Events in Herb.IQ log a particular "thing" as happening on a given date. You can give each Event a Name, a type, a date and "Notes". Once this info is logged as an Event, it can be easily examined alongside other Events. This is especially useful in tracking the impact of new growing methods on your results.
The Events system essentially replaces the little notepad we all have where we jot this info down. My penmanship is horrible and frequently, I had a hard time understanding what I had written
. Anyway, I digress.. back to Events.
The only rule is that if you want to track recurring events over a period of time (say, watering for example), you need to decide on an Event Name and Type that you'll use and it needs to be precise, no typos allowed. Personally, I use Name = "Watering" and Type = "Watering/Feeding". This way, I can also create "sister events" like Name = "Nute Feeding", Type = "Watering/Feeding" or Name = "Flush", Type = "Watering/Feeding". It must be exact to work. To help with this, we've enabled auto-complete.
Also, I have provided some default events and types on the options page. You can modify the list as long as you keep to the same format.
By following a similar process as outlined above, you can use the Custom Status screen to display the # of days since the last time a specific Event or Type happened. As you can see in my examples, I am able to get a general "Show me how many days since I last gave my plants any type of water, be it plain or w/ nutes". This is the one I look at regularly but I can also get specific to only see nutrient applications for example.
The sky's the limit with what you want to track. Initially, I'm tracking things like Watering/Feedings, Toppings, Flushes, Bug Infestation info, Height (set the Notes to the height in inches or whatever you prefer) & Transplants.
The plan is to add some other options to the Custom Status screen. Maybe an option for "Last Notes for Event/Type" so you could display the last Height measurements for each plant as an example. Perhaps eventually we could allow advanced users to script queries somehow. Also we will be looking to find a way to access the data via reporting suites.
Let me know of any questions.
- DB
Afterthought: I just had my first plants harvest while using the software and realized I don't give a shit if I watered a plant once I've harvested
. So that'll be on my to-do list... I think I just need an option to include/exclude Harvested plants.
