Tuicamp: School's cashless payment webapp needs testing

[Daveyon]

I'm building a cashless payment system for UK schools and would like your honest feedback. I'm not a designed, I'm a coder. The website is presentable and should be ok until I nail the concept then move to seek funding but that's few months ahead in the future.

There are two sections to the website:

• Parents/carers
• Schools/Trust.

The website allows schools to receive payments for meals, school trips, items etc from parents. Here are the things it can do:

​

Parent section:

1. Add a child to a school
2. Top-up their account using Stripe (for now)
3. Pre-order future meals: can cancel to change.
4. See what their money was spent on
5. Create pots: A payment pot belongs to a school
6. Update their child dietary requirements

School section:

• Create meals with schedules and dietary requirements
• Create one-off payment items
• Approve/reject a student when added by the parent
• Add more schools (normally a trust would have more than one)
• Process pre-order meals for the day
• Process one-off items
• Invite parents to a school
• Broadcast messages
• Set global debt limit or on a parent basis
• Connect with Wonde to import parents and their child/ren (90% done)

What's not done:

1. Invite staff/canteen members
2. Upload meals in bulk
3. Permissions
4. Accounts Reporting
5. others you may find???

The information I seek is to know whether or not the app is usable for any school that wishes to use a cashless web application. I'm not seeking review for the homepage as that's not ready. There is a demo account but be mindful of the content you enter/upload. If you need to register and have your own account, PM the email address you want to use and I'll bypass the email validation for UK schools.

Thanks
Daveyon

tuicamp.com

 

[eteb3]

I will take a look if I have time. there's defo room for improvement in this market. But here's why the existing offer is so poor:

The idea arose during school runs, hearing from several other parents who were frustrated with the existing cashless apps used by the school for their children...

Parents don't make the purchase decisions! Schools do, and don't necessarily choose the best app even for their own needs. So good idea to get an insider view. Your whole marketing will need to pivot to the actual decision makers if you do proceed.

 

[fisicx]

The app itself isn't important. The UI can be changed to make it simpler for everyone, the problem is going to be integration.

Catering will already have a system to plan and publicise meals. They will not want to repeat everything on your platform. This means you need integration so that meal plans are automatically uploaded. And who is going to take all the pictures?

Kitchen and support staff will need to check who has paid and for what. They will need the tools to do this in seconds. This may well mean additional staff behind the counter with access to a tablet and a fast wifi connection.

Parents will need to login each day and order food. If it's payment in advance where is the money held? You say you want to use stripe but does this go directly to the caterers or via the school? Has a suitable arrangement been negotiated? What happens if a parent forgets? Does the child go hungry?

Can a parent book a meal once mealtimes have begin?

Does the system integrate with the school system so that adding a child is checked against the register? Or is this a manual thing? If so school administrators may no comply (because it's extra duties).

For a system like this to work you need to work out how they are going to use is during the day. Do some practical testing - talk to those who would use the system. Expect to pay for this research.

 

[Daveyon]

Kitchen and support staff will need to check who has paid and for what. They will need the tools to do this in seconds. This may well mean additional staff behind the counter with access to a tablet and a fast wifi connection.

The app is already capable of this. Each morning, canteen staff can see all the orders for the day. There would be few extra clicks to check a student individually.

Can a parent book a meal once mealtimes have begin?

Yes. Also the student. There's a but. I was told schools need the ability to set debt limit. When that is reached, the child cannot make any orders. This part needs clarification but the student can select what they want if their parent/carer forgot to pre-order (both free and paid meals).

Catering will already have a system to plan and publicise meals. They will not want to repeat everything on your platform. This means you need integration so that meal plans are automatically uploaded. And who is going to take all the pictures?

May need to see how caterers work as I had in mind who will be adding the meals etc. For the images, it's there for convenience.

Do some practical testing - talk to those who would use the system

This will be my next step.

 

[fisicx]

The app is already capable of this. Each morning, canteen staff can see all the orders for the day. There would be few extra clicks to check a student individually.

Have you checked how easy this is where there are hundreds of pupils?

Who exactly is going to do the check? The person dishing out the chips or the one doing the fish fingers or the one doing the beans? Or someone else?

It’s not a technology question, it’s the practicalities of the system.

It’s why many schools use prepaid cards. It’s a much simpler system.

 

[eteb3]

May need to see how caterers work

Agree: do you know of schools where meals are pre ordered in this way? If I were a school kitchen it might be useful for knowing quantities to buy, but being on canteen duty at lunchtime convinces me it’s easier to provide what you guess, and if they don’t like it they go hungry.

If you’re serious about this (and you seem to be) I would ask to observe mealtimes at a few schools you know. And make sure one is an ordinarily chaotic one, not your polite PLU.

