Start Here – Setup Guide

PostedApril 19, 2021

UpdatedMay 19, 2021

ByVertiGrow Team

FarmWare Setup Guide

FarmWare’s setup guide will take you through a step by step walk through of the current functionality of the software. The setup process contains both exercises and videos to aid you in your setup process.

The guide contains 17 minutes of video and the tasks shouldn’t take longer than 15 minutes to complete.

It is important that you take the time to complete the tasks outlined to gain an understanding of how FarmWare can be integrated into your current workflow. As always we are open to feedback and welcome suggestions on how to improve the set up process. Thank you for your continued support throughout the beta process and happy growing!

FarmWare Setup Guide

The guide contains 17 minutes of video and the tasks shouldn’t take longer than 15 minutes to complete.

Important Note: This Setup Guide contains instructions for both FarmWare Basic and Pro. The advanced features that are exclusive to FarmWare Pro have been marked with a green box, like this, to distinguish them.

Crop Builder

Watch The Tutorial Video

This is where you add new crops to your library.

Add a new crop

Click the “+” icon to add a new crop to your library
Name your crop
Click Save.

Add tasks to your grow schedule

Click on the crop name you created to Edit it.
Click on the “+” to add tasks to your grow schedule.

3. See example for a complete crop recipe.

Add your crop info

1. Add your average crop yield per tray in your unit of choice

2. Add any extra notes you want associated with the crop.

3. If you would like to track the LOT number from your seed supplier, add it here to link it to every batch of this crop that you grow in FarmWare - When you start a new lot of seed, update the number here to start tracking the new LOT number with new batches.

4. Check over all inputted fields to make sure they are correct

5. Click the save button when you are ready to save your new crop.

Section Breakdown

Day Section

This section allows you to input the day that each task takes place.
You can start with day 1 or use negative days for prep tasks that happen before planting.
You can enter multiple tasks with the same day, make task reminders for every day (like watering), or skip days to only show the important tasks that you want to appear in your task sheet.

Task Section

The task section has a dropdown with common growing tasks for your convenience.
You can also enter a custom task by typing it in and pressing enter.

Info Section

Here you can jot down any extra information, like growing medium, soak times, seed densities, water times, etc.
This information will also appear on your daily task sheet when growing this crop

Products Page

This is where you build out your product line. Outline your product details in advance and save time when placing orders. You will set up this page from bottom to top

Watch The Tutorial Video

Input packaging details

Use this section to outline the packaging for all your products. This allows FarmWare to calculate how many trays of crop are needed based on your orders.

Click the “+” icon to add a new packaging option
Enter the name and size of the package in your preferred units
Specify packaging units
Complete this process for all your packaging options

Note:

If you use different pricing for retail and wholesale, add packaging for both end markets so you can price them differently in the next steps. For example, “Medium Clamshell - Retail” and “Medium Clamshell - Wholesale”.

Stay tuned as we will be adding multiple pricing options in a future update!

Create a new mix

This is where you specify the components of different mixes. Enter the crops and proportions so that FarmWare can calculate how many trays of each individual crop are needed to fulfil your mix orders.

Click on the “+”icon in the “Mix Library” section to create a new mix.
Use the Mix Components “+” icon to add the component crops of your mix
Select each component crop from the dropdown, and specify its amount in units or %.
Save your crop mix. If using the percent option, the total must equal 100% for the mix to be valid, otherwise it cannot be saved.

Note:

You can use the Mix Library “+” icon to add as many mixes as you like.

You can use the Mix Components “+” icon to add as many component crops of your mix as you require

Add product info

Use this section to outline all the details for each one of your products (pure crops and mixes).

Select a product.
Click on the “Available for sale” trigger if that product is currently for sale.
Select which packaging options are available for this product and outline a standard price -
1. You can override this price when placing orders if you want to offer a special price

4. Fill out the product info.

Section Breakdown

Unit Value - This number is used to calculate a suggested price for custom orders that do not use your standard packaging options (like 3 trays, or 5 lbs). See the orders page for more info on custom orders.

Storage Buffer – Specify how long you can leave a product in cold storage before it is sold. When you have a storage buffer, FarmWare will consolidate your batches to help you be more efficient (i.e. FarmWare will schedule more crop to be grown together so you have bigger harvests on one day instead of harvesting small batches on multiple days). If you harvest and sell on the same day, set this to 0.

Yield Buffer – Specify how much extra crop you want to grow on top of your order demand. This can be used as a safety buffer for crop failures or to ensure you have extra product for late orders or marketing samples

Customers / CRM (Customer Relationship Manager)

The CRM helps you keep track of customer information and links their info to their orders to facilitate smooth deliveries. Add new clients to the CRM to have them show up as an option in the orders page.

