NMR launched a new service at the Dairy Event (2004); linking NMR’s Interherd and ImpelPro programs to a PDA.

What is a PDA?

PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) is a generic term which covers a range of small hand held PC’s, made by various manufacturers, with a touch sensitive screen and stylus. They are small enough to fit in a pocket (5x2.5 inches) and contain cut down versions of the main Microsoft products – Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc. They can also act as diaries and address books, linking with Microsoft Outlook.

The PDA can be bought from most high street electrical stores for between £150 - £250, depending on the power of the machine, or cheaper still via the internet – use the expression ‘Pocket PC Hardware’ to search. The power of these units continues to grow as the general public start to realise what these units can do. We recommend that before purchasing your PDA you contact NMR Customer services if you are unsure of the spec the PDA needs to run Pocket Cow Manager.

Click here to view PDA spec.

The NMR service – Pocket Cow Manager

Reaction from customers who have bought the Pocket Cow Manager is very good, they can see the benefit of real time, once only data capture.

NMR’s PDA service, called Pocket Cow Manager, links to Interherd and now ImpelPro, as Interherd and ImpelPro also have the ability to record a large amount of fine detail which a PDA is built to record.

We will not be selling the Hardware (PDA), farmers can decide how much they want to spend on top of the current Interherd support fee, (minimum contract is 12 months).

What does Pocket Cow Manager do?

Data is passed out of Interherd or ImpelPro and then presented on the PDA in a way that farmers can use to make management decisions. The animal details screens show the animal’s name and ID, Ancestry, Progeny, Lactation records, Event details and treatments.

Events can be logged on the PDA which are then passed back to Interherd/ImpelPRO and update the main system.
An action list for the main events has been built, showing the animals that are overdue as well those events that have not yet occurred.

You can also record drug usage with batch numbers and quantity used, which will update the records on your ImpelPRO/InterHerd system.

The ability to input milk weights has been added in the latest version, along with a SCC report and lactation certificates.

Online updates

As with any new product, we are getting reactions and views from our customers who have bought the service. We are able to provide online updates rather than supplying CD’s which means it is faster to produce amendments to the program as developments are made.