How to create a manual input form

We know that there’s plenty of crucial information that doesn’t come from software or a sensor.

That’s where manual (input) meets digital.

With the manual input feature, we make it easy to bring data collected the low-tech way straight into the 30MHz platform and interact with that data alongside crop-level data, or data from a climate control system. And, as with all other data in 30MHz, users can share, compare and collaborate with colleagues.

This article contains the following information:
Creating a form template
Creating a new form
Using manual input
Copy pasting data from a sheet 
Post comments

Creating a form template

Go to the main dropdown menu and select “manual input”.

Once you’ve selected manual input, you have two options: forms, and form templates.

First, create a template. That way you can use a form multiple times.
Click the + next to Form templates. As you fill in the information to create your form, you’ll see a preview on the right side of your screen.

Name your template and add a description.

You can then create columns by clicking on ‘add column’. In this example, we’ll create columns for spider mites, thrips, aphids, etc.

Choose an icon from the list that best fits the type of information you collect. In this case, we’ll go for the insect icon. Also, select a widget color (this is the single value widget color when added to your dashboard) and set the number of value decimals.

When you’ve finished customising, click “Create.” The template will be saved.

Templates can always be changed and customised after they’ve been created, but changes will be reflected in all forms created with an adjusted template. If you’d like to create a new form, while keeping an older template intact, we recommend creating a new template.

Creating a new form

To create a new form, click on the (+) next to forms.

Name the form and select an existing template. For example, the one you just created. If you haven’t created a template yet, click on ‘Create new template’ and go to the previous step in this documentation.

You can now select whether you want to use dates as rows or as sheets. We’ll explain this concept with an example in which we select the option ‘dates as rows’. In this case, weeks are visualized as follows:

This option is useful when you monitor the number of different kinds of insects, or the same species in different locations within the greenhouse or polytunnel. This way, each row in the sheet represents a different date and each column represents a different insect (as in the example) or a different location. When you use the same template it’s easy to compare the data.

Use the ‘date as sheet’ option when you want to sort the results by days or weeks. That way you can display different locations or projects as rows. It looks like this:

This is just an example and is not related to the set-up we’ve discussed so far.

Be sure to indicate the correct time zone. This is essential, as the observations you input will receive a time-stamp based upon the time-location, which will be needed to generate graphs.

Using manual input

You can now use a form to enter the values.

Click on ‘add sheet’ and name it.

Now click on ‘add row’.

Name the row and select the date on which you’ve entered or will enter the data. It is crucial that the date that you use matches the name you give the row (week numbers or days). Otherwise, you won’t be able to find the correct data. Fill out the values per field by clicking on it and entering the correct number.

You can always adjust the number. Just click or tap the field and change it. Once you’ve entered a row, you can simply add a new row by clicking on ‘add row’ again and follow the same steps as above.

Copy pasting data from a sheet 

One of the questions that we receive from our customers is to extract data from an Excel file into the manual input feature. This is not possible yet, but we have made a feature that could help you in the mean time. When adding data from an existing file, you could copy paste data into the form in the platform. 

By following the steps below, you can copy/paste data into a form: 

1. Open your form in the 30MHz platform 
2. Create enough rows and columns that will fit the data that you would like to add 
3. Open the file that you want to get the data from
4. Copy the fields that you would like to add in the 30MHz platform 
5. Go back to the form in the 30MHz platform
6. Click on the field that you want to start with and paste your data 
7. Your data is added in the form and can now be used in the platform 

Post comments

You can also add comments and photos to the data input. As soon as you move your mouse over a field, this icon appears:

Click the icon and type a comment, @mention people within your organization and/or add images for more context.

You are ready to create widgets with your manual data! Read this article to start visualising your manual data.