ParentPay School Meals

Automated UK school meal booking via ParentPay. Uses mouse coordinates for reliable table cell clicking in the browser.

The ParentPay School Meals automation by @George5562 tackles a surprisingly tedious weekly chore for UK parents: booking school meals through the ParentPay platform. The system involves navigating a table-heavy interface, selecting meals for each day, confirming choices, and making payments — all through a website that wasn't designed for automation. OpenClaw handles the entire flow using browser control with mouse coordinate-based clicking for reliable interaction with table cells. What makes this showcase technically interesting is its approach to the table interaction problem. Many browser automation tools struggle with complex table layouts where semantic selectors aren't reliable. @George5562 solved this by using precise mouse coordinates to click specific cells in the meal selection grid. While less elegant than selector-based approaches, it's more reliable for this particular UI pattern. The agent logs in, navigates to the meal booking page, selects the preferred meals for each day of the week, and confirms the booking. This is a relatable automation for any parent in the UK school system. ParentPay is used by thousands of schools, and the weekly meal booking ritual is exactly the kind of repetitive, low-value task that AI agents should handle. It's also a good case study in pragmatic automation — sometimes you need to use coordinates instead of selectors, and that's okay.

Tags: automation, browser, parenting, school

Category: automation

Tips

  • Save your ParentPay login credentials in a secure way the agent can access — browser profile with saved session is safest
  • Use mouse coordinates for the meal table but semantic selectors for navigation elements (login, menus) — hybrid approach is most reliable
  • Schedule the booking as a Monday morning cron job so meals are always booked at the start of the week
  • Add a Telegram confirmation step where the agent shows you the selected meals before confirming — avoids booking mistakes
  • If ParentPay updates their UI, you may need to recalibrate coordinates — keep a screenshot of the expected layout for reference

Community Feedback

Automated UK school meal booking via ParentPay. Uses mouse coordinates for reliable table cell clicking. Finally, one less thing to forget on Sunday nights.

— OpenClaw Showcase

The browser automation skips screenshots and uses semantic navigation where possible, falling back to mouse coordinates for tricky table elements like ParentPay's meal grid.

— Medium

Frequently Asked Questions

Why use mouse coordinates instead of CSS selectors?

ParentPay's meal booking uses a complex table layout where cells don't have unique, stable CSS selectors. Mouse coordinates provide more reliable clicks on the specific day/meal intersections in the grid.

Does this work with all UK schools on ParentPay?

The basic flow should work with any school using ParentPay's standard meal booking interface. However, some schools may have customized layouts that require adjusting the coordinate mappings.

Can it handle different meal options per child?

Yes, as long as you configure the agent with each child's preferences. You'd specify which meals to select for each child, and the agent navigates between child profiles on ParentPay.

What happens if a meal option is sold out?

The agent can be configured to select a fallback meal or notify you via Telegram if the preferred option isn't available. Most users set up a preference hierarchy for each day.