CAFÉ-PASS is the name ascribed to the HCA “cashless” lunch program. Any student that purchases items, including milk and/or snacks from the cafeteria must be enrolled in this program. The cafeteria does not accept cash or checks from students.
Every family that has one or more students participating in the CAFÉ-PASS program has a “food service fund” account created for them by HCA. By default, the principle guardian of the family is designated as the “payor” and is authorized to deposit money into this fund using a Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card. (The system does not accept any credit or debit cards issued from other merchants). Monies are debited from this food service fund when students make purchases in the cafeteria using a uniquely coded swipe card (their CAFÉ-PASS) that is issued to them. CAFÉ-PASS records all purchases made by students. There is no confidential data encoded on the card, so there is no risk to the student or family if the card is lost or stolen. Students from the same family draw monies from the same food service fund.
HCA does not handle any credit card transactions in this process, but contracts with a “financial merchant” to do so. While the lunch fund is automatically created for each participating family, the payor of the lunch fund must establish a “payor account” with this merchant. This payor account is established through an online registration process. Once the account is established, the payor is eligible to add money into the food service fund, by purchasing a dollar value for food service at the HCA web store. The merchant accepts the purchase from the payor and then deposits the value of the purchase into the family’s food service fund. HCA has no knowledge of and has no access to the account credentials that a payor creates with the financial merchant, so it is important that each payor records and maintains this data in a safe place for future reference. It is required each time a payment is made.
Authorized members of the family are able to view items purchased by their students and see a record of their food service deposits using FAMILY ACCESS. This program uses a web interface to display pertinent information about a student, including food and snack purchases. The payor is also able to make an online payment to the food service fund using FAMILY ACCESS to link to the financial merchant. All purchases made with CAFE-PASS are normally viewable in FAMILY ACCESS by the end of the school day. All payments made through FAMILY ACCESS for CAFÉ-PASS are immediately available in the family’s food service fund and all payments are immediately available for viewing as well. The payor has the option to elect to receive a low balance warning via email when the value of the food service drops below $10.00. The payor may opt-in or opt-out of this feature at any time.
Behind the Scenes
The capability of CAFÉ-PASS and FAMILY ACCESS is provided by an education software package from Skyward Inc. and an eCommerce solution from Revtrak.
Skyward is a total school management solution for teachers and administrators. Every student enrolled at HCA Elgin has a record in the Skyward system. This record contains a broad range of information that is held within various modules of the Skyward system. Some of this data includes general and emergency contact information, class schedules, attendance, grades, activities, etc. Within Skyward, there is a FOOD SERVICE module that provides the CAFÉ-PASS functionality to record student cafeteria purchases and deposits into the family’s food service fund. FAMILY ACCESS is the Skyward module that enables authorized individuals to view data held in a student record. Currently, the only data that may be viewed in FAMILY ACCESS are payments and purchases tracked by the FOOD SERVICE module. More information about Skyward may be found at www.skyward.com
Revtrak accepts payments for funding food service accounts by providing the capability to accept an online payment via the Web. This payment is made through the HCA Webstore, which is maintained by Revtrak. When a purchase is made, Revtrak validates and posts the transaction to the credit card account of the credit card holder. The amount of the purchase is electronically sent to the Skyward software that credits the family’s food service account. More information about Revtrak may be found at www.revtrak.com
Data Security
All application modules that are part of the Skyward education software package and all student and family data used by these modules are kept on servers that reside on HCA premises. The Skyward servers do not record or are aware of any credit card data. To improve security, no personal data is kept on servers that deliver the web pages viewed in FAMILY ACCESS.
Revtrak uses its own servers and software to manage each family’s payor account and process credit card data. To help maintain the privacy of financial information, Revtrak does not store credit card data. Consequently, the authorized payor must enter their credit card number every time an online deposit is made into the food service fund. While this may seem inconvenient, this ensures that if the Revtrak site were ever breached, no financial data could be stolen.
Whenever a user is accessing FAMILY ACCESS or the Revtrak site, the communication between the end-user’s computer and the servers used for these applications is handled via an encrypted SSL link. To fully take advantage of this encryption, the end-user must be using a browser capable of 256-bit encryption.