Q. How can User Defined Product Attributes be set up to use in Blending?
A. Select Start With Products on the General tab of a Blend Ticket. The Start-With Product Information window will appear. In the row of the product selected, under the Rate/Acre or Rate/Ton column, right click to access the Nutrient Calculator. This window allows the option to select from a list of predefined Product Attributes to handle any of the 12 major nutrient contributors that exist on the product, plus any of the product attributes that begin with any of the following:
BTAO_NNA_
BTAO_CAI_
BTAO_OMI_
BTAO_HVY_
These acronyms stand for:
BTAO - Blend Ticket Add On
NNA - Non Nutrient Additive
CAI - Chemical Active Ingredient
OMI - Other Minor Ingredient
HVY - Heavy Metal
To add an attribute, go to Hub / Setup / Company Preferences / Product tab / Product Attributes / Add. In the example below, an attribute for Humic Acid is added.
If the product has a Unit Weight that is a non-zero value and a Nutrient Value or an Attribute Value that is greater than zero, that nutrient will be displayed in the Selection Combo box in the Start-With Product Information window. If a product has no nutrients or attributes that meet the criteria, the form will not be shown. As before, this form will not be shown if entering quantities in kilograms.
For this example, a product called GroMore will be used. This product will have a Non-Nutrient Additive ingredient. In the example below, an Attribute Value of ‘50’ has been entered which means the Humic Acid content of the GroMore product is 50%.
Upon adding a new Blend Ticket, select Start With Products. On the Start-With Product Information window, double click on Product Name to select the product.
Right click in the Rate/Ton (Rate/Acre) column to access the Nutrient Calculator window.
Set the Amount in Pounds of the active ingredient.
In this example, the label on the General tab is set to Tons and that sets the default units for the Start-With Product Information window. This request would indicate 10 lbs of Humic Acid per ton of blended fertilizer. Because the GroMore product is 50% Humic Acid, the calculator indicates that 20 lbs/ton of GroMore is needed to meet this request.
Select Done.
Continue with the formulation process. The program will start with the amount of product in the Start-With Product Information window and fulfill the remainder of the request using products from the product set.
The Products tab shows the additive material brought in by the Start-With Products feature using the User Defined Non-Nutrient Additive feature. The 10 ton request shows that 200 lbs of GroMore is needed and is included in the mixed total of 20,000 lbs of product.
