Announcing the Release of FARMAX 7.1.0.21 (Dairy)

Announcing the release of FARMAX 7.1.0.21 (Dairy)

FARMAX launched a series of new products in October 2015 in line with the way customers use FARMAX products and services. Now, rather than an upfront subscription per user to access the software, we charge upon use of the software to model a farm business entity. The nature of that use determines the best product to use (see table 1, below)

Table 1 FARMAX new product subscriptions

Subscription production Functionality FARMAX Analysis (FAn) Modelling and scenario analysis only FARMAX Performance Monitoring (FPM) Monitoring and limited tactical scenario analysis FARMAX Professional (FP) Full modelling and monitoring capability

For further information, see http://www.farmax.co.nz/farmax-products-and-services/dairy- farm-planning-tools/

Our recent development programme has further defined and differentiated the software functionality of the three products outlined above. We have also developed some user enhancements to provide more powerful year-on-year and farm comparisons.

1 New product development

FARMAX Analysis FARMAX Analysis subscriptions are designed for analysis only – not ongoing monitoring. For that reason, models created with a FARMAX Analysis subscription cannot contain actual pasture covers, milk production figures, body condition scores or other management events.

Now, instead of entering pasture covers to calibrate pasture growth, we have developed a new Pasture Calibration wizard – see page 8.

FARMAX Performance Monitoring FARMAX Performance Monitoring is designed for monthly farm data entry and tactical (short term) decision-making. This product supersedes FarmTools. To assist farmers setting up FARMAX Performance Monitoring models, one nominated consultant is entitled to have access to the full FARMAX Professional. All other consultants and users with access to the farm’s files will receive the FARMAX Performance Monitoring functionality.

FARMAX Professional FARMAX Professional provides the full modelling and monitoring functionality of the software. All users associated with a FARMAX Professional subscription can get the full FARMAX Professional capability. For monitoring purposes, some users may still wish to view the FARMAX Performance Monitoring (formerly FarmTools) version, yet provide multiple other users with the full analytical capability of FARMAX Professional. You can arrange for this through the HelpDesk.

2 Defining a Farm entity

Every time any FARMAX product is used to model a Farm business, a charge is incurred.

Upon creation of a new farm, you define the farm name, area and region. Every scenario modelled within that subscription will be automatically populated with these non-editable properties. Should you wish to edit these properties, you can contact the HelpDesk team.

Setting up a new FARMAX Analysis subscription You can start a new FARMAX Analysis subscription without contacting the HelpDesk; it is created when you select ‘New Farm’ under the ‘Farm’ menu in the cloud window.

Figure 1 How to create a new farm in the Cloud Window

Then to create a new file for that farm (or any farm): click on ‘Folder’ in the middle panel and create new folder (e.g. Scenarios), and then click ‘File’ at the top of the right-hand panel and select New File, as shown below.

Figure 2 Creating a new FARMAX file for a farm

3 Users must be set up for billing first – we need to associate your account with a company for billing purposes. If you do not have a company set up in our system, you will receive the following notification when attempting to create a new farm.

Figure 3 Message displayed if you are not currently set up for billing

If you are associated with a company in our system, then you will be able to continue setting up the farm, starting with this new farm set-up screen.

Figure 4 The new farm set-up form – note the subscription cost and billing company name outlined in red above

4 It is important to get these details correct as they are non-editable within the file and can only be changed by calling the HelpDesk. Region Region and district fields have now been added to FARMAX files. These have been added to assist with benchmarking.

Area constraints Once the area has been defined, it is locked for all files within the subscription. You can still split the area into several blocks, but the total of all blocks must sum to equal the area that has been defined of the file. For example, see below:

You will receive the following prompt after adjusting the area of a block:

Local files

To access locally stored files on your computer, select ‘Open local file’, from the Local menu on the top toolbar. These are read-only.

If you wish to edit these files they must be saved under a subscription with matching farm name and area – this will involve either creating a new subscription with matching

5 properties or saving the file under a farm subscription with matching properties. HelpDesk staff can edit the properties of FARMAX files if required to help match it to a subscription.

Deactivating subscriptions in the cloud window

You can right click on any of your FARMAX Analysis Farms that you created in the Cloud Window and deactivate it to tidy up the farm list. This will deactivate the farm for all associated users. It can be reactivated by the HelpDesk if required.

Figure 5 Deactivating FARMAX Analysis subscriptions that you created

Hiding inactive farms

You can now either hide or view farms that have inactive subscriptions. These can be hidden by selecting ‘hide inactive farms’ in the Farm menu in the cloud window.

