Free School Meals Email - Anyone had it yet?

[southhamster]

Still having problems here. Our administrator has spent the last 3 days trying to do this. She even resorted to inputting some by hand, but today she still has "pending". edendred support is constantly engaged and she is getting very fed up! Trouble is, if this is not done, it will have a real effect on people who are already struggling.

[Mkjarred]

Still having problems here. Our administrator has spent the last 3 days trying to do this. She even resorted to inputting some by hand, but today she still has "pending". edendred support is constantly engaged and she is getting very fed up! Trouble is, if this is not done, it will have a real effect on people who are already struggling.

 

Same here. It’s been at pending for 3 days

[fiza]

Same here - pending for 2 days. On the order history page where you check your order and go into it there is an Approve button. Do we need to click this? I have tried but get an error.

[resin1]

Same issues already reported - even simple small csv upload keeps spinning. Might be right re. Smoothwall but haven't tried. And same error on Approval no matter how many times tried for a "pending" order.

Gov is facing a major embarrassment here. Don't see these as teething troubles - the provider's technology cannot cope with the load and with the current situation, provider simply doesn't have enough staff to cope with the support queries, so is simply not responding. Gov should have put their eggs in more than one basket and shared the load. Wonde have a working platform that could have probably done the job much more effectively, but for whatever reasons are not approved. One of these cases where we can only hope someone waves a magic technology wand over the weekend, and it stops creaking. Otherwise we will all be continuing to fend off enquiries from desperate households that think each school is dragging their heels!

Edited April 9, 2020 by resin1

[Sylv3r]

Our order we placed on the 1st April finally got delivered to parents this morning.

 

For those contemplating ringing their support - supposedly it's premium rate number and some schools have been left with an £80 bill just on hold !

[Primus]

Just a heads up for G Suite schools - the default Google antispam filter is catching the voucher emails from Edenred since their domain doesn't have SPF etc setup.

[HPlum78]

It's a poor do for a company that is going to be essentially mass mailing not to have those records in place, also looking at the whole process there seems to be to many parts that require a soft mussy bags of organs (human) intervention. They need to get on it pronto. Maybe someone in the IT department needs to take a look at MX toolbox and use the spf/ dmarc record creator tools and checkers!

[southhamster]

Still the smae problem of orders "pending". Our administrator contacted the helpline and apparently they are "upgrading their system" and it should all be ok after the weekend.

Looks like that Intel celeron server with 2GB RAM wasn't powerful enough after all....

[resin1]

Oh yes - site now says "Your platform is temporarily offline. We will be back up and running as soon as possible." Let's see how temporary that is.

 

Am curious about the Gmail antispam comment - are you implying that you are getting the vouchers sent to the pupils' school e-mail accounts, rather than direct to their parent/guardian e-mails? And is it consistent - like every single one ends up in the Spam folder?

[southhamster]

09:55 and the admin login page won't even load reliably.

All the signs of a server buckling under load.

This is really not good enough.

People will go hungry because of this.

[fiza]

09:55 and the admin login page won't even load reliably.

All the signs of a server buckling under load.

This is really not good enough.

People will go hungry because of this.

Same here.

[resin1]

Well I managed to get in. Waited patiently as I stepped through and as it creaked to get me to the point of accessing our first pending order. Waited even more patiently as the order page refreshed enough simply to be able to tick acceptance of T&Cs and hit Approve. Waited and waited until, yes, exactly the same error. Looks like they need to shut the site down until they can fully resolve this, or simply accept they don't have a viable platform and hold their hands up to the Gov to make alternate arrangements!

[fiza]

@resin1 after your post I tried again and as you say the site creaks along but I did manage to login and click the approve button. This time it took about 3 minutes but the status has changed to paid. Athough the site is still creaking and hasn't finished loading, I can see the order status has changed to paid. Progress of sorts!!! Edited April 14, 2020 by fiza

[Reverend_Dan]

Just ran an o365 email audit for the couple of students where we have used their school email for the vouchers as the parents don't have an email or access. There is nothing, nothing in our spam filters. These are orders that are saying processed and finalised last Tuesday on the 7th. Also still getting the contact our administrator on the other orders and the printable vouchers ones.

I think it could be useful for everyone to start using the same hashtag on twitter to get it trending as it doesn't seem to be getting much press

[fiza]

Just ran an o365 email audit for the couple of students where we have used their school email for the vouchers as the parents don't have an email or access. There is nothing, nothing in our spam filters. These are orders that are saying processed and finalised last Tuesday on the 7th. Also still getting the contact our administrator on the other orders and the printable vouchers ones.

I think it could be useful for everyone to start using the same hashtag on twitter to get it trending as it doesn't seem to be getting much press

Happy to do the Twitter thing. Which hashtag would you suggest? I have Tweeted using #freeschoolmeals but had no traction.

[southhamster]

A lot of trustpilot reviews with the same kind of problems but from parents too, so it's not just admins.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/edenred.co.uk

 

I don't have an account but I wonder if the register https://www.theregister.co.uk/ would be interested?

[Ex-MGSTech]

My wife's school her submissions have now changed from pending to paid, week one worked and we'll see what happens to this weeks!

[fiza]

We have just received an email from DfE confirming that the Edenred website has had issues.