 

[Daveyon]

Agree: do you know of schools where meals are pre ordered in this way? If I were a school kitchen it might be useful for knowing quantities to buy, but being on canteen duty at lunchtime convinces me it’s easier to provide what you guess, and if they don’t like it they go hungry.

If you’re serious about this (and you seem to be) I would ask to observe mealtimes at a few schools you know. And make sure one is an ordinarily chaotic one, not your polite PLU.

My daughter's school uses ParentPay. I'll ask if I could watch their mealtime and get some hands-on experiences.

 

[Daveyon]

do you know if schools where meals are pre ordered in this way?

Yes. My daughter's school

 

[Daveyon]

Have you checked how easy this is where there are hundreds of pupils?

Who exactly is going to do the check? The person dishing out the chips or the one doing the fish fingers or the one doing the beans? Or someone else?

It’s not a technology question, it’s the practicalities of the system.

It’s why many schools use prepaid cards. It’s a much simpler system.

I guess it's time to visit schools to find out.

 

[bovine]

Are you sure this is something schools would want? Over the years ive had some experience of installing cashless systems in schools (before online topups were a thing)and im currently a primary school governor.
All Secondary schools ive come across have online topups and let the child purchase items in a canteen type environment - no preordering but use an epos solution. Usually using a pos system supplied by the caterer. Child is logged into the pos using cards or biometrics.
Primary schools - certainly at our school this isnt something that would be of benefit, but we only have about 250 pupils, maybe for a larger school it might be of use, but I would imagine they have simpler solutions rather than getting the staff to recall the pupil at the point of sale, thats just not going to be practical in the timeframe.

Also worth considering school budgets are getting hammered and all spending needs to be justified. you really need to do a lot of market research to establish viability in my opinion

 

[Daveyon]

Are you sure this is something schools would want?

Hi and thanks. Not all schools but many schools are adopting to using cashless. It’s definitely not for all schools. However, I need to know the schools that are adopting to or seeking better alternatives. There are big players out that are well established.

Biometrics and other hardware are used to identify a pupil. I’m still at the learning stages.

 

[bovine]

I know schools are cashless and that is something they want, but more specifically is what you're offering what schools want? What separates it from the current options and are you aware of the other functionality and integrations that would be needed by the school offices to make this work?

Looks a bit like you've got the cart before the horse at the moment and if this is something you really want to make a viable business, you need to get a good understanding of what schools actually want and need from this sort of system. The parents needs and wants are quite secondary.

 

[fisicx]

Have you looked at this:

Cashless Catering Systems for Schools – Secure & Efficient

Enhance school meal services with Cashless Catering – easy ordering, secure payments, personalised menus, allergen tracking, and more for public sector organisations.

www.civica.com

There are a number of these and a lot simpler to use than tuicamp.

No need to prebook, no need to identify each pupil and it works with those who get vouchers for school meals.

 

[Daveyon]

Have you looked at this:

Cashless Catering Systems for Schools – Secure & Efficient

Enhance school meal services with Cashless Catering – easy ordering, secure payments, personalised menus, allergen tracking, and more for public sector organisations.

www.civica.com

There are a number of these and a lot simpler to use than tuicamp.

No need to prebook, no need to identify each pupil and it works with those who get vouchers for school meals.

No. I may need a different approach. Pre-ordering is good but my concern is supplying hardwares etc. I'll stop coding and ask to visit schools to get a better understanding.

 

[fisicx]

Pre-ordering isn’t good. Pupils like to choose what to eat on the day just like you and I.

 

[Daveyon]

Pre-ordering isn’t good. Pupils like to choose what to eat on the day just like you and I.

True but some parents like to go through with their child on what to eat. Some like to plan ahead. The website supports both: pre-order and students choose what they want on the day.

 

[fisicx]

But....

You still have the problem in the dining hall of who and how you are going to identify each pupil and what meals were booked.

And if they can choose on the day how are you going to get the money if it's cashless?

 

[Daveyon]

And if they can choose on the day how are you going to get the money if it's cashless?

On the website you'd need to top-up before making the pre-order. Once you've done that, there's a hold on your money. Once the dinner person marks the meal as taken, then the account is debited. If cancelled/missed, that hold is released.

If no money in account and the pupil chooses a meal, then the parent would be in debt with the school. All this would be in some sort of T'c & C's

 

[Daveyon]

You still have the problem in the dining hall of who and how you are going to identify each pupil

Other apps have finger scanner, barcode etc to identify the pupil. This part I need to rethink as currently, someone has to select their name (with image). All this is on the website. I do need to make a video of this process.

