Meal Planner for Elderly Care Homes

A digital meal ordering system for elderly care homes, built with Payload CMS 3.x and Next.js 15. This application digitizes the paper-based workflow where caregivers collect meal preferences from residents and kitchen staff prepare meals.

Features

• Multi-tenant architecture: Each care home operates as a separate tenant with isolated data
• Role-based access control: Super-admin, tenant admin, caregiver, and kitchen staff roles
• Meal order management: Support for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with customizable options
• Kitchen dashboard: Aggregated ingredient reports for meal preparation
• Tablet-friendly caregiver interface: Touch-optimized UI for creating meal orders
• Resident management: Track dietary requirements, aversions, and special notes

Tech Stack

• Next.js 15 - React framework with App Router
• Payload CMS 3.65 - Headless CMS with admin panel
• SQLite - Database (easily upgradeable to PostgreSQL)
• TypeScript - Type safety
• SCSS - Styling

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• pnpm (recommended) or npm

Installation

# Clone the repository
git clone <repository-url>
cd meal-planner

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Copy environment variables
cp .env.example .env

# Start development server with seeding
SEED_DB=true pnpm dev

The application will be available at http://localhost:3000.

Default Users

The seed script creates the following users:

Email	Password	Role	Access
admin@example.com	test	Super Admin	Full system access
caregiver@example.com	test	Caregiver	Create/view meal orders
kitchen@example.com	test	Kitchen	View orders, update status, reports

Application Structure

URLs

• /admin - Payload CMS admin panel
• /admin/kitchen-dashboard - Kitchen ingredient report dashboard
• /caregiver/login - Caregiver login page
• /caregiver/dashboard - Caregiver main dashboard
• /caregiver/orders/new - Create new meal order
• /caregiver/orders - View meal orders
• /caregiver/residents - View residents list

Data Model

Collections

Tenants (Care Homes)

• name - Care home name
• slug - URL-friendly identifier
• domain - Optional custom domain
• address - Physical address
• phone - Contact phone

Users

Global roles:

• super-admin - Full system access
• user - Standard user (access based on tenant roles)

Tenant roles:

• admin - Full access within tenant
• caregiver - Create and manage meal orders
• kitchen - View orders, update status, generate reports

Residents

• name - Full name
• room - Room number
• table - Table assignment
• station - Ward/station
• highCaloric - High caloric diet flag
• aversions - Food aversions
• notes - Additional notes
• active - Active status

Meal Orders

Core fields:

• resident - Reference to resident
• date - Order date
• mealType - breakfast, lunch, or dinner
• status - pending, preparing, or prepared
• createdBy - User who created the order

Conditional meal options (based on mealType):

• Breakfast: Bread types, spreads, beverages, additions
• Lunch: Portion size, soup, dessert, special preparations
• Dinner: Bread, spreads, soup, beverages, additions

Access Control Matrix

Operation	Super Admin	Tenant Admin	Caregiver	Kitchen
Manage users	All	Own tenant	No	No
Manage tenants	All	Own tenant	No	No
View residents	All	Own tenant	Own tenant	Own tenant
Manage residents	All	Own tenant	No	No
Create orders	All	Own tenant	Own tenant	No
View orders	All	Own tenant	Own tenant	Own tenant
Update orders	All	Own tenant	Own pending only	Status only
Delete orders	All	Own tenant	No	No
Kitchen reports	All	Own tenant	No	Own tenant

Kitchen Dashboard

The kitchen dashboard (/admin/kitchen-dashboard) provides:

1. Date and meal type selection
2. Aggregated ingredient counts for all orders
3. Portion size breakdown (for lunch)
4. Total order count

API Endpoint

GET /api/meal-orders/kitchen-report?date=YYYY-MM-DD&mealType=breakfast|lunch|dinner

Response:

{
  "date": "2024-01-15",
  "mealType": "breakfast",
  "totalOrders": 45,
  "ingredients": {
    "breadRoll": 32,
    "butter": 40,
    "coffee": 38
  },
  "labels": {
    "breadRoll": "Bread Roll (Brötchen)",
    "butter": "Butter",
    "coffee": "Coffee (Kaffee)"
  }
}

Caregiver Interface

The tablet-optimized caregiver interface provides:

1. Dashboard: Today's order statistics and quick actions
2. New Order Flow:
   • Step 1: Select date and meal type
   • Step 2: Select resident
   • Step 3: Configure meal options
   • Step 4: Review and submit
3. Orders List: Filter by date and meal type
4. Residents List: Search and view dietary requirements

Development

Scripts

pnpm dev          # Start development server
pnpm build        # Build for production
pnpm start        # Start production server
pnpm seed         # Run database seed
pnpm generate:types  # Generate TypeScript types

Database

The application uses SQLite by default (meal-planner.db). To migrate to PostgreSQL:

1. Install the PostgreSQL adapter: pnpm add @payloadcms/db-postgres
2. Update payload.config.ts:

   import { postgresAdapter } from '@payloadcms/db-postgres'
   
   db: postgresAdapter({
     pool: { connectionString: process.env.DATABASE_URI }
   }),
   

3. Set DATABASE_URI in .env

Environment Variables

PAYLOAD_SECRET=your-secret-key-here
SEED_DB=true  # Set to seed database on startup

Domain-Based Tenant Selection

For domain-based tenant routing, add entries to /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 sunny-meadows.localhost

Project Structure

src/
├── access/                    # Access control utilities
├── app/
│   ├── (app)/                 # Caregiver frontend
│   │   ├── caregiver/
│   │   │   ├── login/         # Login page
│   │   │   ├── dashboard/     # Dashboard
│   │   │   ├── orders/        # Orders list and create
│   │   │   └── residents/     # Residents list
│   │   └── index.scss         # Frontend styles
│   └── (payload)/             # Payload admin
│       └── admin/views/       # Custom admin views
├── collections/
│   ├── Tenants/               # Care homes
│   ├── Users/                 # Users with roles
│   ├── Residents/             # Resident information
│   └── MealOrders/            # Meal orders
├── utilities/                 # Helper functions
├── payload.config.ts          # Payload configuration
└── seed.ts                    # Database seeding

Seed Data

The seed script creates:

• 1 care home (Sunny Meadows Care Home)
• 3 users (admin, caregiver, kitchen)
• 8 residents with varied dietary requirements
• 24 meal orders across different dates and meal types

License

MIT