To also see another preview of the new features, please see this previous post.

Before updating to the latest version of the SMS Software, here are a few things you should do first:

• Check In Projects – If you are an SMS Advanced user, all projects that have been “Checked Out” need to be checked back in.  This can be done by going to the File menu and clicking Projects.
• Create a backup of your data – Creating backups ensures that you have a good starting point in the event in that you have issues during migration or if you have other computer issues, such as a bad hard drive, down the road.  Backups can be created by going to the Services menu and clicking Backup…
• Plug devices into the wall – If you’re using a laptop, Ag Leader MESA, Ag Leader Field PC, or other PDA device, make sure that you have it plugged into the wall.  This will ensure that your device does not lose power while installing the update or migrating data.

If you have unlocked your SMS Basic, SMS Advanced, or SMS Mobile PC Software via the web, you can update by opening the software, going to the Help menu, and clicking “Check for Updates”.  For more information on how “Check for Updates” works, click here.

If you have manually unlocked your software by calling into our support team, you will be sent a CD in the mail.  Otherwise, if you would like to install the software sooner and would like to see the release notes, or would like to download a demo version, click here.

Adam Walters
Adam started with Ag Leader in May of 2011 as a full-time Software Support Specialist. He focuses on phone and email support for SMS Basic, Advanced, and Mobile users while also helping with classroom training sessions for both dealers and customers throughout the Midwest. Adam grew up in Sioux City, IA helping his father raise corn and soybeans on their family farm. He attended Iowa State University and graduated with a degree in Agricultural Business and a minor in Ag Systems Technology. Adam enjoys spending time with family and friends, helping on the family farm, watching ISU Athletics, and cheering on the Minnesota Twins and Vikings.

Pam Parsons
Pam has been with Ag Leader Technology since 2005 and currently serves as the SMS Software Administrative Assistant for the Desktop Software Team.  Pam’s main duties involve processing Software Maintenance Statements, helping customers get updated to the latest version of software, registering customers for training events, burning CDs, and helping customers get registered.

One of the operations in SMS Mobile is Soil Sampling, which can help you accomplish this task.  You can purchase the SMS Mobile Software in two ways:  a ruggedized MESA Mobile kit – which is Ag Leader’s complete solution to get you ready to start sampling in the field – or you can purchase just the SMS Mobile Software and install on any PDA running Windows Mobile 5.0 to 6.5.3 or any PC running Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7.

In the video below, Jess will walk you through how to use SMS Mobile while soil sampling.

If you missed Aaron’s blog of new features this fall, I wanted to point out two items coming for SMS Mobile.

SMS Mobile PC users will have the ability to view both a bird’s eye view of the map and the Navigation View at the same time, making sure that you can see exactly where you are navigating to.

When in the Navigation View you will also notice that we are now displaying the label of the object that you are currently navigating to under the target location (see red square above).

If you would like to learn more about SMS Mobile, you can sign up for one of our free introductory webinars, watch tutorials, or see additional training opportunities on SMS Mobile by visiting sms.agleader.com.

During this workshop, twenty farmers from Alabama – selected based on their interest and willingness to implement variable-rate application practices – were allowed to select a precision ag software package to use to complete the exercises.  All participants were required to upload prescription maps and setup InSight displays to complete the workshop. The entire workshop was very hands-on by all participants, and also included guest speakers during lunch and dinner.

Growers complete SMS exercises during the workshop.

John Fulton, Associate Professor and Extension Specialist at Auburn University, says, “Feedback from participants was excellent; it was better than we had anticipated.  Having them complete both the software aspect and using the InSight displays in simulation mode really helped them understand the overall process of variable-rate application.”

Setting up the InSight displays during the workshop.

Workshops such as this are great ways for growers to learn more about the value of their precision ag data. For more information about the Alabama Precision Ag Extension team, click here to visit their website or follow them on Twitter @AL_Prec_Ag or Facebook.

