You can create Smart Groups based on many types of standard animal data. Maybe you want to have one for animals born within a certain date range, or those who are a certain age. Perhaps you'll make a group of animals who weight at least a certain amount or have a lower Wellness Score based on recent measurements. You could make one for animals in a specific breeding status with a due date range, or even one for your animals who are currently in withdrawal based on a recent treatment application. Farmbrite has many standard fields to accomplish all of this and more, but what about when you need to make a group based on something else that is not a standard field? You'll have two choices on how to accomplish this, let's take a look at how!
Quick Review
- You can build custom fields to track any data you need on animal records. These can be dropdown menus, checkboxes, yes/no fields, text boxes, and more.
- You can use keywords to tag your animal records with a unique label.
- Both keywords and custom fields are available as filters for your Smart Groups (and custom reports!)
Using Keywords to Filter Your Groups
Keywords are a way for you to create custom tags or labels to mark some characteristic or data on an animal record. These are effectively limitless; you can add whatever keyword you'd like to any animal record. You don't need to set them up in advance, you simply type the keyword into the animal records as you go. You can then filter your smart group to search for animals that have that keyword. This could be a great option if you are on an Essentials plan and thus do not have access to Custom Fields.
Using Custom Fields to Filter Your Groups
Custom Fields are more defined than keywords; you create them in advance and then fill them out on animal records. You might make a dropdown menu with preloaded selections, a checkbox list with multiple options to choose, or a true/false field for a simple answer to a yes or no question. You'll set the custom field up first, answer it on an animal record, and then filter your group based on the custom field data. Note: it may take up to 15 minutes for your new field to appear as a filter on your group.
Now that you have created your group, you can feed, treat, and move them as a unit. Start working with them, and let us know if you have any questions we can assist with!