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Work Smarter, Not Harder to Report Impacts

Horticulture & Turfgrass

Michelle Atkinson
Environmental Horticulture Agent
University of Florida/IFAS Manatee County Extension
Palmetto

Abstract

Running a mobile irrigation lab (MIL) for homeowners gives us an opportunity to collect a good deal of data on homeowner irrigation behaviors, common irrigation system problems, and much more.  For fifteen years data was collected by staff in the field on paper and translated into Word and Excel documents to send as a report to the client after they returned to the office.  Overall data was aggregated in an Excel spreadsheet by office support staff.  This process limited our client evaluations to two a day at most taking into account in field and in office reporting. In efforts to find a more efficient means of gathering and reporting this information, an intern with a master’s degree in global information systems (GIS) was contracted to help develop a better system of reporting. 

The intern worked with the extension agent that oversees the MIL to develop a system that combines software applications into a usable format for onsite reporting.  Survey123 is now utilized to collect data and then generates reports based on the data collected.  This reduced MIL staff time per evaluation by 50%.  This system also cut down client report turn-around times from one week to one day. 

With this new tool, the intern then created a dashboard in ARC GIS to show charts and graphs from the aggregated evaluation data as well as creating layers on a county map to better identify irrigation issues and trends among our clientele. By using these tools, the MIL has reduced time per evaluation by 50% allowing more visits in a day.  We have also saved office support staff time from inputting data into an overall spreadsheet then creating charts and graphs for reporting to funding agencies. 

Authors: Michelle Atkinson
  1. Michelle Atkinson Environmental Horticulture Agent, University of Florida/IFAS Extension Manatee County, Florida, 34221