Below are two videos containing thoughts from some educators about Ag Leader’s program and how it is helping them in their classroom.

1. Make a backup of precision ag desktop software data and later burn the backup to a CD/DVD.
Like all of your other farm record keeping processes, your data is valuable and your time is limited.  Making backups on a regular basis will help ensure that you have a restore point before you start making changes to the data in your software or in the event that you have computer issues down the road.  In SMS Desktop Software, this can be done by going to Services – Backup.

2. Verify that you are on the latest version of your precision ag desktop software.
As precision ag displays get new firmware updates to perform the latest and greatest features, their file formats will inevitably change as well.  This means you will need to update your precision ag desktop software as well to be compatible.  Ag Leader released SMS Basic/SMS Advanced Version 11.02 earlier this year.  If you are not on the latest version of SMS Desktop Software and have registered online in the past, you can update by going to Help – Check For Updates. In Version 11.02 we have made changes for users working with different file formats, including Ag Leader Technology, AutoFarm, Case IH, John Deere, New Holland, Precision Planting, and Trimble, to name a few.

**Note for John Deere users – We will be supporting the Summer 2012 firmware release for John Deere displays in Version 11.5, which we will be releasing in mid- to late-September.  Please watch our downloads page or the Precision Point blog for more details.

3. Read in all remaining files from this spring.
In SMS Basic/SMS Advanced, you can read in files by clicking the Read Files icon on the main toolbar or by going to File – Read Files.  If you need more details on this process, please read one of my previous posts about this topic.

4. Export all necessary information to your precision ag display.
In SMS Basic/SMS Advanced, you can export information by clicking on the Device Setup icon on the main toolbar or by going to Tools – Device Setup Utility.

The Spatial Data Setup tab that is referred to in the video above is used to export not only your Variety Tracking information, but also Guidance Lines, Prescriptions, and Crop Plans as well (ie – 2011 Fertilizer Prescription (Dry), 2008 Guidance Lines, etc).

**Note – SMS Basic/SMS Advanced Version 11.02 can be used to export Variety Tracking information to the following displays: Ag Leader INTEGRA™, Case IH Pro600/700, John Deere GS2/GS3, and New Holland Intelliview Plus II/I.

5. Load your information into your precision ag display.
Follow your manufacturer’s instruction manual for details as to how to load setup information into your display.

Once you get to the field, I would recommend reading in the files logged by your various displays once a week to ensure that the data is being recorded properly and that you can address any operator training issues early on.

If you have any questions regarding this pre-harvest checklist, give our support team a call at 515-232-5363 and they’ll help you get going.  Best of luck to everyone this fall!

The Introduction to SMS Advanced Webinar will last 90 minutes and will be held the first Wednesday of every month at 11am CST.  This webinar will cover the installation options and project management in SMS Advanced, Analysis Tools, Batch Tools, Booklet Printing, 3-D Mapping and the unique customization options available to you only in SMS Advanced.

The Introduction to SMS Mobile Webinar will also last 90 minutes and will be held the first Monday of every month at 11am CST.  This session will cover the installation options, how to register your software, syncing and importing data into SMS Mobile, the basic setup of SMS Mobile and all 5 operating modes (Boundary, Soil Sampling, Crop Scouting, General Logging, Coverage Logging).

These sessions are great for our new customers, existing customers who want a refresher course, or future customers considering purchasing SMS Desktop or SMS Mobile and are free to anyone who wishes to attend.  The best part about these trainings is that they can all be completed from the comfort of your home or office with any computer that has internet access.  You will be able to interact with a member of our SMS Software Support Team throughout the webinar using chat tools.

To sign up for any of these free sessions, view previously recorded sessions, or to see a list of classroom trainings in your area visit sms.agleader.com or contact our support team at 515-232-5363.