Watch The Tutorial Video

Add a new customer

1. Click on the New Customer button to add a new customer.

2. Input the customer’s name. If selling direct to consumer, toggle the “Primary Contact is Customer” switch

3. Add as many contacts as you need by clicking the Add Contact button, and filling out their information. Not all of the fields need to be filled out

4. Add the customer’s address. This will appear on your delivery page

5. Add any additional notes you want to include on this customer’s file

6. You can add custom fields by clicking Add Additional Fields

7. Click Save

8. You can expand a customer’s information within the CRM to quickly see all their information

Orders Page

Watch The Tutorial Video

This is where you enter new orders, set up repeating order templates, and search through all previous order records.

When you place a new order, FarmWare checks your production numbers to ensure that you are growing enough trays to fulfill your orders plus the yield buffer you specified on the products page.

When an order is placed, FarmWare will automatically schedule your growing tasks based on the grow schedules outlined in the crops page.

Place a new order

Click on the new order button to place an order.

Choose Order System:

If you are a FarmWare Pro user, you can use one of two order input systems within FarmWare. The system that you choose will depend on your daily workflow - The Additive Order System & The Subtractive Order System.

Note: FarmWare Basic uses the additive ordering system as it is the most common for small farms.

Additive Order System

The additive order system is for grow to order style farms. FarmWare will take the sum of all of your order inputs and calculate how many trays you need to grow to satisfy demand.

Input New Order Details

Select a customer name and press enter
1. Note: Customers must be added to the CRM before you can place orders for them. See the CRM section for more information
Select a product
Select a packaging option - If you specified a price on the products page, it should appear automatically. If you want to offer this product at a special price for this order, you can enter custom pricing instead
Enter a quantity
If this order contains multiple items, click the “Add Item”

6. Use the Product/Custom item toggle switch to choose between your two line item options. Products are standard products that are defined in your Products Page. Custom allows you to enter a number of trays or custom weight amount to your order.

7. If you want to add fees or discounts, click “Add Fee/Discount” and enter the amount in percent, or currency units. These can be either positive or negative numbers

8. Input the Due Date for this order

9. Click Save, review the information in the New Order Confirmation popup, and click Create Order

Subtractive Order System

The subtractive order system is for growers who have a good idea of how much to grow each cycle, and can set up their production before their orders come in. As new orders are confirmed, FarmWare will subtract that demand from the available crop in production until all the crop being grown is assigned to orders.

In order to use the Subtractive ordering system, you first need crops in production. Scroll down to the Production Page section below to create your first production run, then return here to use subtractive orders.

Steps 1-5 involve setting up a production run, so we will continue with step 6.

Place New Order

6. Navigate back to the orders page and click the New Order button.

Click on the Subtractive switch (note: you can set your default ordering system to subtractive in the Settings page if you want to use the subtractive system full time at your farm)
Select a customer.
Select a product that uses one of the crops you put into production.
Select a packaging size.
Specify quantity.
If you want to add fees or discounts, click “Add Fee/Discount” and enter the amount in percent, or currency units. These can be either positive or negative numbers.
Select the same date you inputted as the harvest date in step 4
Click save, review the information in the New Order Confirmation popup, and click Create Order

Repeating Order Template

You can easily create a repeating order schedule for any regular or returning customers by creating a Repeating Order Template.

Navigate to the Orders tab
Click on the Repeating Order Templates tab
Click on “+New Template”

4. Select the customer from the dropdown list.
5. Select the product
6. Select the packaging option
7. Adjust or input the Price and Quantity
8. You can add more items by clicking Add Item

9. Pro Only. With FarmWare Pro, you can add custom line items to your orders, either directly in Trays or custom weights in grams, ounces, or pounds. To do this, toggle the slider to “Custom”

10. If you want to add fees or discounts, click “Add Fee/Discount” and enter the amount in percent, or currency units. These can be either positive or negative numbers.
11. Select the correct Payment & Delivery information. If you don’t see the option you want, you can type in your own options and press enter to apply it.
12. Input the Repeating Frequency for the order
13. Input the Due Date for when you want the repeating order cycle to begin
14. Click Save

Section Breakdown

Customer input – this allows you to select an existing customer from the CRM.

Product drop down - This allows you to select crops that you have made available for sale on the product page.

Packaging drop down – This allows you to select sizes you have made available for each variety.

Quantity Input – This allows you to input quantity of products for the order.

Add item button - This will allow you to add multiple items to the same order.

Product/custom trigger – This gives you the option of choosing a product from your products page or placing a custom order.

