Students can now scan into dining halls and access meal plan information from their phones. On Monday, Sept. 23, Augustana Dining Services officially announced their new mobile app in an email to the student body.
The GET mobile app allows students to see their number of available meal swipes and Viking bucks, as well as a detailed list of all dining transactions. The app also contains an electronic version of students’ identification cards and is now scannable at all dining locations.
Dining Services Accounts Coordinator, Amy Roehrs said the app was developed by Cbord, the same company that handles the college’s dining registers and meal plans. She said the GET app has been in the works since the end of last school year.
“We’re hoping this makes the dining hall much more convenient for students, getting them through the line and into the actual dining hall much quicker,” Roehrs said.
Fred Kurt, director of auxiliary, said since COVID-19, there has been a “natural progression” towards contactless transactions. This shift, he said, has already been seen within the dining services in the last few years, with students swiping their own identification cards at the registers.
“We used to take cards and swipe them at the registers,” Kurt said.
Using the mobile app, students now only need their phones to swipe into dining halls or access their meal swipes. The GET app now “cuts that middle step out,” Roehrs said.
“Because normally, if you lose your ID and you want to use a meal swipe, you have to come into the [dining] office,” Roehrs said. “I have to be able to look you up, and I have to make sure I see your picture to make sure that you are who you say you are.”
“One thing that we really like about this app is the ability for us to upload a new [student ID] photo every year,” Roehrs added.
The GET Mobile app also allows students to refill their Viking bucks.
“As it gets towards the end of the year, students start to run low on Viking bucks. This way, students can choose to refill Viking bucks,” Roehrssaid. “They can either use a credit card to pay for those Viking bucks, or you can hit ‘bill me,’ sending the charge to your tuition bill.”
Junior Sam Pandey works at the Westerlin Market and the Brew by the Slough. As both a student and an employee, Pandey said she found the GET app “very convenient”.
“Everyone always has their phone on them,” Pandey said. “And now all of the information you need is at your fingertips.”
Pandey said in the past, students would frequently come into the Westerlin Market inquiring about how many meal swipes or Viking bucks they had left. Before the app’s official release, Kurt said around 800 students had already downloaded the app. The GET app is now available in the app store.