 

[fisicx]

On the website you'd need to top-up before making the pre-order. Once you've done that, there's a hold on your money. Once the dinner person marks the meal as taken, then the account is debited. If cancelled/missed, that hold is released.

If no money in account and the pupil chooses a meal, then the parent would be in debt with the school. All this would be in some sort of T'c & C's

Way too complicated. Dining room staff don’t have the time or tools to manage this.

 

[Daveyon]

Way too complicated. Dining room staff don’t have the time or tools to manage this.

I can imagine. I think that’s why other apps has some sort of biometric reader to identify a pupil. This is why I really need to see what a mealtime looks like.

 

[fisicx]

Other apps have finger scanner, barcode etc to identify the pupil. This part I need to rethink as currently, someone has to select their name (with image).

Who is going to do this? There are two actions: identify the pupil and then make sure they get the right food. This means at least two people. And you may be interacting with multiple servers none of whom know what the pupil has ordered.

Consider also drinks are usually self serve so you need someone else to check the pupil has the right drink.

And someone else looking after the snacks and puddings.

When you visit a school to do your research I think you will find your idea isn’t practical.

 

[Daveyon]

I can assure you that other apps are doing just fine. I don’t know what exactly but I’ll find out.

 

[fisicx]

I believe with parentpay you preload the account. The pupil then collects their choice of food and the cashier uses a tablet record the total against the pupils name. It’s just like a cafe but without making an actual payment.

My sister says the scheme they use provides each pupil with a ‘credit card’ that is swiped to identify the pupil.

She said there a tablets and scanners and pos equipment. All provided as part of the package. She seems to recall IT having to install more access points as the WiFi was pants.

 

[eteb3]

Yes. My daughter's school [allows pre ordering meals]

I’ve never heard of this in 20 years of secondary teaching. I doubt many if any secondary schools offer it, because by that age students have learned to be sly and take a meal they haven’t ordered. Unless when they present their card at the servery the dinner person gives them that meal and that meal only. (And that takes precious seconds to extract from the system, as fisicx says)

I say “at the servery” because if the wrong meal is detected only at the till, you have to send the student back, you have conflict, you have some rushing the till to get the meal they want in spite of the challenge, etc. Chaos

 

[Daveyon]

Yes. My daughter's school

Oh no this was a lie. Sorry. ParentPay does not offer pre-ordering. I forgot the name of the other app that does this. I was looking at this last year but what I saw, based on the reviews, parents liked the option of pre-ordering. Should I find it, I'll post it.

 

[Daveyon]

Found it! But not sure how well they are doing. I was looking at this last year as someone off LinkedIn sent me their website.

 

[fisicx]

Schoolgrid has a device for the child to identify themselves and the service staff have a device to see what food has been ordered. Lots of hardware and software needed.

Schoolgrid do the installation and training - it's a lot more than just a website/app.

 

[Daveyon]

Guess I need to rethink; start all over. Oh well...

 

[fisicx]

Every single provider of these services requires hardware. All of them supply the kit as part of the package along with installation and training.

And they need to integrate with the school's IT systems (pupil management and catering). Writing the APIs is rarely simple.

 

[Daveyon]

Yes I will rethink. The idea was to incrementally become a full MIS but I could do something like ClassDojo. Again, it’s back to the drawing board.

 

[eteb3]

Yes: if you want to be an MIS you wouldn’t start by servicing parent needs.

The other thing to be mindful of is that the “incremental” approach can lead to crap-awful software. Eg SIMS, in use in every school I’ve taught in, is (c)1984-2025. Even as a non tech person, you can feel the lumps where module after module was bolted on. It’s terrible, but replacing it is a huge challenge, both for school processes and in terms of the ROI for any biz that wants to try

 

[PaulSmt]

What about Staff/Canteen Roles? You flagged this as undone. Without it, who processes meals or approves kids? Admins can’t do it all—canteen staff need access.

 

[Daveyon]

What about Staff/Canteen Roles? You flagged this as undone. Without it, who processes meals or approves kids? Admins can’t do it all—canteen staff need access.

Hi. Correct. There would be other roles doing that. There would be a section where the school invites these other roles to do that job but I havent got to it as yet. Even so, it would be tiresome to process meals, add meals etc. My only concern is the looking up of student for the meal processing at, say, lunch time.

 

[PaulSmt]

Hi. Correct. There would be other roles doing that. There would be a section where the school invites these other roles to do that job but I havent got to it as yet. Even so, it would be tiresome to process meals, add meals etc. My only concern is the looking up of student for the meal processing at, say, lunch time.

What’s your priority—sticking with WP for now, or breaking free for speed?

 

[Daveyon]

What’s your priority—sticking with WP for now, or breaking free for speed?

What you mean? WP as in WordPress? If so, Im not using WordPress here.