Secondary Item – This section allows you to add an additional item to your order. To continue to add more items click the “Add Item” button again.

Payment type – This allows you to input payment terms.

Date – This specifies when the order is to be delivered to customers. Make sure you leave enough time to fulfill all orders. For example, if Broccoli is an 11 day grow cycle then you must select a date that is a minimum of 11 days away.

Graphs

1. Click on the graph arrow to show the same graphs as your dashboard within the orders page

2. Notice your current production levels plotted alongside demand. You can hover over each variety to see demand vs production.

Production Page

Watch The Tutorial Video

The Production Page lets you manage every detail of your production process.

It is split into two sections: Batches and Production.

The Batches section gives you information about and control over your current and future batches of crops.

The Production section lets you set up production runs, which let you add crops to your system without them being assigned to orders (this is a key component of the subtractive order system).

Create a new production run

Production runs let you schedule a certain amount of crop to be grown regardless of orders. If you are using the subtractive order model, you need to start with production runs so that you have crops in production to assign to orders as they are placed.

Click on the New Production button to create a new, one-off production run
Alternatively: If you are setting up repeating production, skip ahead to the Repeating Production Run section

3. Select how much crop you want to grow in the New Production Run Popup,

1. You can base your production run on your products and packaging (i.e. grow enough crop for 25 Large Clamshells of Cabbage), or
2. You can also toggle the slider to Custom and input a number of trays or a bulk amount in grams, ounces, or pounds (i.e. 5 Trays of Amaranth)

4. Add multiple items to your production run by clicking Add Item

5. Now enter the date. This can either be set as a start date or an end date

1. Start Date - If you use a start date and have multiple crops in your production run, they will all be started on the start date and may not be ready to harvest on the same day if they have different times to maturity.
2. End Date - If you want everything ready to harvest on the same day, use the End Date option. If you set the end date too early and there is not enough time to grow the requested crops, you will receive the same warnings as in the Orders Page above.

Track Your Production Run

Once you save this production run, FarmWare will add the required batches and schedule your growing tasks

If you open the graphs dropdown at the top of the page, you will be able to see how much crop is now in production for the new harvest date(s).

As you use the subtractive ordering system, you will see the demand increase. You can also see and edit the new batches in the Batches tab of this page.

Creating a Repeating Production Run

To schedule a repeating production run, navigate to the Repeating Production Run tab and click New Template.
Create a repeating production run the same way as shown above, and add the repeating frequency.

3. To control the repeat behaviour, go to Settings and navigate to the Repeating Production section.

Batches

The batches tab shows you all your batch information and allows you to make changes to batches on the fly.

The Gantt Chart view shows you for batches over time, along with batch ID, crop, number of trays, and start and harvest dates
To see more information about a batch, or to edit it, click on the corresponding bar in the Gantt Chart. Here you can see the batch information as well as the orders that this batch is linked to

3. You can click on any of the order IDs to view a summary of that order

4. Click Edit to edit the batch

Edit Batch Pop-Up

You cannot change the batch IDs or the crop for traceability reasons, but you can change the number of trays and start/harvest date.

If you reduce the number of trays, and the reduced batch will no longer yield enough crops to fulfill the linked orders, you will receive a warning message showing you the required amount, the new expected yield with the reduced tray count, and the affected orders.

You can force the edit through and check your Production vs. Demand graph in the graphs dropdown above to see if you have other crops with enough extra yield to supplement or replace those order items.

Change Harvest Date

Currently, if you change the start or harvest date of a batch, FarmWare will move all your scheduled tasks accordingly.

Splitting Batches:

If you would like to separate part of a batch to either change its grow schedule or harvest early, you can split the batch in the Edit Batch Popup by clicking Split Batch.
You will be prompted to enter the number of trays you would like to split from the parent batch into the new Sub-Batch.
The sub-batch can then be edited independently of the parent batch while still maintaining the true traceability log from when it was part of the parent batch.
Once you confirm the split you will be able to see the new sub-batch appear in the gantt chart.

Early Harvest

To harvest a batch or sub-batch early, Edit the batch.
Click Harvest Batch where you will be prompted to enter the harvest date.
Once you confirm the early harvest, all of your uncompleted tasks from before and after harvest will be moved up accordingly to ensure that you can review all the necessary steps you take both pre- and post-harvest.
You will also be able to immediately see that the batch harvest date has changed in the Gantt Chart.

Table View

You can also see all of your batch information in the table view.
Filtering and editing batches is exactly the same in this tab.

Schedule

This section is where you can view your monthly calendar as well as your daily task list.

