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We are excited to introduce you to Fusion 4.5 which has just been released. We encourage you to read the release notes for all the details, but here are some of our favorite new features.
As you know, Fusion automatically sets a lot's status to closed when the last animal is sold and you can't manually change this status. Usually there is a period of time after the lot has closed when you are still working with the lot: entering billing information, managing invoices, printing closeouts, etc. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to distinguish lots that were still in this phase from those that you are completely finished with?
Well, now there is! We've introduced a new field which you can find in the Lot Edit window called Lot Is Fully Closed. This field starts off unchecked. After the lot has closed and you've finished working with it, check it off and you'll know you are completely finished with the lot.
This field is a new column in the Lot Center window so you can search with it. We also enhanced the Status popup in this window with a new option called "Fully Closed". Now when you set it to "Closed", lots that are closed but not fully closed will be shown and when you set it to "Fully Closed", lots that are both closed and marked as fully closed will be shown.
There can be confusing, if not devastating, effects if someone enters the wrong dry matter percentage for an ingredient attribute or the wrong inclusion percentage in a ration—especially for a micro ingredient. To alleviate these costly mistakes, we've introduced the ability to define thresholds for each ingredient.
Once defined, Fusion ensures that ingredient attributes and rations cannot be saved if a value outside the threshold is entered.
Have you ever found yourself scrolling through all the protocol variations while treating an animal, looking for the one which uses a particular drug? This just got a lot easier! The Protocol/Treatment Schedule window (this is the window you see when overriding a protocol while treating an animal) has an additional column labeled Primary Drug which shows the first drug listed for the first treatment date of each variation.
There is also a filter field above this column which you can use to quickly view just the variations with a particular primary drug. This small addition should be a great time-saver for these situations.
If your crew records deaths using the Simple New Death Out Cohort window, they know it can be a bit clunky to get the dead animal linked. This is because the window uses the same linking interface as other windows designed to link many animals. This upgrade smooths out the linking process by taking advantage of the fact that when you are recording a death, you are only linking one animal and you very likely to know the tag number.
Here's how it works: when the window first opens you get a chance to enter a tag number (even a partial RFID tag number works). Fusion shows a list of matching animals in a list. Just tap the correct one and Fusion will automatically link the animal and set up the entity in the next screen, saving you a lot of clicking!
We learned that some customers were not using this window to record deaths because it didn't allow you to record the associated inputs at the same time. So we redesigned the main part of this window to accommodate this. You can still enter them in the office, if desired.
There's a lot more. Once again, please check out the full release notes here.
We hope you enjoy this version of Fusion!
[In this post, Darryl Gibb explains how to include ingredients which are formulated based on quantity rather than concentration in a ration formulation within Fusion. Darryl has previously written an article titled "Switching to Dry Matter Based Feeding" and another titled "Fusion Feeding Protocols" which are also very useful.]
When a load of feed is made, all included ingredients make up a percentage of the total load. Yet some ingredients are specified to be added at a certain quantity (i.e. grams/head/day) instead of a concentration (i.e. a percentage). For example, MGA is cleared to be fed at 0.4 mg/head/day. Or, in another example, you may want to feed 1 gram of chlortetracycline (CTC) per head per day.
These values are easy for us to understand, but impossible to deliver. We feed pens of cattle, not individuals, so we really can’t deliver 1 gram of CTC to each animal. The best we can do is include the desired quantity in the average intake of the pen or ration. We also need to convert the 1 gram of CTC to the quantity of product being used.
Let’s assume you are using Chlor 100 which is 22% CTC, so you actually need to feed 1 ÷ 0.22 = 4.5 g of Chlor 100. If average dry matter intake is 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms), then you need to include 4.5 g of Chlor 100 ÷ 6.8 kg, or 0.066% Chlor 100 on a dry matter basis.
If the feeding rate of a pure product (i.e. yeast) specifies to feed x g/hd/d, then the concentration is simply x ÷ average intake. Remember to make the proper conversions so x and average intakes are in the same units.
Here is a spreadsheet which you can use to convert quantity based ingredients to a concentration basis: Quantity To Concentration.xlsx.
We are happy to announce that Fusion 4.4 has been released and it has some great new features. For all the nitty gritty details, check out the release notes. If you prefer a short video showing just the highlights, view it here. Or read on to learn about some of our favorite features.
Do you have trouble with information changing after a lot has been closed? Use the new Month End Lock feature to put an end to that. When an admin with the correct permissions sets a lock date, information that could affect invoicing and closeouts can no longer be edited if it was prior to the lock date. Change the lock date each time you finish your month end and you won't have to worry about historical data accidentally being changed any more.
Have your employees ever accidentally canceled a chuteside job? This can be extremely frustrating. Fusion now sports a large red dialog when asking about canceling a job so it can't be mistaken for other dialogs. We also show a large green dialog when confirming that a job is to be finalized. This should greatly reduce the number of accidental job cancelations.
Ever treated an animal, only to realize it'll still be in withdrawal when it's ready to ship? We've added a new capability to chuteside jobs so this doesn't happen. A new data point named "Withdrawal Past Estimated Slaughter" will be true whenever a drug in the job will cause the withdrawal to go past the estimated slaughter date for the animal. This data point can be shown on the job HUDs. It can also be used as a sort criteria. And we've added a new built-in sorting template that uses this data point to show a large warning when needed. The latter can easily be added to your existing jobs.
Fusion used to be restricted to just reading RFID tags. With more types of tag readers entering the market we felt the time was right to support additional readers. You can now have an electronic reader associated with each custom ID field. The feature is compatible with pretty much any serial reader.
There's more. Once again, check out the full release notes here or watch the video.
We hope you enjoy this version of Fusion!
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