Welcome to July! We hope our northern hemisphere customers are having a wonderful summer so far, and that our southern hemisphere friends are enjoying the winter and preparing for a new growing season just around the corner. Whatever season you're in, we want you to be on top of updates and enhancements we've made to your Farmbrite system, so check out this recap of our recently released features, browse through some of the linked articles, and let us know if you have any questions.
Enhanced Integrations
We know Farmbrite does a lot on your farm, but we also know you'll use other tools as well. If you are looking to integrate your Farmbrite account data with other systems and services, Farmbrite has recently added a few ways for you to accomplish this. You can read about them in our Getting Started with Integrations article.
First, you make can connections with thousands of other apps using our integration with Zapier. This let's you connect Farmbrite with many other services, sending you data to other favorite tools you frequently use. All of this is accomplished through back end connections that do not require any coding experience; Zapier offers a relatively simple drag and drop interface for setting up automated data sync and transfers. Check out the image below for some of the possibilities, and then read all about how to set them up in this article.
If you would prefer to code some of those automations yourself, Farmbrite also offers the ability to create webhooks. This lets you choose a trigger action to initiate a data push and define where that data should be sent. If you choose to go this route for data integrations, take a look at our article about how to set them up in Farmbrite. If you are technically inclined and have API coding experience, be aware that we also offer an API for you to access. You can also review the API Documentation here for a preview of what's available so you can get your gears turning and start making some plans.
Climate Tracking Weather Mapping
No matter what you're growing, how you're growing it, or where you're located, the weather is going to have an impact on your agricultural operation. Because this is so critical to your business, you likely have all sorts of technology to record weather data. From thermometers and hygrometers to light sensors and rain gauges, using a weather station can help you prepare for unique scenarios and react to changing conditions and historical trends. We know that data can sometimes be hard to read and capture though, so we've created an entire subsection of Farmbrite devoted to recording and visualizing climate data trends at your farm.
The climate system comes preloaded with historical weather information and a whole array of satellite and climate data maps for your location. We're sourcing data from NASA, NOAA, and the USGS to help you see historical trends and decide on the best course of action to react to recent weather.
You can also create your own gauges to track data for your local microclimate. This might be something like a weather station at your ranch, or more specific like a thermometer in your chicken coop or rain gauge in an adjacent field. The data you record is graphed as well, providing an easy to read charts for temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, and more.
Updated Schedule Features
We've made a few changes to your Farmbrite Schedule to help make it easier for you to update events. First, we've given you the ability to choose to update a single occurrence in a series, or all the following events. Maybe you're changing the time for a weekly staff meeting, but only want to change it for a single instance that takes place on a holiday. Or, maybe you're changing the normally length of the meeting after getting feedback from your staff, and want all the future events updated to be that long. Either way, you can now make this selection when updating the event.
We've also added two new views to you Schedule: a list view, and multi-month year view. The List view shows you all your events in an easy to read sequence format, while the Year view gives you a more far reaching view into the future.
Custom Market Order IDs
Have you ever wanted to simplify your Farmbrite Market order numbers? We heard from some users that the default numbering sequence made it difficult to reference ID numbers over the phone, and have added a new feature to provide a custom starting order ID. This won't affect your existing orders, but you can set a starting ID in your Online Store Configuration, and your newly added orders will start following that sequence going forward.
Other Notable Updates
- When selling an animal, the note you write in the sale is now appended to the income transaction generated in Accounting. This makes it easier to reference back to when you are reviewing your book keeping.
- When completing a task, you can now update the Task Complete date. Just edit the task and check the box to mark it complete; you'll find an additional field to set the completion date there. This lets you mark a task complete but back date it, in case you didn't mark it complete on the same day it was actually done.
- Livestock Sets can now be added to basic groups. This let's you create a basic group with multiple set groups, like a few separate flocks together as one, or multiple bee hives or fish tanks too.
- Newly created livestock breeding records can now have a due date associated with them. If you are adding breeding records for animals that you have already confirmed are pregnant, you can now supply a due date when you first create the record. This eliminates a few steps in the process and streamlines the process to save you some time.
- You can now see an animal's siblings directly from their record. Farmbrite will show you siblings birthed in the same litter, as well as those from different litters but sharing at least one parent.
- You can now import livestock measurements. This helps you add the past growth history of your animal in a quicker way by importing them in bulk.
Have any feedback on these, or ideas for us to improve Farmbrite? Reach out and let us know!