Eventually it would be nice to be able to preset fields in the Field kit Log entries.
I have been recording observations of my Electric Fence system performance from about my property. I measure the fence at numerous locations with an electronic tester that displays Voltage, Amps and fault direction. The thought being I may eventually be able to use these records to analyse system performance and to help find faults when they occur.
Seems sort of logical to take a phone photo of the devices screen to record the reading rather than reading the screen and typing all this info into fieldkit. Since the phone automatically geotags and time stamps the photo.
Presently with field kit, if I want to minimise entry steps, I could just scroll to the bottom of the form, select images and take the photo. If this is all I do, I end up as an Activity & not a Observation. I had a look in farmos & I could not see how to change activity type once it has been recorded? But I am probably missing something.
So to take a Fence Reading record I could enter:
Name,
Change Log type from activity to observation,
Notes - enter the displayed values on the fence meter
Equipment - enter the fence reading device from my equipment list
Select an area
Press add my GPS location button
Images - take the image.
By the time I do all this I have seriously lost interest in the task!
OTOH if I opened the Edit Log form to find a list of my presets, from which I could choose “Fence Reading” and have it Fill in
Name: Fence Reading
Log Type: Observation
Equipment: Electric Fence Fault Finder
Add my GPS location…
Then all I would need do is take the photo and it would be a quick and easy task. Presumably variations of this idea might be useful for all sorts of log entries. Could even be a top right menu option that allowed any Log form in field kit to “Save as preset”.
Anyway just an idea I had that is probably in the pipeline already.
@Logger this is a great idea! I think we have talked about a “preset” feature but I can’t find any existing issues or posts describing that idea. Thanks for writing this up! I agree there are many potential use cases for this.
I know you said that the photo is easier than typing into Field Kit, but using log quantities might have some benefits for record keeping purposes. Having the numerical voltage + amps would make it much easier to export, graph and track changes in the data later on. These logs could also be included in quantity reports. With a preset, perhaps it would be possible to pre-create fields for “Voltage” and “Amps” and make the data collection process a bit faster.
I would say do what is easiest for you right now, you can always manually add quantities to the logs at a later time since you have the photos. Maybe one day the app will be able to parse values from the image I’m curious what particular ways you’d like to analyze this data, too - its an interesting idea!
Ohhhh, I like the preset idea! Or maybe log templates?
I’m inclined to combine this with some thoughts other users have had towards creating a dedicated Observation module (farmOS/farmOS-client#275). Or perhaps even a module specifically for your use case.
I was using photos for simplicity in the field and to reduce data entry errors. My thinking was I could take a photo without really interpreting the readings as I did it. Then later on the desktop enter KV & A values. But as you suggest entering the values directly might be better.I like your idea of one day the system being clever enough to parse/ or read the values from an image!
I don’t have any clever way to analyse the data just yet. Just being able to visualise it on a map over time would be good. Not possible with farmos yet I guess. Could then correlate system performance to weather events and also see when and where defects have occurred. Which part of the network is prone to faults. Another thought I had was while the farmos mapping tool calculates area, it would be good if it could also be used to find perimeter length of paddock objects. This could be used to approximate fence length to calculate the size of an electric fence system.
@jgaehring Yeah presets or templates. I envisage I might need 5 templates to capture most things. Might not need a specific module. OTOH a set of templates to suit a usage case (egg farm, beef grower, plant nursery, etc) is almost a module in any case.
Haha, yea! My gears are already turning on the ways we could incorporate presets into the new module system we’re rolling out. So keep your eyes peeled! And thanks!
I really like the concept of presets particularly in the context of harvest being able to have landlord, weight units, field, crop etc pre-populated so a truck driver just needs to record numbers when dropping off a load.
Welcome to the forum @yffip - I missed this post when you wrote it sorry.
One approach you might take is to create the logs in advance, fill in all the details you describe, mark them as “not done”, and assign them to the driver. Then the driver can load it into Field Kit, save the final values, mark it as “done” and send it back to farmOS.
Within farmOS itself, you can also “clone” logs - so if you make one as a template, you can then easily clone it to create new pending logs that you assign to people.
I’m curious what particular ways you’d like to analyze this data, too - its an interesting idea!
And thanks!