By Pamela Moore
Florida A&M University (FAMU) Business and Auxiliary Services (BAS) has gone live with the Student Meal Plan Portal. New and existing students now have access to the new portal.
The Meal Plan Portal provides centralized, 24/7 access to all Rattler Card services.
“Providing contactless options is very important due to the pandemic,” said Rattler Card Office Manager Vidal Ray. “The Meal Plan Portal gives students the ability to manage their meal plans, and other Rattler Card services, without having to come into the Rattler Card Office.”
Students have the ability to sign-up for meal plans with real-time, immediate access to begin using their meal plan, even after hours when the Rattler Card Office is closed.
“Being able to improve the student meal plan management experience was a key factor in moving to the Meal Plan Portal,” said Chasity Brown, assistant director for technology, marketing and communications at BAS. “This new system also reduces the indirect and direct costs involved in the meal plan business process.”
The Meal Plan Portal provides several other benefits to both students and staff.
- Students are allowed to make direct changes to their meal during the first week of classes without visiting the Rattler Card Office.
- Restrictions are automatically set based on eligibility at sign-up, which reduces erroneous sign-ups.
- Students tagged as mandatory and enrolled will automatically default to a meal plan if not signed up by the deadline.
- Business processes are no longer manual for meal plan changes, daily activations and posting charges.
“Implementation of the Meal Plan Portal was a huge undertaking and involved working as a team with other departments over several months to make it happen,” said Brown. “Information Technology Services (ITS), as well as Student Services, played a significant role in managing the processes to interface the Meal Plan Portal with our current systems.”
Students living on-campus and off-campus are eligible to enroll in a meal plan but must be enrolled in classes. The Summer Meal Plans are available for sign-up using the Meal Plan Portal.
To sign up for a meal plan, students may visit the Rattler Card website – rattlercard.famu.edu.
For assistance with the Meal Plan Portal, students may contact the Rattler Card Office at (850) 599-8366 or via email at rattlercard@famu.edu. For more details about meal plan programs, please visit www.metzfamu.com.
