language, as well as if only the present day should be shown or the App should rotate through all available days.
  5. Your Cafeteria App is now ready to be published.
cafeteria app with three tables

Expert Tips - Cafeteria App