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What's lunch without a tag cloud?
Posted by David Greiner on March 4, 2009 12:14 PM
For the last year or so we've been providing free catered lunches for the Freshview team. We don't provide a certain type of meal in bulk, instead every team member can order whatever they feel like that day. As you can imagine, the logistics for this can get quite complex, so I wanted to share our latest innovations in lunch management.
As part of our annual internship program, an intern will often start working on an internal app to get familiar with our development environment, coding practices, etc. This year, star intern Andrew Canby was given the task of overhauling our current lunch ordering system. This is no easy task either, hell hath no fury like 12 hungry nerds so bugs or downtime are no an option!
Andrew came up with some great innovations. I'm fairly confident this is the sweetest lunch ordering system on the planet. Here's a screenshot of the finished product right after I just submitted my order for today.
Like the other internal apps we use, the lunch ordering system is only a click away from any page on our Intranet.
The ping pong application was the brainchild of our other intern Pete, and I'll be sharing the details of that one in an upcoming post.
Inspiring your stomach
The hardest part about lunch each day is deciding what you feel like eating. Sometimes you have the perfect meal in you head, but other days your stomach isn't dropping any hints. To give you some ideas, the app shows you exactly what everyone else in the team has ordered today. With a single click, you can copy their order, make any tweaks and order away. Here's Ben's latest order history. I chose him because he's probably the healthiest eater in the office.
As well as checking out what others are eating today, you can look at their entire order history. Maybe you liked the look of that lamb wrap Jason was eating on Friday. Two clicks and the same wrap will be ready for you by lunch time.
Brainstorm with the tag cloud
I was a little skeptical about this idea at first, but it's been extremely handy. There's a small tag cloud showing the most popular items ordered by the team to date. Here's a sample of what's been popular of late. Aren't we a healthy bunch!
By clicking on any of the words, we'll show a range of popular orders that item has been included in. Say you feel like something with chicken in it. Click on that word and the following suggestions are displayed.
Click on the meal that looks best, customize it any way you like and your order is done.
Suggest as you type
If you don't want to rely on others for inspiration, you can just start typing your order. Almost instantly, similar options around the items you've entered will be suggested. You might enter turkey and avocado and be presented with the most popular orders to date that have included both of these ingredients. Very cool.
Processing the orders
The daily order cut-off is 11am, and if you haven't submitted an order by 10am, you'll get a reminder email just in case. After the cut-off, the days orders are written to a static HTML page which is then automatically faxed to the local caterer.
The caterer prepares all the meals fresh and then hand delivers them individually wrapped with that team members name on it at 12.30 each day. The whole thing runs like clockwork, so a big thanks to Andrew for a job well done.
Wayde Christie
wrote on March 4, 2009 12:41 PM
Too much time on your hands!
Dave Greiner
wrote on March 4, 2009 1:01 PM
I'd have to disagree with you there Wayde, you can never dedicate too much time to food.
Wayde Christie
wrote on March 4, 2009 1:14 PM
Awesome though (I should've added). Any possibility you might outsource this baby? :)
Steven Hambleton
wrote on March 4, 2009 2:46 PM
Don't you have to pay Fringe Benefit Tax on company provided lunches?
Dave Greiner
wrote on March 4, 2009 2:48 PM
Good question Steve, we did seek tax advice on that. Turns out we don't have to pay FBT and the expenses are tax deductible. We can also claim an input tax credit on the GST paid.
Luke Stevens
wrote on March 4, 2009 3:09 PM
That is fantastic. So efficient! Nerd-dom at it's finest. I predict this whole email marketing thing will be just a blip when the full power of tag-based lunch ordering 2.0 is unleashed ;)
christy
wrote on March 5, 2009 4:15 AM
I think I am going to cry, only because where I live all my lunch options include pizza, fast food and variations thereof. Tandoori chicken salad?! Really?!! *Sob*
Jamie Appleseed
wrote on March 5, 2009 7:42 AM
Ingenious!
And kudos to your caterer for being so freakin' amazing - their options seem pretty darn great.. and this just blew me away:
"The caterer prepares all the meals fresh and then hand delivers them individually wrapped with that team members name on it at 12.30 each day."
Now that's what I call service - how much do you tip those guys!?
Coral Teale
wrote on March 6, 2009 4:09 PM
Are there any firewalls put in place to protect from Coral Baldy?
Trent Agnew
wrote on March 6, 2009 4:11 PM
To be honest I am little disappointed with the lack of dips and chips on the menu
Trent Agnew
wrote on March 6, 2009 4:11 PM
To be honest I am little disappointed with the lack of dips and chips on the menu
Ryan Tarran
wrote on March 6, 2009 4:12 PM
Where are all the protein shakes???
alrasbi
wrote on March 8, 2009 3:39 PM
How do you choose the meal? Do you just type?
Travis Bell
wrote on March 10, 2009 9:10 AM
Yup, we just type in whatever we want OR, browse the other guys choices in the office and grab one of those. It's pretty interactive... afterall, the whole mantra is "I'm hungry for..."
:-P
Gilbert
wrote on March 11, 2009 8:37 PM
I'm stunned! :)
Aaron
wrote on March 13, 2009 9:00 AM
This lunch ordering app is pretty sweet, but I'm actually more interested in your Ping Pong Tournament App....We are avid players in our office and would love more info on this. Thanks!
Dave Greiner
wrote on March 19, 2009 12:21 PM
Aaron, glad to hear. Stay tuned for a big post on our new ping pong tournament app in the next week or two.
Mark Mansour
wrote on April 1, 2009 9:54 AM
wow!! that's pretty awesome... would love to find out more about the application and the caterer.. would you have be able to create an iPhone or BlackBerry application to sync with?? :-)
Matt Barnett
wrote on April 8, 2009 2:01 AM
I've got a fever and the only cure is more ping pong. Looking forward to seeing the app.
Matt J.
wrote on April 8, 2009 5:32 AM
Stunning. That may be one of the most ridiculously awesome web apps (and employee benefits) I've ever seen. If I didn't live in another country, I'd be sending my resume. Can't wait to hear about your other internal apps!
ib
wrote on April 8, 2009 9:05 AM
so when can we access this from our CM interface... and do you deliver to bangalow?
Zos Collaga
wrote on April 8, 2009 9:10 AM
Fantastic - this solves several lunch related issues, agree with the iPhone/BB alternatives. Keep up the excellent work!
Jen Germann
wrote on April 8, 2009 1:01 PM
Great. Now I'm hungry! Thanks a lot!
Seriously, this is outstanding work. Gotta love interns!!
Britt
wrote on August 18, 2009 2:50 PM
Wow! That is absolutely AMAZING!! I would love to work for a company like that. Such innovators... revolutionaries even. I love it!!
That would help my day so much... you guys are on top of it!!
Samual
wrote on November 10, 2009 7:36 AM
What are you guys using in the following image: http://www.freshview.com/images/blog/lunch/menu.png
Looks like a cool web application.
Dave Greiner
wrote on January 27, 2010 4:18 PM
Samual, we're using an older version of Clearspace by Jive Software. We've made some of our own customizations.
Got anything to add?