6 Figure 6 Hiding inactive farms

One install There is only one install now for those users that may have had FarmTools and Farmax DairyPro in the past. This install includes FARMAX Analysis, FARMAX Performance Monitoring and FARMAX Professional – the version you access will depend on the subscription type. This install overrides any previous versions of FARMAX Dairy software products on your computer with the exception of FARMAX Feed budgeting (formerly FARMAX Feed Wedge).

7 Software enhancements

Pasture calibration wizard As mentioned in the FARMAX Analysis section on p2, the new Pasture Calibration Wizard negates the need to enter actual pasture covers when calibrating growth rates. This wizard is located at the top of the pasture screen as shown below:

Figure 7 Location of the new Pasture Calibration wizard in FARMAX Analysis subscriptions

Calibrating the pasture growth is one of the final steps when creating a FARMAX model; it should only be done once livestock numbers, performance, feeding and block pasture growth rates have been entered. The wizard prompts you to check these attributes before you can adjust the covers.

Figure 8 The new Pasture calibration wizard for FARMAX Analysis subscriptions

8 Pasture growth history It is now possible to extract the pasture growth data from the monitoring file history to compare the previous year’s pasture growth and populate the growth curve when setting up a new block.

1) New Compare Growth report at the Farm-level

Select the add icon above the graph (outlined above), to bring up the screen below.

9 Figure 9 File data selection screen to produce the pasture growth comparison graph

Click on those you wish to add to the graph and select ‘Add to Report’. Nb. The Mean and Range covers the entire monitoring period for the farm, regardless of the years selected.

Figure 10 Compare Pasture Growth report with eleven years of data, the mean and the range for that dataset

To remove any of the data series from the graph, click on the next to the data series you wish to remove in the legend.

10 2) Pasture growth at block level

When setting up block growth rates, we have extended the library to include these past season pasture growth rates plus any other farms that you have access to with a monitoring file. For example, Figure 14 below illustrates the pasture growth libraries accessible as before and Figure 15 shows the potential to bring in the farm data for setting up block pasture growth rates.

Figure 11 New pasture growth library layout – selecting the regional databases

11 Figure 12 New pasture growth library layout – selecting farm specific growth rates

Aligning compare reports With multiple files open, the compare reports have been enhanced to enable better year- on-year comparisons.

By ticking the ‘Align years for reporting’ tickbox, the files are aligned to the date range of the first file opened. This makes the comparisons between years simpler and clearer, for example gross margin below.

12 Compare Milk Solids Jun 12 - May 13

Milk Solids 12/13 13/14 2.5 14/15 ) y a d /

w 2.0 o c / g k (

o 1.5 i t c u d o r p 1.0 s d i l o s k l i 0.5 M

J J A S O N D J F M A M

Figure 13 Compare Milk Solid report with multiple files aligned

Monthly Management Report A new Monthly Management Report helps summarise the monthly data in one easy-to- interpret report, see example below (figure 18).

July 2015 Management Report for Farmax Example

General Name Value Farm Name Farmax Example Month Jul 15 Author Ms. Farmax Sharemilker Enter MS for June

13 Reconciliation

Mob Open Births Purchases Transfers In Transfers Out Sales Deaths Close Cows 517 5 512 Bobby Calves 3 225 202 26 Heifer Calves 9 108 117 Total 529 333 0 0 0 202 5 655

Land Land Jul 1- 10 Jul 11- 20 Jul 21- 31 Area (ha - end of period) Total 200.0 200.0 200.0 Grazing 200.0 200.0 200.0 Crops (ha - end of period) Total Crop Nitrogen (total for period) Area Applied(ha) Rate (kg N/ha) Pasture End of period pasture cover (kg DM/ha) 2059 2094 2146 Average pasture growth (kg DM/ha/d) 20.9 22.1 23.8 Average pasture demand (kg DM/ha/d) 18.7 18.7 19.1

Milkers Milkers Jul 1- 10 Jul 11- 20 Jul 21- 31 Numbers (all mobs; end of period) Cows TAD 0 0 25 Cows OAD 0 0 0 Dry Cows 520 517 492 Total Cows on Farm 520 517 517 Milk Production (to factory; period average) kgMS/day 4.03 4.03 4.03 kgMS/cow/day 0.58 kgMS/ha/day 0.02 0.02 0.02 Condition Score (end of period) Cows 4.0 4.0 3.9

Feeding MA Mobs Feeding Jul 1- 10 Jul 11- 20 Jul 21- 31 Cows Milkers Pasture (kg DM/hd/day offered) 13.5 Cows Dries Pasture (kg DM/hd/day offered) 7.2 7.2 7.2

Supplements Supplement Units Opening Buy Produced Sell Feed Closing Bulb Turnip tonnes DM Pasture Silage tonnes DM Calf Meal tonnes

