Starting the New Crop Season

As the 2020 crop season gets started, now is a good time to set up the FieldX system for this season.

Over the next few weeks, we will create periodic updates to help you prepare for efficient and effective management of your scouting and recordkeeping data. In this first post of the series, we’ll cover some tips for starting a new crop season, and various settings for journal entries and output reports.

START THE NEW SEASON IN FIELDX:
  • Create a “Begin Crop Season” journal entry for each field. 
    • How this helps you:
      • A Begin Crop Season Entry is used to separate data from one season to the next.
      • By separating the journal entries by season, FieldX is then able to determine what crop is planted in the current season. The current crop used when coloring field borders by crop, displaying crop information on the Field Overview tab, and in various output reports.
      • Without a Begin Crop Season journal entry, the output reports will pull last year’s crop into the output reports.
    • Click for Begin Crop Season Entry Instructions. 
  • Use “Field Planting Form” output report to obtain planting information from Grower
    • How this helps you:
      • ​​​​​​​The Field Planting Form can be sent to a grower, to be filled out by the grower with each field’s planting date, crop, and variety. The consultant can then enter this into FieldX.
    • Click for Field Planting Form Instructions. 
  • Create accurate “Planting” journal entries
    • How this helps you:
      • The crop displayed in the software and the output reports is derived from the current season’s Planting journal entry.
      • FieldX automatically calculates the Days After Planting, and the Accumulated Growing Degree Units in the ‘Field Weather’ feature, based on the planting date.
      • Therefore it is important to have accurate crop and planting date information entered into FieldX.
    • Click for planting entry Instructions on the PC, and creating entries on FieldX Journal.

FIELDX OFFICE SETTINGS:

  • Set default acres for new journal entries: 
    • How this helps you:
      • The correct acreage must be entered when creating new journal entries. This ensure that the output reports display the correct information, including the correct area to apply for a recommendation, and the total amount of product required to complete a rec.
      • In FieldX, there are several sources for determining the field acres. The most popular are: ‘GIS Size,’ which is the area that was calculated from the field border), and ‘Field Size — Attributes Tab,’ which is used when you want to use a specific number of acres for a field.
    • Here are the steps:
      • On the top menubar of FieldX Office, select ‘Options’>’Area Default on Data Entry Forms’
      • Then move the preferred source for the journal entry form acres to the top of the list.
      • When this is completed, the acres will be automatically populated from the first item in that list. If the first item is blank for that particular field, then FieldX will obtain the acres from the second item, and so forth until it finds a value for the acres.
  • Save output reports in grower folder: 
    • How this helps you:
      • ​​​​​​​Saving PDF output reports in an individual folder for each grower will make it easier for you to go back and find specific output reports sent through the year.
    • Here are the steps:
      • On the top menubar, s​​​​​elect ‘Options’>’Output Folder for Report Files’
      • Select the appropriate option. To add a file folder for each grower, select ‘Main Report Folder \ Grower Name’.

CONSIDER OUR “FINE TUNING SERVICE”

With our “Fine Tuning Service” we’ll work with you to understand your operation and how you want to enter data and generate reports. We’ll then optimize FieldX to help you achieve these goals and make you more efficient in the field. These optimizations may include things such as updating your picklists, templates, and settings. We’ll also provide coaching on how to be more efficient in the field using FieldX.

The cost is $1,000 and we can get started working with you today. Just call 919-926-7001 or visit www.fieldx.com/premium-services for more information.