Selecting Ag GIS Software - Ohio State University Ag Systems Management Senior Design Team, from the 2018 Conservation Tillage and Technology Conference, March 6 - 7, Ada, OH, USA. More presentations at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZBwPfKdlk4SB63zZy16kyA

1. Selecting Ag GIS
Software
Zack McConnell, Brent Nicol, Garrett Leeds, Isaac Leeds
Agricultural Systems Management (ASM) Senior Design Team
Food, Agriculture and Biological Engineering Department

2. What is Our Project?
● Precision Software Comparison Tool
○ Housing information for each product
○ Farm Management and Predictive Data
Analytics Software
● Product Description
● List of Features
● Pricing
● Side-by-Side feature comparison

3. What factor is most valuable to you when
deciding on a software?

4. Software Features
● Read and upload data from displays
● View spatial data
○ Ex. Soil Maps and yield maps
● Print Summaries
○ Ex. Profit Maps, Cost Summary
● Generate Prescriptions
○ Ex. Fertilizer Equations, Seeding, Pesticide application
● Conduct spatial and multi-year analyses
● Guidance Planning

5. Ex. Ag Leader SMS Advanced
DESCRIPTION: A Farm Management Information Software for spatial field and data
management solutions. Locally installed software (e.g. desktop, laptop) for growers, consultants
and others working with precision ag data.
PRICE:
o $1995/year, Additional Costs for Yearly Support and Maintenance: $495/year
FEATURES:
○ Reads and uploads data from displays
○ View spatial data
○ Create, Manage and Export Guidance Lines
○ Print Summaries
○ Generate prescriptions
○ Conduct spatial and multi-year analyses
○ etc.

6. Ex. Climate Field View
DESCRIPTION: The Climate Corporation has built the Climate FieldView platform to
help farmers sustainably increase their productivity with digital tools
PRICE:
o FieldView Prime - Free
o FieldView Plus - $999 / Year
o FieldView Pro- $3-$4 / Acre
FEATURES
○ Cloud Storage
○ Yield Analysis
○ Fertility Scripting
○ Side-by-side visualization
○ Remote View
○ Field Health Imagery
○ Nitrogen Management
○ Weather Reports

7. What to Keep in Mind When Considering a Software
● Size of your operation
● Budget (1-time cost; annual maintenance costs…)
● What do I want to be able to do?
● Are you working with client data?
● Web based or app based preference
● How will you be supported?
● Can you take a trial run?
● Technology is going to change; what if you want to move
your data to another service?

8. Dealer Questions:
● Can I export my data from this system?
● What are the output formats?
● What other programs are compatible?
● Can I get my original data transferred?
● Can I export reports?
● What are the exit limitations?
● Can it be used on mobile devices?
If I decide to switch, what do I need to know?

9. Have you considered upgrading to the
next package?

10. Determining What Package to Purchase
● Many products have several tiers of packages that
provide different features.
○ Basic
○ Standard
○ Premium
● Consider:
○ Price
○ Features included
○ Customer Support

11. Ex. Ag Leader SMS Basic vs Advanced
Pricing:
○ Basic- $750/year
○ Advanced-$1995/year
Cost for Support and Maintenance:
○ Basic- $180/year
○ Advanced-$495/year

12. Feedback
● Are you currently searching for new farm management software?
● Do you like to use farm management software, or do you have
someone do it for you?
● Do you want to know more about farm management software?

13. Questions?

14. Thank You!
● Zack McConnell mcconnell.304@osu.edu
● Brent Nicol nicol.118@osu.edu
● Garrett Leeds leeds.26@osu.edu
● Isaac Leeds leeds.16@osu.edu