DECEMBER 2017
To our valued clients & friends

Welcome!

Welcome especially to all our new clients who have joined us in 2017!

We would like to wish you all a very safe and happy Christmas and a successful 2018.

Thanks for choosing Fairport. We'll do our best to help you with your business management.
What's in this newsletter?

* ROGER'S RAMBLINGS

* HAVE YOU LOOKED AT "MINDMYASSETS"

* WHAT'S NEW IN PAM

* FAIRPORT CHRISTMAS OFFICE HOURS

ROGER'S RAMBLINGS

Next year will mark the 30th year since the first line of source code was created in the very first PAM program. That version 1.0 was released in August 1989 and some the clients who purchased that version are still our clients today ... well, in many cases it's the next generation! We quite often say after hanging up the phone from a support call ... "I remember when he was just a little schoolboy" ... or even "when he was just a glint in his father's eye". Yes, it's been a long journey and we sincerely appreciate the support everyone has given us for all or part of this journey.

We've had some personnel movements here in recent times. Ben, who joined me in 1998 (19 years back) as a relatively young man, left us in October. Ben arrived to form part of the development team that built the first PAM for Windows (PAM 2000+) has been responsible for an enormous amount of work over those 19 years. His focus was primarily on the cropping section of PAM. We wish him all the best in his post-Fairport ventures.

Suzanne left us at the end of last week to work for her partner's business. We wish her well. Suzanne was with us for 3 years as our office administrator, receptionist and accounts person. We will be actively searching for a replacement for her in the new year. If you know of anyone who lives in the Perth metro area who might be interested in this role, we'd love to hear from you or them.

Manuel, our IT support specialist left us in October for a role with the Commonwealth Government in Canberra. Manuel was with us for 5 years. We welcomed Dalton to the office while Manuel still had 2 weeks left of his notice period to complete, so it was great that he could pass on as much of his Fairport in-house knowledge as possible. Dalton is a young and enthusiastic guy who lives quite close to the office. He has 2 IT Certificates from TAFE and is now working on an online degree with RMIT in Melbourne.

We welcome Sai Patibandla who came to us from India via Brisbane. Sai graduated with a Masters degree from Queensland about 8 years ago and prior to joining us worked outsourced for a US-based web application developer. We also welcome two very experienced web application developers to our outsourced workforce. One is based in Sydney and the other in Germany.

Apart from developing MindMyAssets earlier this year, we have begun work on two (new and large) web projects. In October we developed a web and mobile application for one of our large and esteemed horticulture clients from Bundaberg in Qld. That application is used to monitor certain attributes of avocado trees. Each tree is tagged with an RFID tag which can be read (and written) using an Android device and read by later model iPhones. Both mindMyAssets web and mobile applications have recently gone through a major reworking, making them faster and improving the workflow. Some clients now have a lot of data entered, and the feedback was telling us that some improvement where needed. So, the old and new guys here have been, and are still, very busy!

PAM developments are shown further down in this newsletter. In addition to those, we have been talking with clients in New Zealand about exporting relevant records to the large kiwifruit acquirer, Zespri. That is an ongoing discussion. We will let you know when that evolves further. While in NZ, a while ago we developed a data export capability for the NZ Sustainable Wine Growers organisation. Please pass this information on to anyone you know is looking for a viticultural management program with an interface to the NZSWG. Importing harvest deliveries from Graincorp is also now on our radar. Discussions have been underway with their IT department in recent weeks.

As mentioned in previous newsletters, if any clients are in need of some training to fill some knowledge gaps we have over 80 "Getting Started" videos on our website. To find them, click on the "Support" link on the main menu. If you would like even more help than those videos provide, call us and we can arrange one-on-one training with your data, on your computer, over the internet using Team Viewer.

Wasn't it great that the Aussie cricket team regained the Ashes here in Perth this week! Here's hoping for a 5-0 whitewash! Also great news for sheep farmers these days with the sheep meat prices and wool prices where they are. Great reward for those of you staying with sheep.

So that's it for me for this year. I hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas and a wonderful and prosperous 2018.

Regards
Roger

MIND MY ASSETS

Have you had a look at Mind My Assets yet?

We have had a good uptake of the MAX replacement called Mind My Assets.
The feedback from users has been very useful as has helped us fine tune and streamline the data input on both the Web version as welll as the Mobile App.

Keeping track of your machinery, vehicles, stationary motors, boats, motorbikes, windmills, pumps, whatever-you-have ... maintenance schedules, parts lists, serial & vehicle numbers, suppliers, alternate part numbers, running costs... overheads. That's what MindMyAssets is all about. It is all about helping you get organised and helping you to keep on top of the important business of keeping your valuable assets maintained.
Keeping track of your machinery, vehicles, stationary motors, boats, motorbikes, windmills, pumps, whatever-you-have ... maintenance schedules, parts lists, serial & vehicle numbers, suppliers, alternate part numbers, running costs... overheads. That's what MindMyAssets is all about. It is all about helping you get organised and helping you to keep on top of the important business of keeping your valuable assets maintained.

WHAT'S NEW IN PAM

The evolution of PAM started in 1988 ... and it never stops!

* QA Report (GAP Report) - Re-Entry Interval Report, changed the default report from "applications in the last 48 hours" to "all applications within the REI period" PAM gives a list of only blocks that are still withing restriction.

* The Save routines have been reworked to speed up the process. This is especially helpful in Horticulture where many Blocks are treated at the same time with a mix of Chemicals and Fertilisers.

* Management Group Reports - Totals have been enhanced to provide better Income & Expense figures and Gross Margin details.

* Map Reports - Soil Test depth has been added to allow the reports to show the results separately for each test depth.

* Work Order Report - has been enhanced to allow selections for including Active Ingredients, hiding the Batch Number and hiding the Sprayer Details. The report has been slightly re-formatted to improve the layout of the page.

* Pocket PAM2 Listener - Fairport Data Exchange has been re-written to speed up the uploading of data from PAM to FDE and PAMShare.

* Sprayer Calibration Record - The report has been improved to show Flow Meter Reading correctly.

* Daily Paddock DSE Stocking Rate - A new browse report to show the DSE Stocking rate on a daily basis for each paddock for a month has been added to the report menu in te Livestock Diary.

CHRISTMAS OFFICE HOURS

The Fairport Office will be closed between -
12.30 Friday 22nd December 2017 and 8.30 Tuesday 2nd January 2018