What It Is
Every menu plan has a week shape: which day it starts on, and how many days it runs. Gaia supports any run of 3 to 7 consecutive days, so a menu plan can match a 4-day school week, a 6-day service schedule, a standard Monday through Friday week, or a full Sunday through Saturday week.
Setting the Week Shape
On Menu Plan Settings, two fields set the shape:
Week starts on: the first service day of the week.
Days per week: how many consecutive days the week runs, from 3 to 7.
Only combinations that fit inside one Sunday through Saturday span are offered, so you won't be able to pick a start day and length that would run past Saturday.
The week shape is set when you create the menu plan and can't be changed afterward. If you need a different shape, create a new menu plan.
Where the Week Length Applies
Once set, everything that touches the menu plan follows its week length automatically: the planning grid, the public menu, copy and shopping dialogs, production records, and central kitchen orders all show only the days in that plan's week.
If a page aggregates more than one menu plan at once, like Production Records or Central Kitchen Orders when several plans of different lengths serve the same schools, it shows the combined span across all of them rather than any single plan's shape.
Nutrient Analysis and Compliance
The weighted and daily nutrient analysis already averages over the actual number of service days, so a 4-day week's average divides by 4, not 5.
Weekly NSLP and SBP compliance checks the correct USDA minimums and maximums for the plan's actual week length, not the standard 5-day numbers. A 4-day week is graded against the 4-day minimums, a 6-day week against the 6-day numbers, and so on.