 

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[TD]During the course of the last week, orders placed within the Edenred system were higher than anticipated. This had an impact on the performance and experience.[/TD]

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[TD]Our teams have been working day and night through the Easter weekend to process orders and develop the system capability and performance for the weeks ahead. Improvements are being applied every day.[/TD]

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[TD]Paid orders - All existing orders with status ‘paid’ continued to be processed over the course of the Bank Holiday weekend. These will all have been completed, with emails sent direct to families or as, stock eCodes issued to schools by 8pm this evening.[/TD]

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[TD]ACTION: we respectfully request that schools who have already placed an order (which has been processed and sent) and who do not have an immediate requirement for eCodes this week, to not access the service.[/TD]

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[TD]Working closely with the Department for Education and in partnership with you, if we can balance the load on the system, we can provide a consistent and constant flow of essential support through to families.[/TD]

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[TD]Here are a few simple steps on the best way to engage with the platform over the next few weeks.[/TD]

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[TD]Processing pending orders[/TD]

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[TD]A number of schools were unable to complete their order through the checkout process – these orders are now in the system with status ‘pending’.[/TD]

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[TD]From Tuesday morning, the system can now be accessed to complete the order process, but we ask this is done in a controlled and phased structure to maximise the speed and experience for everyone. Therefore, we respectfully request that you consider accessing the platform to confirm pending orders in the following way:[/TD]

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1. If the order is for a future release, after w/c 20th April, please do not submit this order until 4 calendar days before the due date
   
2. If the order is for release on or before Friday 17th April, please access the platform to confirm the order. These orders will then be processed and the associated eCodes distributed.
   

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[TD]Simplifying future order process[/TD]

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[TD]Ordering a single eCode to cover a longer time period[/TD]

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[TD]The Department for Education has agreed to allow schools to place an order for a family to cover a period of up to four weeks in one order (£60 instead of £15 on a four weekly cycle or £30 for a two weekly cycle), thereby reducing the administration burden on schools and further reducing the volume of visitors in the ordering platform at any one time. This will make a significant difference to your experience. When deciding the length of the eCode period, schools should consider what is appropriate for the family.[/TD]

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[TD]Ordering a single eCode to cover more than one eligible child[/TD]

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[TD]Please also order a combined eCode for eligible children in the same household, for example a family with three eligible children could receive an eCode for £180 to cover a four-week period, or £90 to cover a two-week period, instead of 3 individual £15 eCodes per child, per week. This would significantly reduce the number of orders and eCodes being processed, whilst also reducing school administration, so improving the speed at which the system can process all orders.[/TD]

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[TD]To start the process, and again to balance the load on the system, for this week, we request that only orders required for release this week and next week are placed on the system initially adhering to the guidance set out. Orders required for release w/c 27th can be placed on the system from w/c 20th April.[/TD]

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[TD]We’ll be continuing to carefully manage the service and capacity over the coming week and therefore can confirm that the site will be open between the hours of 8am and 10pm.[/TD]

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[TD]We thank you for your continued patience. We appreciate it has been challenging to have a new process implemented very quickly. We’d also like to thank you in advance for your support in adhering to the guidance and the new instructions outlined in this communication. We are confident working in this way will enable support to get to families in a faster and more timely manner.[/TD]

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[TD]Kind regards,[/TD]

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[resin1]

Yes - saw that earlier. I'm giving up for today. Have a pending test order that is small with only 3 pupils on it, that falls into the "on or before 17/4" category. Have tried 3 times today and it still gives an approval error every single time.

With no support available, there is no way to be sure whether the error is for another reason. So until, and IF, it goes through successfully, I'll never know.

The fact that some appear to be having success makes me think there is something wrong with it, but it all looks fine when I check it.

I'm certainly not about to call them up and sit in a queue for hours to then be told "keep trying". So will see if any different tomorrow.

[GrumbleDook]

Just a heads up for G Suite schools - the default Google antispam filter is catching the voucher emails from Edenred since their domain doesn't have SPF etc setup.

 

This has been pointed out to them. Is it any better now?

[Reverend_Dan]

#fsmvouchers seems to have the most pull at the moment.

 

Im now getting another error trying to submit this weeks

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Expiry date - Invalid date format. Format required: dd/MM/yyyy

dd-MM-yyyy or dd.MM.yyyy / Email template id - Does not match an email template id that we have in the system

Edited April 14, 2020 by Reverend_Dan

[Primus]

This has been pointed out to them. Is it any better now?

 

Well I got an initially very positive response from a senior member of the G Suite UK team, the promise of a follow up etc only to receive the follow up be a brush off. I forwarded this to said senior member of the G Suite team and have subsequently heard nothing so I'm going with nope.

 

The issue is Edenred's email isn't setup correctly - it's lacking SPF nevermind DKIM or DMARC but Google's inability to solve the problem is extremely disappointing.

[HPlum78]

Rearrange this well known phrase or saying 'poor pi55'! As for asking not to overload the system is this really acceptable? If they are that busy then there is the ability to automatically scale up and out these days or if you are not using a cloudy supplier for hosting your front end or don't want to cover the cost put a virtual queue in place, if you need me I will be over here smashing my face into the wall!

[DavR]

One of our assistant heads has been trying to get this to work for days, finally she tried it at 11pm last night when things were quieter, and it went through fine.

 

Far from ideal I know, but, if you do desperately need to push this through that's one option.

[resin1]

Yup - same experience for me. Although I was going to leave it, my curiosity got the better of me mid evening and tried again. The site was clearly a lot more responsive and the last step took the test order to paid. When the vouchers will finally reach the recipient is entirely another matter but at least I'm reassured the order was correct!