Creating the building plan and placing the anchors

The plan of your building lets you position the Ear Tag Base and the anchors, then draw your animals' living areas. It is used to locate animals fitted with an ear tag on the plan.

This article contains the following sections:

• Before you start
• Creating a layout
• Creating the plan in five steps
• Placing the base and the anchors
• Drawing the living areas
• Editing or deleting a plan

Before you start:

• The plan is managed from Settings > Layout.
• You must have editing rights on the farm.
• A layout corresponds to a location on your farm, for example a building, with a name and an address. Each farm has at least one, created automatically.
• Each layout can have no more than one plan. The plan is optional: without a plan, you can still position the base and the anchors from the layout screen.

If the Layout screen does not appear, your farm is equipped only with collars: this screen is not offered.

Creating a layout:

To create a layout:

1. Open Settings > Layout.
2. Click Add.
3. Enter the name of the layout, for example «Cow barn».
4. Check the address, postcode and town: they are prefilled with the address on the order form.

The plan creation wizard opens directly after clicking Add, at the Locationstep. For an existing layout that does not yet have a plan, open the layout and click Create plan.

If you do not want to create a plan, click No plan on the layout record. You will be offered plan creation again after 6 months.

Creating the plan in five steps:

The wizard has five steps: Location, Outline, Plan, Devices and Areas. The Devices and Areas steps are described in the sections «Placing the base and the anchors» and «Drawing the living areas».

To locate the building, at the Location step:

1. Move the cross onto the building in which you want to locate the animals, or click Locate me.
2. Click Next.

The position of the Locate me button differs on computer and phone.

To draw the outline, at the Outline step:

1. Click each corner of the building, or of the area in which you want to locate the animals.
2. Click the first point to close the outline.
3. Click Next.

To make drawing easier, you can rotate the plan. On a phone, the outline is drawn by moving the map: when the pointer is on a corner of the building, tap Add point. Then go back to the first point to close the outline.

The lines of the outline must not cross. Points can only be added or deleted at the Outline step: at the Planstep, they can only be moved.

To adjust the plan, at the Plan step:

1. Move the points of the outline using the grid, to get right angles.
2. Check the dimensions of the plan using the distances displayed.
3. Enter the width between posts (5 m by default) and add intermediate lines if necessary to describe the structure of the building.
4. Click Next.

You can rotate the plan. If the satellite background map makes it hard to read, reduce the map opacity.

Placing the base and the anchors:

At the Devicesstep, place the base first, then the anchors. The list shows the bases first, then the anchors sorted by serial number. Each device is identified by its serial number: the last 3 characters are shown in bold on its marker.

To place a device:

1. Find its serial number on the installed device.
2. Drag the corresponding device from the list.
3. Drop it on the plan, at its actual position.

While placing, you can check the installation:

• A toggle lets you display the distances between devices (Use distances between devices) or to the walls (Use distances to walls).
• Click an anchor or the base to display its distances, depending on the chosen mode: to the outline of the building, or to the 3 nearest anchors.
• Distances that are too long are shown in orange, those that are much too long in red. Devices that are too far away, and may not be part of the mesh network, are flagged.

The app lets you save an incorrect layout after asking for confirmation. Correct the distances shown in orange or red before saving: an incorrect layout degrades animal location.

Drawing the living areas:

Living areas are named, coloured zones that describe your building, for example the cubicles or the milking parlour. They are only used as a reference and do not trigger any alerts.

To add an area, at the Areas step:

1. Click Add an area.
2. Enter a name, for example «Cubicles». You can choose any name.
3. Choose a type: Lying or Milking.
4. Choose a shape (rectangle, triangle or circle) and a colour. The colour is prefilled according to the type and can be changed.
5. Click Save.
6. Place the area on the plan.

The number of areas is not limited.

Editing or deleting a plan:

Once the plan has been created, the layout shows the plan with its devices and the Edit plan, Manage areas and Delete planbuttons. Editing goes through the five steps of the wizard again. Moving the plan does not remove devices that have already been placed.

Deleting a plan is permanent: the outline, the placement of the devices and the areas are lost, and animal location may be affected.

Related articles:

• Installing the Collar Base