While the phrase “easy to use farm management software” is subjective, there are things which I’m sure we all will agree make software easy to use. If you landed on this blog post, chances are that you are exploring farm management software options, right?
Yes, you are on AgNote’s blog post and AgNote is farm management software, therefore you may think this is just a sales pitch. While those are valid thoughts, please let me provide you with my suggestions on what to look for when choosing farm management software.
Practical software for practical farmers
Initially AgNote was prototyped by an actual farm manager who managed over 6,000 acres of row and permanent crops. Practicality and ease of use were and remains the top priorities for AgNote when developing new features and additions to the software. Ease of use is particularly important in farming because many of the software users will be using it out on the field. For farmers it is very crucial that all farming related data is centrally located. Farmers are busy managing farm activities. They simply do not have time to log in to several places or go through spreadsheets just to find the information they need. Farmers’ focus is to manage the crops not spreadsheets.
Characteristics of easy-to-use farm management software
Here are six common things which will make farm management software easier to use:
- Intuitiveness. Intuitively built software will be easy for users to learn.
- Crop data visibility. Good visibility helps farmers to get the information they need quickly.
- Flexibility. Each farm is unique with different farming practices. Therefore, software needs to allow customization so farmers can configure the software to work for them, not the other way around.
- Dedicated crop management areas. Different crop types (i.e. row, permanent, produce crops) have different data tracking needs.
- Automation. By automation, I mean tasks which software performs behind the scenes, not remote sensors supplying data to the software.
- Batch functions. There are a lot of repetitive things when collecting / recording farm data. For example, when planning the next season, chances are that many fields will have the same crop. Or many fields may have the same fertilizer applied. Easy to use software should allow repetitive things to be recorded in batches instead of individually for each field.
As you can see from the list above, the things that make farm management software easy to use are often small and well thought out things combined.
I’ll echo again that each farm is different with unique needs, therefore I recommend doing thorough research before committing, since this is a long-term commitment. You can start with a quick google search for “easy to use farm management software” and please consider trying out AgNote. You can register in less than a minute and try it out free for seven days.
