Overview
Cycle menus let you define a repeating menu pattern (for example, a 4-week cycle rotating as A, B, C, D, A, B, C, D) so that changes to Week A automatically apply to every A week across the school year. This is a powerful time-saver when first building and publishing your menu.
However, once a cycle menu has been published and you begin making week-by-week modifications, the cycling behavior changes. This article explains exactly what happens at each stage and how to work efficiently as your menu evolves.
What Is a Revision?
The first time you edit a published cycle menu, Gaia automatically creates a revision. A revision is a saved draft of your changes. While a revision exists:
The published version of your menu remains live, i.e. public menus and production records have not yet been updated.
Your edits are auto-saved continuously, so you can navigate away and come back without losing work.
From the revision, you have two options:
Discard changes — reverts to the published version, removing all edits in the revision.
Republish — publishes your changes and updates school menus and production records.
Republishing: "All Weeks" vs. "This Week Only"
When you republish a revision on a cycle menu, Gaia asks whether to apply the change to all weeks or this week only.
Update for All Weeks
Applies your change to every matching cycle week (e.g., all A weeks). This preserves the cycle — all affected weeks remain green in the navigation and stay linked to each other.
Update for This Week Only
Applies your change to the selected week only. That week is then taken off-cycle. You will see it marked in orange in the week navigation to indicate it is no longer linked to the rest of the cycle.
What does orange mean? An orange week indicator means that week has been taken off-cycle. It is still published and visible on school menus, but further changes to it will only affect that specific week. |
What Happens When You Edit an Off-Cycle Week?
Once a week is off-cycle (orange), it behaves independently. If you make further changes to that week and republish:
You can only update that specific week and the option to update all weeks is no longer available for it.
All other weeks that are still on-cycle (green) are not affected.
When to Switch to Bulk Actions
As long as most of your weeks remain green (on-cycle), the standard republish workflow works well. However, once you find yourself making frequent substitutions or accumulating many off-cycle weeks, we recommend switching to Bulk Actions instead of republishing.
Why Bulk Actions?
Bulk Actions (Quick Actions → Bulk Actions → Replace Recipes) let you replace a recipe across all selected weeks in a single operation. This achieves the same end result as republishing a cycle change, but without the constraints of cycle status. It works whether your weeks are on-cycle or off-cycle.
Important note on Bulk Actions and cycling Using Bulk Actions will take all affected weeks off-cycle. After using Bulk Actions, each week is treated as its own independent menu week rather than part of a linked cycle. This is expected behavior with the current version of Gaia, and improvements to the cycling architecture are planned for a future release. |
Recommended Workflow
1. Use your cycle menu for initial publishing.
Build the cycle once to avoid copying and pasting the same menu across all weeks.
2. For early, broad changes, use Republish → All Weeks.
While weeks are still green, this keeps the cycle intact.
3. Monitor your week navigation for orange weeks.
A few off-cycle weeks is normal. Many off-cycle weeks is a signal to shift your approach.
4. Once substitutions become frequent, switch to Bulk Actions.
Go to Quick Actions → Bulk Actions → Replace Recipes, then select the weeks you want to update.
Coming soon: Improvements to cycle menu architecture are planned for a future Gaia release. These updates will give you more flexibility to make substitutions and week-specific changes without losing the cycle link. We’ll update this article when those changes roll out.