Notification Letters

Notification Letters

This screen handles both Notification and Direct Certified letters.

Whenever you enter new applications or make changes to existing applications, be sure to run Unprinted letters (Notification and/or Direct Certified) from the General tab.

How does it determine if a letter needs to be printed/emailed?

A letter is generated every time a status or application date is changed.
- When a change is made, it marks that application as Unprinted.
- Then when the letter is printed (and you click Yes on closing the preview screen), it sets it to Printed.

There will be one letter for each household with each student’s name and status listed.
- If it is an adverse change, it will give an effective date based on the settings in Meal Benefit Expiration.

Please review Letter Setup and Language Setup before you print letters.

What determines if it prints a Direct Certified or Notification Letter?

If any student in the household is marked as Direct Certified (and is not a Foster child):
- It will print a Direct Certified letter listing all the status 2 students in the household, whether Direct Certified is checked or not on the additional students. It will also include any Foster children that are on the same application, even if they are not direct certified. This is done to allow printing one letter per household for all students who have the same status.
- If any students are Direct Certified-Reduced (status 3), it will print a separate a Direct Certified letter for those students.

If a new student is added to a Direct Certified household, it will print a new letter listing all the students’ names.
If there is a Direct Certified Foster Child, but none of the non-foster students on the application are Direct Certified:
- It will print a Direct Certified letter for the foster child and a Notification letter for the other students (since foster Direct Certification does not extend to other family members).

If a Direct Certified household declines benefits, it will print a Notification Letter stating the reason and date of the adverse change.

GENERAL

Select the Letter Type (Notification or Direct Certified).
Select Unprinted or Printed:
- Select Unprinted if you want to run letters that have not been done yet. (Unprinted means there has been a change and a new letter has not been printed yet.)
- Select Printed if you want to reprint a batch of letters.

Enter the date of the letter in the Date of Letter field. This will print on the letter.
Select ALL users or a single user name from the User dropdown list.
Enter an amount in the Max # of letters to print text field. You do not need to enter anything here unless you need to limit the number of letters to be sent at one time to the printer.

SELECT BY

Application Date is the date that was entered on the Household screen.
Process Date is the date the application was actually entered.

FILTER BY

Select Active, Withdrawn or Both from the Status dropdown list.
If you only want to print a letter for one student, enter the student number in the Student # text field.
Check the Adverse change only box to print letters just for students who have had an adverse change to their status. You can then create an Export file to use for notifying non-adverse changes using an automated phone system.
Check CEP/Provision 2, Traditional or Both from the Provision Type section to filter to only print letters per provision type.

SORT BY

Parent Lastname, Firstname sorts by head of household name.
Zipcode of Address 3, Parent Lastname, Firstname can be used if you are mailing the letters by zip code.
Student SiteID, Teacher, Lastname, Firstname can be used if you distribute the letters in the classroom. It will use the first student in each household for sorting.
Check Show Site Name to include each child’s school listed along with their name.
Click Print to see a preview of the letters on the screen.
Click Email to email the meal status letter a parent/guardian.
- Users can email any letter that is here.
- Click Yes to email the letters or No to cancel.
  - A status bar will display as emails are being sent.
  - Users are prompted after emails are sent to manually print any letters that were undeliverable (user has bad or blank email addresses).
    - An Unsubscribe option is available so Parents/Guardians can opt out of certain Student Eligibility letters types being emailed if they would like. If a Parents/Guardians unsubscribes, their letter will be printed to be mailed.
  - Printed/Unprinted Letters will be updated when letters are emailed successfully.
  - Letters are emailed to the email address entered in the Head of Household Email field of the Modify Existing Application screen.
  - Security preference is required and can be turned on/off under SYS: Security: User Group Setup.
Click the printer icon at the top of the preview screen to send the job to the printer.
- When you close the preview, it will ask if the letters printed successfully. If you click Yes, it will set the applications to Printed and update the letter history.

MANUAL REPRINT

Use this option if you would like to reprint letters that have already been printed (with Yes to update history) from the General tab.

You will get a list of applications where you can check one or more to reprint.

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www.mealsplus.com

Student Eligibility, revised 7/2018