In this guide:

1. To create, edit, or publish a new menu, start by clicking "Menus" on the left corner of the screen. This will open the menu management section where you can begin working on your new or existing menus

2. Click the icon on the lower right corner to access the recipe book. This will bring up all the recipes stored in your pantry for easy selection and management.

3. The Recipe book allows you to search by menu name, public name, and other tags & attributes.

4. You can also sort by the five NSLP food groups. For example, you can narrow down to "Entree" recipes by selecting "Grain" and "Meat" to filter the recipe options accordingly.

5. Select the desired recipe and drag it to the appropriate date.

6. You can add items to the menu by clicking "+ Add item" or hovering over a Category name (e.g., Milk) and selecting the + button. This method lets you focus on the chosen category and date, adding multiple items consecutively from the recipe book.

7. Gaia lets you copy one or more recipes across multiple days and weeks. Select an item by clicking the left mouse button, and hold the Ctrl key + left-click to multi-select. After selecting, right-click and choose "Copy to" from the menu. For example, you can add milk options to the first day and copy them to all other days.

8. Click on "+ Add menu" to proceed and select the desired menu(s) to copy to.

9. Click "+ Add school" to assign selected items to a specific school. Choose "General" to apply changes to all schools, or select individual schools to copy the items to specific locations.

10. Click "+ Add day" to choose specific days to copy items to. This option is only available if the selected recipes are from the same day. If copying recipes across multiple days or the entire menu, only "+ Add week" will be available, applying the selection to the same days in the new week (e.g., Monday's recipes stay on Monday).

11. Use the date picker to select the desired day(s) or week(s).

12. Click "Copy to menus" to apply the changes to the selected menus and dates.

13. Gaia also allows you to create combos, which is useful for designing nutritional meals that comply with USDA nutritional standards. This feature helps ensure that the meals meet the required guidelines while maintaining variety and balance in the menu.

14. Gaia allows you to create combos, which is useful for paired recipes or optional sides. Combos display both individual and combined nutrition info for the included recipes, eliminating the need to maintain multiple versions.

15. Select the desired items you wish to combine into a combo. Right-click and choose "Create Combo" from the menu to bundle the items together.

16. Your menu will become "Compliant" and ready to be published once it meets all nutritional standards.

17. Once you are ready to publish, click on "Edit Mode". A drop down menu will appear where you can switch between draft, published, and archived versions of the menu.

18. Click "Discard" to dismiss changes or "Publish" to apply changes to all relevant school menus and production records.

19. On cycle menus, changes can be applied to a specific week or published to all future cycle weeks. Publishing sends notifications to all impacted schools and updates production records and public-facing menus like websites and digital boards.

There are a few ways to control service availability on a given day.

District-wide off days

District-level days off — days when no schools are serving — are configured in Settings by the Gaia team and are not currently user-accessible. To add or remove a district-wide off day, please contact Gaia support.

Disabling service via the general menu (all schools)

Alternatively, you can disable service for all schools on a specific day by navigating to that day on the general menu and selecting "Disable Service."

Disabling service for specific schools only

If only some schools are closed on a given day, you can disable service at the school level instead:

Schools that are not modified will continue to show their regular menu for that day.