Special Diet Management System
Centralized allergy management and custom menu planning ensuring safe, compliant meal delivery for students with dietary restrictions across school districts.
Note: Originally developed in FileMaker, this application has been visually reimagined with AI to showcase the user experience and interface design to modern audiences.
The Challenge
Managing hundreds of student medical records and ensuring compliance with special dietary needs was previously handled via paper forms and manual communication between nurses and cafeterias, leading to high risk of error and inconsistent meal service.
Cafeteria staff lacked a simple, reliable way to confirm all a student's allergens or access pre-approved safe menus on demand, creating life-threatening safety risks.
The Digital Asset
We architected a centralized, student-centric Special Diets database that integrates student IDs with medical records, generating a comprehensive digital file for each student. This system automatically pulls menu item information from the inventory system to create pre-approved, item-specific diet letters and alternative menus.
Key Capabilities
- Student-centric allergy dashboard with photo, allergens list, and special instructions
- Automated diet letter generation for nurses and cafeteria supervisors
- Alternative menu planning with approved safe entrée choices
- POS system integration displaying dietary restrictions at point of service
- SharePoint document distribution for centralized retrieval
- Complete audit trail with communication history and archived records
Business Impact
Maximized Student Safety
Single source of truth for all allergens and dietary restrictions, dramatically reducing risk of serving non-compliant meals and ensuring ADA/medical compliance.
Streamlined Communication
Automatically generated diet letters and menu plans replace manual communication, ensuring all stakeholders have identical, current, and approved instructions.
Real-Time POS Integration
Dietary restrictions display immediately when students scan IDs at point of sale, providing a final safety check for cashiers.
Complete Audit Trail
Centralized data captures contacts, dietary requests, and communication history, creating a complete, auditable record for regulatory review.
Technical Highlights
- Platform: FileMaker WebDirect for secure, browser-based access without local software installs
- Integration: Heartland Edison API integration for menu item descriptions, ingredients, and allergen data
- Document Generation: Automated PDF diet letters and menu plans pushed to secure SharePoint directory
- Cross-Referencing: Advanced relational logic cross-referencing student allergens against entire daily menu
- POS Integration: Real-time dietary restriction display on Point of Sale system for cashier alerts
Why FileMaker for Student Safety?
This project demonstrates the power of FileMaker for mission-critical health and safety applications. By centralizing student allergy data and automating safe menu generation, we eliminated manual errors that could have life-threatening consequences.
The result: maximum student safety, complete ADA compliance, and streamlined nurse-cafeteria coordination—all built on FileMaker's rapid development platform with enterprise-grade security and integration capabilities.