The SMS Certified II course focused on the tools that have been added to SMS over the past three years. During the training, we reviewed the Analysis Tools and gave a sneak peek at the features coming in version 11.5 of the SMS desktop software and 5.5 of SMS Mobile. The attendees were a mix of Ag Leader dealers, CCA’s and other industry professionals who had previously completed the SMS Certified I class.  With their extensive knowledge of SMS, we focused less on teaching the basic ‘button presses’ and more on what the button presses can help them accomplish once the value of data is realized.

With all of the information being collected in the field, such as planting, spraying, harvest, soil fertility, fertilizing and the ever growing list, it raises the very obvious question of WHAT should we be doing with all of this information?  It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all of the data sitting in SMS and hearing everyone’s own ‘unique’ strategy about how to make better management decisions and what data you should and should not use.

Should we base next season’s management decisions on previous year’s yield information, soil sampling results, soil types, NIR imagery, sensor values or any of the other pieces of information we’ve recorded?  After a great discussion with all the Certified II participants, the one conclusion we came to was that there is no one right answer that is going to work for everyone, but the training revealed tools in the software that make sorting through the data faster and easier. We all recognize that each field is  unique and will  need to be managed differently.

In addition to the Certified II training we also offer many other levels of SMS Software training.  We continue to look for new ways to assist you in making the decisions that affect your bottom line, including helping you with training sessions, online meetings and our dedicated support staff.

The Educators’ Training is a two-day session with the first day focusing on hardware products and the second day dedicated to SMS and SMS Mobile software. This layout will allow the educators to see what is going on in the field as well as what is happening back in the office and understand how the two work together. The training will cover everything from planting to harvest to GPS and guidance. The attendees will have the opportunity to put the components of the Ag Leader systems in their hands and see how each part works together, and then see it operating a machine. This hands-on training will provide valuable experience that educators can take back to their classroom to enhance their curriculum.

Any educator is welcome to attend Ag Leader’s Educators’ Training; the fee to attend is $200 per seat. Any institution that is current with their Educational Lab Package may send one attendee at no cost to them. If you are interested in attending, please contact Pete Youngblut at 515-232-5363.

At last year’s training, we spoke to some of the educators in attendance about their goals and the importance of teaching precision technologies, as well as how they are integrating precision technologies in their classrooms. See the videos below to hear what last year’s attendees had to say.

We added a Crop Scouting operation to SMS Mobile several versions back to help you with this documentation.  This spring we released SMS Mobile Version 5.0 with two new features to help you gather additional information when scouting your fields.

Feature #1 – Ag Leader OptRx crop sensor added as a supported sensor.
With the release of Version 1.1 of the OptRx crop sensor, we are now able to connect an OptRx crop sensor to a PDA, such as the MESA, or to a PC.  SMS Mobile can use a sensor with any operation, but the two most common for OptRx will be Crop Scouting and Coverage Logging.

For those that want to drive through the field with a single sensor, you can use Coverage Logging and SMS Mobile will record the reading automatically as you drive.  Those that want to walk through the field and make notes for specific locations can use the OptRx sensor to look at crop health while checking stand counts and looking for pests.

Feature #2 – Picture Notes
We also added the Layer Notes tool in version 5.0.  You can now make a note with a GPS location and take a picture if your device has a built-in camera, or you can manually add a picture stored on your device.  If you think about the saying “A picture is worth a thousand words,” it doesn’t take long to realize how much easier it is to look at a picture when trying to describe how severe crop damage or insect pressure might be in an area.  This information can then be synced to SMS Basic or SMS Advanced and can be viewed when you create a map or when you create crop scouting reports.

The video below talks more about these features and more when crop scouting with SMS Mobile.

If you’ve been watching or reading the news from eastern Iowa lately, you may have heard about the strong winds that went through the area and caused damage to trees, buildings and crops.  My parents have already taken pictures of the damage in the field, so we will be linking those into SMS Advanced the next time I’m home and then using that layer as a way to evaluate the yield loss compared to areas that were not damaged as badly.