There’s a great article on GrowingProduce.com called, “Ways to Keep Your Farm Data Safe.” It is worth a read for any farmer jumping on-board with AgTech. I’ll explain some ways that 2nd Sight ensures that your harvest labor data stays secure too.

The first and most simple way to keep your data secure is to keep your facility locked. This also applies to keeping your 2nd Sight products locked up or in a secure location while being stored or during charging. It is important to know that nobody can add additional badge scans while you’re not looking, or, tamper with the FairPick scale. The article made a great point: “Before you begin to think about digital security, it’s a good idea to make sure your physical facility is secure.” If you are concerned about employees adding extra badge scans during lunch, you can attach a physical lock to the FlexHub or FairPick Pro box to make sure that an employee cannot open the lid, power on the device, and start using it without supervision to cheat.

“Levels of security” is another way to prevent others, including employees, from editing or manipulating your farm payroll data. Not all your employees need to access the same amount of information. We addressed this concern by allowing a customer to create as many Customer Portal user accounts as necessary. A user can be assigned a different role which grants access to more or less of the Portal functions and features. If the user can add, change, or edit data, the “Event History” will always show the username of the person who made the changes. As stated in the article, it is important to “set up custom passwords and permissions about what they can see and what they can do with that software.” As a 2nd Sight customer, you can follow this advice.

If you use a system with the RHC (Ruggedized Handheld Computer) you can also add an additional layer of security by setting a password to unlock the device—just like you would on your personal cell phone. If you want to take it a step further, these handhelds have a feature called AppLock. Applock allows an administrator to “lock down” certain functions on the phone to prevent misuse. Even the field boss couldn’t start watching Youtube videos out in the field burning up your data or bogging down your Wi-Fi. With AppLock, you define which apps can open and run. Accessing the administrator section requires a password that you’ve set. This often makes operating the device simpler by automatically opening the 2nd Sight app whether it’s FairTrak, QuickPick, or FairPick Lite.

“Watch your system” is another recommendation in the article. We designed our standard Daily Report to make it easy to review uploaded employee data on a daily basis. Taking 15-20 minutes each afternoon or evening to skim this report will make it easy to identify outliers. Quickly see who may be cheating or manipulating data to boost their times or piece counts. Catching these situations early can save you a lot of time and money.

Another point in the article is to “Ask before you buy.” We would be happy to answer any additional questions you have about the security of your 2nd Sight data. Learn why your Customer Portal account is secure.

Finally, the article hits it home, “We shouldn’t let security be the fear factor that halts adoption, but it should be a part of the conversation about how we secure these smart devices so that they won’t cause a failure.” Think about how your data may be vulnerable and find a solution before it’s too late. Taking 10 seconds to login with your unique ID and password is worth it to keep your data safe, secure, and accurate.

Congratulations on your purchase! The InstaCaliper is a powerful tree inventory tool, providing continuing benefits year after year. The InstaCaliper is more than a measuring device. It provides information to value your trees, enables you to create strategic work orders to pick trees from the field, and offers push button tree grading capabilities.

To prepare for the season, fully charge the handheld computer. Leave the device charging and connected to Wi-Fi. Leave the device “on” and “awake” to download app updates. The updates will include new InstaCaliper software releases and various Google app releases. The update process can take an hour or more; depending on your internet connection speed and how many apps require updates.

Use the Customer Portal to add or update task and list information. An example would be adding new tree varieties or locations. Sync the InstaCaliper app on the handheld computer to load the new information.

Many inventory software programs allow data imports. Contact us early for custom downloads that will “play nice” with your existing nursery inventory system to save even more time. There can be a line during tree inventory season, so get your request in now so that you aren’t waiting to get your report when you need it this summer and fall!

Things to know:

• What’s new in 2019? Nothing! If we don’t have the feature you want, you probably don’t need it. But if you want it, we can make it. Software is billed hourly. Contact us for a quote.
• Find our free help site at http://help.2ndsightbio.com. Phone support is billed hourly, with minimum of 15-minute increments. Standard support hours are 9am to 5pm PDT.
• We rely on our customers and word of mouth to sell more units. When you send someone our way… have them mention your name. You will both be rewarded.
• The annual fee pays for basic support, updates, data storage, and enables you to add and remove information. If you want to grow a great apple tree, expect to pay continuous costs for fertilizers and sprays.
• We have limited stock. We sell out every year. We are unable to rent or offer free testing.
• You will need to have basic computer skills or find someone who does. We will teach you how to surf the digital wave; but we ask you to please know how to find the beach.

When I opened my Outlook app this morning, the email at the top of my inbox came from Nursery Management, and the headline caught my attention: “Don’t leave the future to chance.” If you’re like me, leaving things to chance is frightening.

At 2nd Sight, we know life happens, but we did our best to anticipate how our equipment would be used (and abused) in the field. We couldn't just cross our fingers and hope that a worker wouldn't get our equipment wet, would not drop a handheld out in the orchard, or hit one of our FairPick scale frames by a tractor.... We wanted to be proactive with the design and selection of our equipment so that you, and our own 2nd Sight team, could sleep well at night.

Rugged equipment

Your employees will drop things, get them dirty, and maybe even wet. It’s no coincidence that we utilize durable and reliable waterproof handheld devices with our labor and product tracking systems. These “Ruggedized Handheld Computers” are designed with safeguards against dirt and debris. They can take on the challenge of daily, outdoor field use. Wondering about the FairPick scale or FlexHub box? A team of experienced 2nd Sight engineers designed these systems to be put to the test too. We don’t recommend mistreating your electronic equipment, but we’ve had scales withstand drops off the beds of trucks and live to tell the tale.

Durable employee badges

RFID technology has become more widespread in many ag and nonagricultural applications. It was another intentional decision to utilize RFID cards as employee badges with our systems. The antenna inside PVC protective layer can only be damaged if completely bent in half. Dirt, dust, water, mud, and sweat do not interfere with the ability to scan an employee’s badge. Barcodes, on the other hand, cannot be read quickly and easily if there is dirt or dust on them, or if the label has been damaged by water or sweat. RFID cards also have the advantage of being reusable from season to season as they can be re-assigned over and over again.

Data integrity

We want to ensure that your data is there when you need it. We can’t just hope that a handheld getting run over by a tractor won’t damage the device’s memory. That’s why we have data stored not only on the device itself, but also on a micro SD card. Once you sync data to the Portal, you now have your data stored in several locations:

• On the handheld (or FairPick Pro box flash memory)
• On a micro SD card in the handheld (or FairPick Pro box)
• On the Portal
• In Portal database backups (yes, we back up your data for you automatically)
• In data logs and reports that you’ve downloaded from the Portal

We know how important it is for equipment to work when you need it to, to have the data ready when you need to run payroll, and to have contingency plans for when life happens. At 2nd Sight, we do our best to not leave the future to chance so that we can all sleep better at night.