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Technology for performance in agriculture

CROP360

Agricover is a group of high-performing companies in European agribusiness and the market leader in Romania. Through its visionary approach, Agricover offers farmers modern solutions based on the latest digital technologies, boosting the development of the entire local agricultural industry.

The CROP360 platform responds to the need of farmers to be more efficient, to have easy access to all relevant data related to their crops, to have an integrated farm management solution, as well as a fast channel of interaction with the Agricover group.

SERVICES

Business challenge

Agriculture is constantly evolving and technological changes in recent decades have radically transformed the industry and pushed farmers to adopt modern solutions that give them the support they need to perform.

The main need of the modern farmer is to have access to accurate, relevant and predictable information, followed by the convenience of a common space for administrative and financial solutions and, last but not least, an intuitive experience that minimizes the effort of adaptation.

Solution

The CROP360 application is a complex project implemented by our technology team using advanced digital solutions designed together with the most important developers worldwide, such as Microsoft, ESRI and the All-in-One Dynamicweb platform.

The eCommerce application aims at making it easier for farmers to purchase subscriptions or products that are closely related to the services offered by the CROP360 portal. The application is connected to both the CROP360 portal and the Agricover ERP solution to which it sends details about products or subscriptions purchased by farmers. Farmer authentication is Single-Sign-On and is based on integration with a Microsoft Azure ActiveDirectory. In this way, switching farmers between the portal and the eCommerce application does not require reintroducing authentication credentials. Inside the application, farmers can choose, before the purchase, the legal entity they will use for the purchase. These legal entities are automatically taken from the CROP360 portal. For payment, you can choose either payment by bank transfer or payment by bank card or Agricover card.

Process

After defining the user's needs and establishing the technical criteria, the first step in designing the CROP360 interface was to sketch a functional prototype with which the user could interact and test the functionalities. It took the form of a low fidelity wireframe, flexible enough to be quickly modified based on user feedback.

In parallel with the testing of the wireframe prototype, we started the development of an elementary guide for the interface components: the font hierarchy, the rules for using colors, the rules for building buttons, fields and inputs.

This was followed by the development of a complex set of icons for all existing plants in the APIA register. Their main functionality is to give users the ability to quickly identify certain options and form more intuitive ways to navigate the platform.

On a geometric grid system we started to sketch the specific attributes of each plant, to represent them in such a way as to keep their legibility to a small size and then, where appropriate, to differentiate according to the plant utility or the environmental conditions.

A challenge arose in illustrating plants with very similar characteristics such as eared cereals (wheat, rye, barley, two-row barley, spelt), so the differentiation was made according to the shape and orientation of the ears' edges.

Result

After creating and centralizing all the interface elements, we applied the Atomic Design principle, defined by Brad Frost, through which UI components resemble dynamic chemical elements that relate and work together to form increasingly complex compositions.

The first contact of the user with the platform is made through the enrollment page, where the user can find out all the essential information about the product before starting the process of registration of a farm.

After logging in, the user is greeted by a dashboard screen that gives him access to the service administration area as well as a news section proposed by the dedicated Agricover team.

The central module provides, through a map, an overview of all fields in the farm, their administrative situation, as well as specific data for each crop: growth stage, vegetation indices, information and alerts on the risks of disease and / or pests.

With the help of satellite and GPS data, the activity of the fleet can be accurately tracked, and depending on the weather forecast, field activities can be planned.