Getting started
Plan & Pan is an app for planning the meals of a family or another group of people. It pulls recipes out of your own cookbooks, uses AI to put together a meal plan for a week or a weekend, works out the shopping list, and can price it, compare prices in the shops (Rohlík, Košík) and fill their baskets.
Signing in
Only invited users have access. On the start page click Sign in. You can sign in in several ways:
- With Google – the Continue with Google button.
- With Seznam – the Continue with Seznam button; it works with Seznam addresses (seznam.cz, email.cz, post.cz and similar).
- With Microsoft – the Continue with Microsoft button, for personal accounts (outlook.com, hotmail.com, live.com) as well as work and school accounts for which Microsoft confirms that the address belongs to the organisation.
- With a link from an e-mail – enter your e-mail and click Send a sign-in link. If the address is invited, you get an e-mail with a link that is valid for 15 minutes.
The Seznam and Microsoft buttons appear on the sign-in page only when the admin of the app has switched them on. The address your admin invited is always the one used; if the account at the provider differs, the app does not let you in.
If the app does not let you in, ask for an invitation on the start page with the Ask for an invitation button (you enter an e-mail), or ask the admin or a member of a group (see Household).
Terms of use and privacy
On the first sign-in (and again after every change of the documents) the Before you start screen appears with links to the Terms of use and the Privacy policy. The app does not let you in until you tick the agreement and press I agree and continue. The documents are public; you can find them later in the bottom bar of the page (Terms, Privacy) and on the home page.
Important: the cookbooks and recipes you upload are your responsibility – upload only content you have the right to (for example a cookbook you bought, for your household's use) and do not share it outside your household.
Group
Everything in the app – recipes, meal plans, shopping, people and the instructions for the AI – always belongs to one group (typically a family). You switch groups in the pill with its name next to the logo. If you are a member of several groups, each has its own data and nothing is mixed between them.
If you are not in any group, the app offers to create one. You can also create a new group later with + new group… in the group menu (there is a limit on the number of groups per user).
Main menu
At the top (at the bottom on a phone) there are four items:
| Item | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Week | An overview of what is cooking today, the next shopping trip, previous meal plans and creating a new meal plan |
| Recipes | Recipes and cookbooks (uploading, browsing, editing) |
| Shopping | The shopping list of the chosen meal plan and the shop |
| Household | People, tastes and rules, shop connection, group members |
Click the round letter at the top right to open the profile menu: Subscription (only when the admin has switched on payments and subscriptions), App administration (system admins only) and Sign out. The bottom bar of every page has the Help link and the flag of the language it switches to. You find cookbooks on the Recipes page.
Week switcher
When the group has at least two meal plans, a week switcher appears in the top bar next to the group name: the arrows Older and Newer meal plan and a list of all meal plans (click a period). The chosen meal plan applies to the whole app: Week, Shopping and Statistics in Household show it, and it is chosen the same way when you open a meal plan from the overview. Until you choose another, the current week is shown; Back to the current week returns to it. The choice is not remembered after a reload, you start on the current week again. If you choose a meal plan that does not include today, Week shows all its days.
Language
The interface is available in Czech and in English. The app starts in the language of your browser; change it with the language button on the start and sign-in pages, or with the flag in the bottom bar (the Czech flag switches to Czech, the British one to English). Recipes are never translated: they stay in the language you uploaded them in.
Setup guide
The guide (profile menu → Setup guide, or the address #/pruvodce) takes you through six steps. Each step says why you do it and how many operations it costs; none is compulsory and you can do them in any order.
- Add recipes – you try all three ways: a whole cookbook (PDF, Word, Google document), a recipe from a photo and a recipe from a link.
- Set up the family – members, their goals and which meals they eat at home; why this is needed and how to invite another group member.
- Create the first menu.
- Prepare shopping – the shopping list and, optionally, connecting Rohlík or Košík.
- Look at the statistics – an overview of what is ready.
- Tell us how you like it – a short questionnaire.
A step ticks itself off as soon as what it is about exists in the app (a person, a cookbook, a menu, a shopping list). Skip marks a step as skipped and you can come back to it. Close the guide stops offering it; you can start the guide again from the profile menu at any time and nothing is deleted.
Feedback
The questionnaire is the last step of the guide and in the profile menu (Feedback). Only the first question (how you like the app) is required. You can change your answer within 24 hours. Only the operator sees the comment, without your e-mail address.
Recommended path
Until you are done, the Week page has a Getting started block with tasks that tick themselves off. Hide it with Hide.
- In Household → People check the people and who eats at home when (Household).
- In Recipes → Cookbooks upload your first cookbook and wait for it to be processed (Recipes).
- In Week click Plan another week and have a meal plan suggested (Meal plans).
- In Household → Shops connect a shop if you like (optional). In Shopping then tick off what you have at home, price the list and fill the basket (Shopping and shops).