A sort protocol allows Fusion to place each animal in a group based on different criteria. Each group can have its own subjobs associated with it. The animal can also be sorted into different pens or lots based on the group they fall into. The Sort Protocol window is where you tell Fusion what criteria you care about, how many sort groups you want there to be, and which sort group should be associated with each variation.
Each sort protocol must have a name. This name cannot be the same as any other sort protocols within the same job.
If you want this sort protocol to control sorting into pens and/or lots, use this area to set that up. Only one sort protocol can have each option turned on. In other words, one sort protocol can sort into pens while another sorts into lots, but you can't have two sort protocols that both sort into pens.
If either of these options are turned on, you will be asked what pen/lot to move the animal to for each sort group during job setup. It will be possible to tell Fusion to not move an animal for some of the sort breaks.
When you are sorting into pens, Fusion will change the animal's current pen. You also have the option to have Fusion change the animal's home pen at the same time.
When you are sorting into lots, there are three options that affect the animal's history. For new animals it won't make any different as they don't have any history yet. But for existing animals it is important to choose the correct option:
| Please note that moving animals among lots only changes the animal and the animal history. It does not create in and out cohorts to mirror the changes. This is left up to you to do so it can be done properly.
Note that it is up to you to make sure there isn't a Relocate subjob fighting with a sort protocol trying to sort into a pen. When this happens, one will win, but which one is undefined. |
When the Include In Running Totals HUD checkbox is turned on, Fusion will keep track of the running totals (count, average weight, total weight) for each of the sort groups in this sort protocol. These can be shown in the Running Totals page when added to a HUD.
Here you can tell Fusion how many groups you want to sort the cattle into. There must be at least two, but you can create as many more as you like by clicking the + button. You can also rename any sort group by Double-Clicking it.
One of the sort groups must be set as the default. If an animal doesn't exactly match any of the protocol variations it will automatically become part of the default sort group. This sort group can be used just like a regular sort group if you like or you can set it up so that no subjobs are associated with it.
In this tab you let Fusion know which criteria you want to affect the sort.
There are a large number of criteria you can add to the list. Click the + button to choose from a list. You can add as many criteria as you want, but each criteria can only be added once. With some criteria, Fusion let's you decide if the values should be treated as numbers or a list. For example, in one of the animal custom fields you might be entering data that is numeric in nature. In a different field, you might be entering something that is textual in nature. Choose whichever option makes sense for the data you have in the field.
You may notice that some of the criteria seem to be listed twice—once with "(Job)" appended and once with "(Record)" appended. The record criteria will return the value for the animal before the job started. The job criteria will return the value as it is in the job right now. You will usually only care about the job criteria, but the record ones are there if you need them.
For sort criteria that have user-definable values, you can decide whether the values themselves can be changed during job setup. For example, you might know that you want three different weight breaks for the Scale Weight criteria, but the actual weights they break on may be different for each job instance. In that case you would make sure this option is turned on for that sort criteria.
Note that you can't change the number of values in the list at job setup. You can only modify the values themselves.
Depending on the sort criteria selected, the Values list will either show a list of possible values (ex. the animal's color is...) or be an ordered list of numeric values (ex. the animals scale weight >= ...). During the job, when the values are the list type, the animal must match something in the list exactly. If it doesn't, it will drop into the default sort group. If the values are numeric, the animal must fall into one of the breaks or else it will drop into the default sort group. For example, if values for Scale Weight (>=) were 500, 800, 1000, and the animal weighed 850 lbs, it would fall into the 800 lb value. However, if the animal weighed 450 lbs, it would not match any value and would instead drop into the default sort group.
Some sort criteria do not allow the list to be modified. For those that do, you can use the + and - buttons to add and remove values. When you add a value, Fusion creates a new row and makes it editable so you can start typing right into the list. You can also Double-Click a list item to modify it.
Some sort criteria are associated with lists that Fusion already knows about. For example, Breed. Fusion does not force you to list all possible values for a sort criteria. This is to allow the number of protocol variations to be more manageable. However, if you use the 
button, Fusion will allow you to throw in one or all of the possible values for the list. Doing this will ensure that the list values are correct since, if one is misspelled, it will not match. It is often easiest to ask Fusion to fill in the whole list and then delete the ones that do not apply.
Note that if you add a sort criteria and don't associate any values with it, Fusion will simply ignore it all together. However, there must be at least one sort criteria with at least one value before you can save the sort protocol.
When you have the sort criteria and values all set up (or when they have been modified), you will need to click the Update button in this tab. Fusion will then figure out all the protocol variations possible based on the number of criteria and values you set up and list them here. You will then need to tell Fusion which sort group the animal should fall into for each variation. You can do this in two ways:
button or in the list header area to choose a sort group. All the selected rows will be set to this sort group at once.If you end up setting some variations to a sort group that you later delete, you will need to change those variations to an existing sort group before you can save. If you have any variations that don't have a sort group associated with it when you save the sort protocol, they will automatically be assigned the default sort group when you save.
Once you have the protocol set up and the variations associated with sort groups you can save the protocol variation. This will take you back to the Job Definition window where you can decide which (if any) subjobs to associate with each sort group.
This window will open when you create or edit a sort protocol from within a Job Definition Edit window.
