Sync School Lunch Menu to Google Calendar
This automation scrapes a school's monthly lunch menu from the SchoolCafe website and automatically adds each day's menu as an event to a specified Google Calendar. It includes a feature to prevent creating duplicate events if the automation is run multiple times.
This automation streamlines the process of keeping track of school lunch menus by putting them directly into your digital calendar. Here’s how it works:
- Navigates to the Menu: The automation opens the
SchoolCafewebsite and navigates to the monthly menu page for your school district. - Selects Your Menu: It then programmatically selects your specified school, grade, meal type (Lunch), and serving line to display the correct menu.
- Scrapes Menu Data: The automation intelligently reads the on-screen calendar, extracting the menu items for each day of the current month. It can also be configured to grab next month's menu if it's available.
- Connects to Google Calendar: Using a secure integration, it connects to your Google account.
- Checks for Duplicates: To avoid clutter, the automation first checks your calendar for any events it has already created for the same dates and menu items.
- Creates Calendar Events: For each new menu day, it creates a new event in your chosen Google Calendar. The event title is the main entree, and the description contains a full list of that day's menu items.
The result is an up-to-date calendar with daily lunch menus, saving you the time of checking the website manually.
Usage Ideas
- For parents: Automatically populate a shared family calendar with your child's daily lunch menu to simplify meal planning.
- For individuals with dietary needs: Keep track of daily cafeteria options while automatically filtering out items you need to avoid.
- For school staff: Quickly create a digital, shareable version of the monthly menu for easy reference.
Customization Ideas
This template is designed to be easily adapted to your specific needs. You have the flexibility to:
- Choose any school that uses the SchoolCafe platform.
- Specify the exact grade level and serving line (e.g., "Traditional Lunch", "Vegetarian") to get the right menu.
- Target any Google Calendar you have access to, such as a personal, work, or shared family calendar.
- Set a custom start time and duration for the lunch events to match your schedule.
- Create an exclusion list of menu items to ignore, which is perfect for managing allergies or dietary preferences.
- Choose your timezone to ensure events appear at the correct local time.
- Decide whether to include next month's menu, allowing you to plan further ahead.
Agent Inputs
Required Parameters
Name | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
calendarName | string | None |
Name of the Google Calendar to create events in (must match an existing calendar) | ||
grade | string | None |
Grade level to select (e.g., '02', 'K', '05') | ||
schoolName | string | None |
Name of the school to search for in SchoolCafe (e.g., 'Isabella Bird') | ||
Optional Parameters
Name | Type | Default |
|---|---|---|
eventDuration | number | 30 |
Event duration in minutes | ||
eventStartTime | string | 11:00 |
Event start time in HH:MM 24-hour format (e.g., '11:00' for 11 AM) | ||
excludePatterns | array<string> | ['bonzo butter', 'peanut butter.*jelly sandwich'] |
Regex patterns for menu items to exclude (e.g., 'peanut butter' excludes items containing that text) | ||
includeNextMonth | boolean | true |
Set to true to also extract and create events for next month's menu | ||
servingLine | string | Traditional Lunch |
Lunch serving line option to select | ||
timezone | string | America/Denver |
Timezone for calendar events in IANA format (e.g., 'America/Denver') | ||
