FSM voucher scheme update

• Queue times on the online ordering portal this week have been less than five minutes with many periods during the day not having any queues at all
• The eCode redemption website has been averaging a queue time of three minutes

This means the valuable support to parents is being delivered at a much faster rate. Over £58m of supermarket eGift cards have been redeemed by families and schools; with more than £10m of this amount redeemed since Monday.

We are also working to increase resources in our help desk to be able to answer requests for support more swiftly. Emailing us at freeschoolmeals@edenred.com is still the best route for support and we’ll aim to respond within two working days

• Invalid email addresses contained within some orders
  These have been identified through analysis of hard bounce data following an eCode resend exercise this week. A hard bounce means that the eCode was not delivered to the recipient as the email address used was invalid. This could be because it has been deactivated or was spelt incorrectly. We will shortly be issuing guidance to the affected schools on how to resolve issues with hard bounce emails.

• Pending orders
  There are still many orders with a ‘pending’ status – we can’t process these orders. It will have a status of ‘pending’ until the order has been approved. To approve your order:
  1. Find the order in order history
  2. At the bottom of the order page confirm to accept the T&Cs
  3. Click ‘Approve’

• When placing orders, please use the spreadsheet upload option, please refer to the user guide for details
• Wherever possible, please ensure each order contains all the families and eCodes required, not one order per family, e.g. if a household has two children then an eCode for £30, rather than two codes for £15
• Orders can be placed to cover 2, 3 or 4 weeks in the future, for example an eCode to cover a fortnight for a household with 2 children would be £60. Placing orders for multiple weeks will reduce your visits to the platform

We are also continually updating the Parent/carer FAQs with new helpful information to help them to use the scheme.