Watch The Tutorial Video

Using the task sheet

The task sheet will automatically load all of today’s tasks based on your crop’s grow schedules and your production requirements. That way, anyone can show up at the farm and see exactly what needs to be done to keep things running smoothly.

See future tasks by selecting a different date with the date picker, or clicking the calendar tab above
To create a custom task (such as “Sweep Floor"), click Create Task and enter the associated details, including the repeating frequency
Filter your tasks by clicking on as many of the drop down options as you like, then clicking Filter. You can clear your filters by clicking Reset
Complete a task by clicking the status checkbox. You can switch the task back to uncompleted by clicking the checkbox again
Export Tasks to either print out your task sheet, or save it as a CSV file

View your schedule and task list

Click on the calendar to see the number of tasks scheduled on each day.
Notice that your tasks are populated for the orders that you entered.

Export a task list

Select a single date or date range here.
The table will show a preview of the tasks for the date range you have selected.

If using FarmWare Pro, you can enter a batch ID and see all tasks associated with a batch of crops, as well as usernames and timestamps for who completed the task when. The batch filter will override the date filter to show you all the tasks associated with a batch.

3. Click Print Tasks to see a preview of your task sheet, or click Export to CSV to export the task list in a spreadsheet.

Export a pack list

1. Navigate to the Task Sheet page and click Pack List.

2. Select a Harvest Date using the date picker.

3. Your pack list will appear in the preview table below.

4. You can Print you pack list or Export to CSV.

Create a Delivery Guide

Click on “Order Summary” to generate a list of your orders due for delivery

2. Select the due date you would like to view orders for

3. Click on "Generate Shareable Link".

4. Set a password to make the link to protect your delivery information

5. Click on "Generate Link"

6. Your pack list will appear in the preview table below. Once the link has been created, you can share it with those responsible for delivery. They will be able to see a list of all orders that are due for delivery that day, and can access CRM data (such as address and contact info) for each customer by clicking on their name above their order. Orders can be checked off as they are delivered

Settings

Change Plans

You can easily change your FarmWare Plan to best suit your farm’s needs

1. Navigate to the Settings Page

2. Click on Plan Details

3. Click on Change Plan

4. Select the most suitable plan for your farm.

Repeating Orders

Repeating orders default action - select whether you want repeating orders to get scheduled automatically or canceled (skipped) if they are not confirmed through the notification system

Auto-schedule time - If you select to automatically confirm repeating orders you can control how many days in advance (before the latest possible start date for all crops in the order) you want them to be scheduled.

Notify to confirm all repeating orders - select whether or not you want to receive notifications about new repeating orders

Repeat order warning buffer - choose how many days in advance you want to be notified about repeating orders.

Example: You want your orders to automatically repeat without having to do anything, and would like to see your future orders one month in advance.

- Solution: Deactivate notifications, set the default action to Confirm, and set the Auto-schedule time to 30 days. Note that you can always edit your orders even after they have been scheduled.

Example: You would like to confirm each order before it is scheduled, and if you do not confirm the order manually, skip it.

- Solution: Activate notifications, set the Warning Buffer to 7 days so you can review it one week in advance, and set the Auto-schedule time to 0 days.

Repeating Production Runs

The repeating system is the same for production runs

Standard Unit - choose which unit you want to appear by default (for crop yield, packaging options, etc.)

Default Currency - select the currency you use

Default Order type - select which order type you want to appear by default. You always have the option to change the order type in the new order popup.

Notifications

Click the notification bell to see all outstanding repeating orders - If you are a FarmWare Pro user, repeating Production Runs

Click Details to open the order details popup.

Review your repeating order details here and decide to either:

Confirm: Approve the order and schedule all associated crop production tasks

Cancel One: Skip this order but keep the repeating order schedule active and get a notification for the next cycle

Cancel All: Skip this order and delete the repeating order template, canceling all future orders from this template

Edit: Open the edit order popup and edit this order as a one-off, leaving the repeating order template as is, so the next repeating order in the cycle is still based off of the template

After a successful pilot project automating Living Earth Farm, we started the process of certifying our hardware products so we can get them to farmers everywhere. We will be offering automation kits for small scale farmers as well as a pro series for commercial growers. All of our automation systems link to FarmWare so you can focus on other things while your farm runs itself!

Having trouble?

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How Can We Help?

Start Here – Setup Guide

FarmWare Setup Guide

FarmWare Setup Guide

Crop Builder

Products Page

Use this section to outline all the details for each one of your products (pure crops and mixes).

Customers / CRM (Customer Relationship Manager)

Orders Page

Place New Order

Production Page

Schedule

Settings

Notifications