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Enrol a participant

Carla Reyes has brought in Maya's paperwork, and Tom needs her on the books before the next meal count. This page is how to create a CACFP enrollment linking a child to a site, a programme and a program year, with an eligibility tier recorded against them.

This is the one eligibility flow in CACFP that completes

Enrolment is the only write path in the eligibility half of the module with a working screen behind it. Income applications, income verifications and area eligibility are all built completely and have no screen at all, so they can be reached only by someone with direct system access.

That makes this form the whole of the eligibility user interface, and the four cautions below are the price of it.

Before you start​

  • You need the child's record id. The form has no picker for finding a child. It has a box labelled Member ID asking you to enter the member's id. Copy it from the child's own page in PTRS, it is the last part of that page's web address. The Members module has not been documented in this portal yet.
  • Select a site in the header first. The page takes its site from the header's site selector, falling back to your first assigned site. If neither resolves it sends nothing and the request fails, see below.
  • Know the programme (ARAS or Summer Food), the program year, the eligibility tier and the determination method before you start. Nothing on this form looks any of them up for you.

Steps​

1. Open the form​

Go to CACFP → Enrollment in the sidebar. The page is headed CACFP Enrollment, subtitled "Manage participant enrollments and eligibility tiers per federal rule."

Press Enroll, top right of the CACFP Enrollments panel. A form headed New CACFP Enrollment opens above the list.

2. Member ID​

Paste the child's record id. Required, and checked by PTRS as well as by your browser.

PTRS checks that the child exists in your organisation. An id that is the right shape but unknown returns a message saying the member was not found; a value that is not even the right shape fails before PTRS looks at anything else.

3. Program Type​

ARAS (At-Risk Afterschool) or SFSP (Summer Food). These two are the whole of what PTRS knows as a CACFP programme. Defaults to ARAS.

4. Program Year​

A free-text box defaulting to the literal text 2025-2026.

Both your browser and PTRS require the shape YYYY-YYYY. Anything else is refused with a message saying so.

The default is fixed in the page and does not roll over

The form starts on 2025-2026 because that value is written into the page itself. It is not worked out from today's date, and it will still read 2025-2026 in any later year until someone changes the page.

The value is not checked against anything else, no calendar, no rate table, no income guideline set. A typo of 2026-2026 passes the shape check and is stored.

This matters because the program year is part of what makes an enrolment unique (step 7) and is the field an income guideline set would be matched against.

5. Eligibility Tier​

A dropdown of Free · Reduced · Paid, defaulting to Free.

This is a typed-in value, not a determined one

Whatever you choose here is stored exactly as you chose it. PTRS does not check it against an income application, an area-eligibility record or anything else, and no other screen can change it afterwards (see After you save).

PTRS can work out a tier from household income, correctly, through its income application. Nothing carries that result here: the enrolment's link to an income application has no writer anywhere in PTRS.

Choose deliberately, and keep the paper determination that supports it. The full model is on How a participant becomes eligible.

6. Determination Method​

Four options:

Option shownWhat PTRS records
Area Eligible (ARAS default)Area Eligible
Income ApplicationIncome Application
Categorical (SNAP/TANF/FDPIR)Categorical Eligibility
Default (Paid)Default

Defaults to Area Eligible.

Nothing cross-checks the method against the tier, and Default (Paid) does not force the tier to Paid. The combination "Free / Default (Paid)" saves without comment.

7. Create Enrollment​

Press Create Enrollment. The button reads "Enrolling…" while it works.

PTRS refuses a duplicate: one active enrolment per child + site + programme + program year. The second attempt returns a message saying an active enrolment already exists for this child at this site, programme and program year.

After you save​

Worth knowing before you rely on this record.

The row is permanent and unchangeable through the interface​

ActionReachable
Change the tier or the statusNo screen calls it. PTRS can do this and nothing offers it
Withdraw the participantNo screen calls it. PTRS can do this and nothing offers it
Delete the enrolmentPTRS has no way to do this at all

So an enrolment created here can never be corrected, ended or removed from within PTRS. If you record the wrong tier, the wrong programme or the wrong child, the row stays as it is.

The practical consequence for a wrong child id: create the correct enrolment alongside it. The duplicate rule keys on child, site, programme and year, so a different child is not blocked. The incorrect row will keep counting toward the Active total and toward the two claim checks that count active enrolments.

Every enrolment in PTRS is Active​

PTRS defines five enrolment statuses, Active, Inactive, Waitlisted, Withdrawn, Completed. Creating an enrolment always writes Active, and the two actions that would write any other status, updating and withdrawing, have no screen anywhere. Active is therefore the only status any enrolment has ever held, which is why:

  • The list's status filter offers all statuses, Active, Inactive and Withdrawn, and the last two always return nothing.
  • The Inactive tile on the summary panel is worked out as total minus active and is always 0.

Nothing checks the site belongs to your organisation​

PTRS checks that the child is in your organisation, and stores the site you give it without checking that it is one of yours. Because every later screen still filters by your organisation, the practical effect is an enrolment attached to a site that may not resolve to one of your sites, it will simply never appear under a site filter.

The enrolment screen always sends the site it worked out for you, so this only matters to someone with direct system access.

When it does not work​

The request fails and no field is highlighted​

The page resolves its site as the header's selected site, or your first assigned site if that is a real site rather than "every site." If neither resolves it sends nothing, and PTRS refuses the request before any of the usual messages can appear.

Fix. Pick a site in the header's site selector and reopen the form.

The same empty value has a quieter effect on the list below: with no site chosen, the panel shows every enrolment in the organisation rather than the site's, and the summary tiles count the same.

The tier badge is grey with unfamiliar text​

The tier badge only has colours for Free, Reduced and Paid, and falls back to grey for anything else. Since the form offers only the three, this can only appear on a row created by someone with direct system access.

Clicking a row does nothing​

The enrolment list's rows do not respond to a click on this page.

The enrolment's own detail page exists and is reachable only by typing its web address directly, with the enrolment's own id.

Checked against PTRS on 7 September 2026.