Introduction to the BoviSync Website Application

Introduction to the BoviSync Website Application

There are a few methods to navigate BoviSync:
  • The Menu Bar
  • The Navigator
  • Using of your internet browser’s bookmarks

Because the program is displayed through a web browser, you can use bookmarks to be able to return to specific reports, cow pages, group pages, settings, etc. Cow and group pages will load as of the current session date you are using. However, reports are many times called with specific date ranges, therefore if you bookmark a report with a specific date range, it will keep returning to the same date range. If you want a current report that looks back one year, fetch a report with nothing in the start or end date, and then bookmark it. By default, the end date will be the session date, and the start date will be one year prior. If you want the report to always start at a particular date, put that date in the start date and leave the end date empty. This will return a report that starts at that particular date and ends with the current session date.

An example of this type of usage would be following a change at the farm or management protocol change. The date of the change(s) could be used as the start date and the end date left blank. By bookmarking or saving this report, every time it is called up, the report will be from the date of the change until the current date, allowing you to easily monitor progress toward the goal. And while you are at that report, if you are curious what the progress looked like six months ago, fetch the report with the end date being six months ago.


The Navigator

The navigator allows users to search or jump to a particular page (e.g. cow page, enter the cow’s eartag and you go to the cow’s page, rather than navigating through the animal list).


Navigator Syntax

Cow pages

To get to a cow page, enter a cow’s eartag or name (no spaces are allowed) into the navigator, and then you’ll be redirected to the cow’s page. If you want to get a cow that is no longer in the herd, you need to add the prefix “d.” (e.g. – “ d.1023 ”)

Group pages

Group pages are pages that summarize a particular set of animals. These groups can be named or ad hoc (dynamic) groups. For group pages of named groups and pens, you need to enter the name of the group or pen (no spaces are allowed) into the navigator. There are also two methods of getting ad hoc group pages that you define. The first method is to explicitly give the animal eartag or name, and is strung together with “.” or “-“, where “-“ creates a range between values. (e.g. 102.150.160-162 would be the same as 102.150.160.161.162). The second method is to use report item abbreviations, an operator, and a value. An example of this is a group page for all animals that are in their second lactation, enter into the navigator: “lact=2”. Other operators are listed in the operators section.

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The Menu Bar

File

Open Herd(s) – this takes you to the herd login page Preferences – change your personal preferences Farm Settings – change farm wide settings, if you have the correct permissions. Protocols and events – change/add protocols and events Import – for setting up importing of data; DHI test day, parlor

Note: to import a file, go to Utilities-> Data Transfer->Import

Logoff – Log out of the program

Enter

This is for event entry. Double click on “Enter” to go straight to the event entry page. Otherwise, select the type of event you want from a list of common events to get to the page pre-filled. If the current page is a cow page, the cow you are currently looking at will prefill into the event entry.

Reports

Report wizard – takes you to the blank report wizard. All others take you to predefined or user-defined reports.

Language

Change languages – change the language you are viewing BoviSync in. (The default at login is set in user preferences.) Units – can switch between metric and standard units.

Tables

Tables in BoviSync are generally all going to have some similar features: reorder by column, ability to resize columns and the table, change the number of records on each table page, change table pages, search and filter table records, print to pdf, and export the table to Excel.


To be directed to reports, the first term must be one of the following: “list”, “report”, “show”, “graph”, “plot”, or “sum”. All of the following terms entered in the navigator up until the words “for” or “by”, are items that are to be included in the report. Because the names have spaces, only the report item abbreviation can be used. In the case of graphs, the first term will be used for the x-axis, and the following terms used for the y-axis.

The special terms “for” and “by” are used to filter and aggregate report data. To filter using “for”, the terms need to be a string without spaces that follow this pattern: report item abbreviation, operator, value, and then repeat. An example would be “… for milk<80 dim>150 lact<>1”, where the animals would be filtered to include only animals with less than 80 pounds of fluid milk at the last test day, are currently over 150 DIM, and are not lactation 1 animals.

The special term, “by” is used to aggregate data. An example of its usage would be “…by lact”. This would cause the report to summarize all the values by lactation number.

Prefixes can be used to create reports not based on animals. Reports default to animal-based reports, however, if non-animal based reports are desired the prefix “event.”, “test.”, or “parlor.”  must be appended to the front of the request.

Operators

Operators used in the navigator for getting reports and group pages are:

Operator
Description
=
Equal to
<>
Not equal to
>
Greater than
<
Less than
>=
Greater than or equal to
<=
Less than or equal to
-
In range (e.g. in the range 1-5 )
~-
Not in range
*-
All, but
*
Any of
**
Contains any of
()
Is not null/blank
)(
Is null
*~
Starts with
~*
Ends with

Data entry

You can do a quick event entry from the navigator, which will direct you to the prefilled event page. To do this, the first term is the event and the second term is the animal. An example of this is “bred 4270”. This will take you to the breeding entry page for animal 4270.


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