14 Transactions Births Date Number Bobby Calves 1-31 Jul 15 10 Heifer Calves 1-31 Jul 15 9 Total 19

Deaths Date Number Comment Cows 16 Jul 15 3 Total 3

Purchases Date Number Value ($/hd) Weight (kg) Comment Total 0

Sales Date Number Value ($/hd) Weight (kg) Destination Comment Bobby Calves 31 Jul 15 7 20.1 25.0 Works Total 7

Transfers Out (From) Date Number Weight (kg) Destination Comment Total 0

Notes Jul 15 WEATHER

70ml rainfall 10 degrees soil temp

2 cows put down for Johnes disease 1 cow died - unknown cause

SEASON UPDATE

Calving started on July 13th - all going ok so far

Figure 14 Example Monthly Management Report

In FARMAX Professional, this is found at the Farm-level, see Figure 19.

Figure 15 New Monthly Management Report location for FARMAX Professional users

15 In FARMAX Performance Monitoring, this is added to the reports section, as shown in Figure 20.

Figure 16 New Monthly Management Report location for FARMAX Performance Monitoring users

Creating a report is relatively self-explanatory; you select ‘Create New Report’ (red outlined, Figure 21), specify the reporting period and the tables in the tabs will extract the relevant data from the FARMAX file (For example the Land table, Figure 22).

Figure 17 Creating a new Monthly Management Report

16 Figure 18 Example table from the Monthly Management Report; Land

Once all the monthly data has been checked and comments added where relevant, the Archive button (outlined red, Figure 22) enables you to save a non-editable version of the report. Over time, this archived library of reports can serve as a useful quick reference tool – they can be retrieved for years prior to the file start date.

Figure 19 Archived library of Monthly Management Reports

17 General navigation changes

Acronyms in the Cloud Window Upon selecting a farm file in the cloud window, on the right-hand side further information is provided, including the acronym to ascertain the type of subscription that farm is under: FARMAX Analysis (FAn; example below), FARMAX Performance Monitoring (FPM) and FARMAX Professional (FPro).

Figure 20 New acronyms in the Cloud Window

Cloud window file selection

18 You can select multiple files for the same farm by holding ctrl and clicking (e.g. see Figure 19 below).

Figure 21 Opening multiple files under on farm together

If you wish to open multiple farm files with the same file name, e.g. Monitoring files, hold ctrl and click on the farm(s) from the farm list - farms with common file names will be available to open simultaneously (Figure 20).

Figure 22 Opening multiple farm files with the same name, in this case three Monitoring files can be opened together

Main toolbar

19 The toolbar has been simplified as some of the features became obsolete with the 7.1 software changes. The previous open ( ) and add ( ) icons have been superseded by the

Open icon – this simply brings up the Cloud Window to select any of your FARMAX files to add to the screen. The file mode (Long Term or Short Term) is now written on the top right-hand corner.

The text size can be edited under the top ‘Tools’ menu.

Figure 23 Editing text size

20 When you close a FARMAX file, you are prompted to consider whether you would like to keep or discard the changes made during your session, or since the last save, with the prompt below. This also provides a tick box option to lock the file (Retain lock).

Figure 24 New file close dialogue box

Contention files Contention files should be appearing less frequently now with improvements to the cloud refresh and server monitoring, however they will still occur and have a higher risk of occurring with a large number of users accessing the same files and frequent offline working.

We urge users to action these contention files when they arise to prevent confusion – determine whether there is any original data in them, if so merge this data into the original file and delete (right-click on the file). The HelpDesk bureau service can restore these files if required.

Figure 25 New contention warning with link to further information

Bug fixes and other enhancements Aging bug in long term files – stock set to age up from another mob was not persisting upon closing and reopening a file – this has been fixed

21 Summaries reports - previously only visible in the compare reports with multiple files open, the Farm Summary and the Production Summary now available for one farm at the Farm-level. Cache files – All files that have been saved up to the cloud will also be stored in a local cache – the HelpDesk can assist in the recovery of these files if required. This is the last resort, should we find that files have not saved correctly in the cloud. Supply and Demand Report in this version the supply/demand report will include the loss of pasture through utilisation. Whereas previously loss of pasture via utilisation was not included (this was a bug) however it was taken into account in the pasture cover forecasting. We feel this change is a more accurate representation of available supply

To obtain the latest version

You can obtain the latest version from the following webpage: www.farmax.co.nz/updates/dairy. The new version will pick up your previous registration so there should be no need to call and re- register.

If you have any questions about the new version or how to install this on your computer, please feel free to contact the Farmax HelpDesk on 0800 327 629.

Kind regards,

The Farmax team

Farmax Helpdesk | FARMAX Limited Waikato Innovation Park, P O Box 1036, Hamilton, New Zealand

P 0800 FARMAX (327 629) E [email protected] W www.farmax.co.nz