Settler software nightmare

[grassmarketeer]

MCSA4/Tom you do seem to be ridings Loops instead of helping him! Maybe a function of all those initials behind your name that most of those who live off this fine land cannot understand.
Anyways, Loops are you happy with the settler accounting package and the bulk of the Settler products? What would you recommend for a whole farm package?

[loops]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who can see through the smoke.
Settler Gold (Agexpert) is a good program BUT it's a real bear to get it intially started up. Many farmers have purchased it and gave up before they ever got it running. Take the courses from settler, a real must do!
The accounting program isn't for everyone. If you only want to enter income and expense, use a spreadsheet it's not worth it if used as such. However if you are looking for a program that can really go in depth and do everything, go for it.
Fieldmater/mate- don't reccomend it for anyone as is. The program is poorly designed and I don't mean because it doesn't work on my particular computer either.
My main beefs are that it's not intergrated with gold.(they will claim it is but believe me it isn't) It's not flexible enough and not easy to find info.
Such as, I'm zero till, to track crop rotations the drop down menu only allows selection of fallow or stubble, I want to know what type of stubble, to do that
i have to make sepearte notes and each of these notes must be opened individually. The program makes you use so many of these note entries that in order to find the info you are looking for - you end up opening dozens of notes or you simply end up not using them.
All grain sales, production, expenses need to be entered in both gold and fieldmaster, there's no reason for this, they should exchange that info automatically.
#1 stupid thing- in the crop planning area, say your comparing lentils/barley/canola. You can choose from 3-4 lines labeled (trying remember)I believe Herbicide 1-4 BUT you can't put the name of the chemical you plan on using in the planner so you either trust your memory or like me pull out notepad and write Herb 1- roundup
herb 2- Edge , get the idea?
Many entries are too complex, if you recieve crop ins. money on a lentil crop and you want to enter that in fieldmate
you first must SEED crop ins on all the lentil fields, then combine lentil fields, make new storage location for production, then finally sell crop ins for that money to show up in profit/loss. If that ain't ass backwards I don't know what would be!
I was one of the first to purchase the fieldmate-master/mate programs and talked many times to techs. at settler on improving the product to make it useable but it fell on deaf ears. In the end the worst $500 I ever spent. There is a real need for a program like fielmate/master but this isn't it. Settler should start over from the beginning make it a complete working extension of gold,(no more double entries) then work out the rest of the bugs. No amount of updates will ever make this program work as it should, stay away till they do a full rebuild.

[wedino]

Loops, Farm Works is the one you need. It's fully integrated.

[URL="http://www.farmworks.com/main/indexm.cgi"] Farm Works[/URL]

[loops]

That's it! I couldn't remember the name but I had seen it a the farm progress show and thought it looked great.
However since I was already using settler and they promised intergration, I expected it to work very similar. opps, my mistake!

[AgExpert]

Regarding FarmWorks… it is a quality product published in the USA, but it does not offer the same functionality as the AgExpert (formerly Settler) Field Manager software.

The handheld computer (software) in the FarmWorks solution (Farm Trac and Farm Trac Mate) is primarily used for data collection in the field. It then just transfers data to the desktop PC computer (software), but does not “synchronize” the field and crop records data between the handhelds and PC. This means that any data entered on the PC or previously entered in the handheld, are not available for review on the handheld after a data transfer to the PC.

This is significant as most growers want a system to use for both entering data in the field as well as to access their information on the handheld. FarmWorks only allows you to keep your data on the handheld only, or transfer data (basically a data dump) to the PC, but it doesn’t do both. You cannot have a 2-way synchronization of FarmWorks data between handheld and PC with the above software.

The AgExpert Field Manager software (specifically the Field-Mate Palm handheld software) allows you to enter data in a handheld – or multiple handhelds – and both update and synchronize the desktop PC with that new data, while still keeping all of the information in your handheld too so it’s always accessible and with you in the field.

For more information on the Field Manager system, please visit: http://www.agexpert.ca/en/products/agexpert_field_manager/agexpert_field_manager_e.asp

AgExpert (formerly Settler) software products are updated frequently, and the Field Manager program referenced in the thread messages above, has had a recent release including new features that included some of the suggestions above.

AgExpert continues to gather suggestions for our products from our customers, review these with other industry requirements, and blend these into the new features and functionality being added to the software. Many of the other suggestions in this thread are already in the future plan for subsequent version releases.

loops – I believe we’re still waiting for you to book an appointment to bring your system in for our Support staff to look at.

Rob Schmeichel
General Manager
AgExpert (formerly Settler)

[loops]

Rob, I got to give you credit for coming on this forum and answering questions.
Good point on the 2 way synch, without having used both, one wouldn't see that.
If you have fixed some of my issues on the currnet version, that's great but i assure you there are many more than I've mentioned.
I will be bringing in computer, I made one trip but was unable to complete everything that day. Too busy to worry about that right now.
see new tread!
thanks,

[MCSA4]

grassmarketeer: I see the whole point was lost resulting in false accusations. So be it....

[urbanroots]

Loops...

I have done some research for you in regards to your problem with the software... Depending on the specific error id "the letters and numbers" following the "system32" error message. It could be many different things, from low memory to not having your windows fully updated, to a hardware conflict etc.

If you could get me that specific error message or be as specific as the message you recieve... I will look into it more for you asap...

Talk to you soon.....

[loops]

Well, Good news! This issue has been solved! Bad news, don't know how or why!
I do believe it was a conflict either software or hardware, and was simple too! What happened basically, I purchased new hard drives, sitting on shelf beside me.(anyone looking to buy an overpriced hardrive?) I took a different route, first I removed fieldmate/master, then everytime I recieved an error message I removed and re-installed program(3). Basically, it just slowly improved until
I recieved no error messages. (urbanroots-I didn't write down the exact message, I just don't remember)
Anyhow, with it now working fine for over a week I decided to take it in to
Agexpert as is.(couldn't really hurt anything,better than having same problem on new system)
The Tech I was dealing with agreed to meet me at the office even though it was his day off. He simply loaded the program and that's all, it works! Main point to mention was he installed a version 4.1 instead of 4.0. Was that the difference? I don't know and frankly don't care, it works!!!AND I didn't have to redo my whole computer again.
FLASH-gave me the new AgAnlyst 2004- AWESOME!!!
In conclusion, we had some heated discussions on this but it's solved to my satisfaction and i can see they are trying to improve the product. I was very upset and frustrated by the problems I encounted and the time it took to fix it, but I guess I got over it once I saw the new verions improvements!