AgGateway Updates

Councils:

Ag Retail Council (meeting 5/3/2016):

• Donald Green from the Specialty Council shared an Inventory flat file format that they are working on based on the Sales Reporting flat file format.  Donald asked opinions regarding if the content of the message is correct and received some input from the council for their task force to review.

• Clay Mayer spoke regarding the Public Warehouse task force on how multiple GLN IDs will be used for a physical warehouse and the timeline for implementation (Nov ‘16-Mar’17)

• Jeff Griffeth went over the Ag Retail proposed Governance Document and asked council members to review and give feedback.  Looking for approval at Mid-Year Meeting.

• Wendy Smith gave a presentation on the AgGateway Transition Plan and timeline for implementation

Allied Providers Council:

• AP Council meets every other month.  Did not meet in April - no update.

• Next meeting is 5/10/2016

Crop Nutrition Council:

• Council meets every other month.  Did not meet last month.

• This council is starting their transition to the wiki – they had requested some wiki training which Member Services provided which is covered in the Education Committee below.

• Next meeting is 5/10/2016    
  
  

Seed Council:

• Vice Chair Election- Ann Vande Lune is new Vice Chair

• Joint AIDC/Seed Council /ARA Webinar on barcoding and seed connections, 50 attended, a mix of non-integrated retailers, integrated retailers, software, manufactures and others.

• Working group working on a survey with Ag Retail council to survey members on connections and data.

• Working group putting together a value flyer and calculator for seed messages.

Specialty Chemical Council:

• Last meeting was 4/21/2016

• Sarah Moster reviewed the need for us to increase our presence on social media.

• Donald Green provided latest updates on the standardization of inventory/sales and inventory reconciliation and the council voted on optional/conditional fields.

• As our next topic will be UOM and packaging, Don also reviewed the status of different companies regarding AGIIS (i.e. are our products up to date).

• Sarah Moster spoke with Syngenta about their participation with the Council, but they have not yet agreed to be on the monthly calls.

• Marilyn Hunter discussed the need for new member mentors (Specialty Council will be piloting), and Stephanie Frazier agreed to mentor Se-Pro.

• Next meeting is 5/19/2016.

*No updates from Crop Protection Council, Grain & Feed Council or Precision Ag Council.

Committees:

Architecture:

• The team has begun meetings to address support for strongly-typed WSDLs for AgGateway Open Standards v5.4.
  
  

ADAPT:

• In a nutshell, great progress and great exposure.

• The development team continues to make steady progress. The technically inclined can monitor progress at https://github.com/ADAPT/ADAPT.

• The team is planning an ADAPT developer workshop following the Mid-Year Meeting. Registration is available online.

Conference:

•  

  • Close date for registration with hotel is on 5/14

  • Industry speaker – Benjamin Miller – Division Director for the Food and Feed Safety Division at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture

  • Plenty of sponsorship opportunities are still open

  • Agenda schedule is current on the website

  • Registration – tracking well ahead of last year – 103 registration – 2 were for ADAPT workshop only.  Last year we were at 64 at this time.

•  

  • Agendas will be need to be sent to Brent Kemp & Courtney McNeese by 10/1

  • 2 out 3 speakers have been confirmed.

  • Awards will be open for nominations – see process on website

  • Reminder - that the annual conference is during election week – so reminder that everyone should consider absentee ballots.  There will be information on how to obtain absentee ballots on the website when we start promoting it.

Communications:

• The Communications Committee is working on a brief  presentation for the Mid-Year Meeting to encourage members to contribute content for social media (Linked In, Twitter, etc.)

• Also working on a flyer about how to contribute to social media, to share with councils.

• The committee completed gathering content for the May newsletter, which will go out this week.

• The committee also continues to actively post to social media sites – a task force within the committee of 6 committee members takes turns by week in posting news about AgGateway.

• In April we put out 2 press releases – one on a barcoding webinar presented by the AIDC task force in conjunction with ARA; the 2^nd to publicize the ADAPT workshop that will be held June 16 in conjunction with Mid-Year Meeting.

• Promotion of Mid-Year Meeting continues with eblasts, newsletter articles, emails for the councils to use for promotion, and other efforts.

• I (Susan) continue to work with the councils on their communications efforts, such as the CN Connections newsletter, Crop Protection connectivity survey, Precision Ag communications task force, etc.

Data Privacy & Security:

• Committee met on 4/15/2016 

• Reviewed the privacy data included in the whitepaper and determined to clarify the list, removing ambiguity and adding more detailed considerations.

• Reviewed the Smart Grid privacy group – as they created a list of data to consider that added types of privacy concerns in the use of data.  Agreed the DP&S should do something similar.

• Cyber Security is something this committee hasn’t focused on in the past.  Rachel provided overview of NIST framework and suggested they look at what other industries have done in terms of industry specific profiles.

Directory Oversight Committee:

• AGIIS Enhancements

  • Responsible Ag Support – a PCR was put together and CSC has held meetings with Asmark and the CN Council

  • Strengthen Duplicate Detection on Updates – will begin work soon

• AGIIS File Format Enhancements

  • Surveyed subscribers, not very good response

  • Continue to review and move forward

• AGIIS Entity Cleanup – addition of physical addresses to businesses – almost complete

• GLN Re-Use

  • GS1 requires we have a re-use policy; current policy is to re-use IDs 4 years from the date of entity inactivation

  • We have begun re-using; this re-use created some challenges for some subscribers

  • We currently have 59 GS1 prefixes (100,000 GLN’s from each prefix)

  • At our current rate, if we do not re-use we will need to buy more prefixes this fall; anticipate three prefixes will last about 2 years

  • Each prefix costs $10,500 with an annual renewal cost of $2,100

  • Surveying subscribers to determine if we can re-use and what time-frame will work; identify challenges

  • Topic will be discussed at MYM

• DOC Membership – Ting Fan is no longer a rep for Ag Retail; Dawn Ellis has been attending to bring their perspective

Education Committee

• Education Committee did not meet in April

• Member Services provided wiki training to 20 people within 2 webinars on 4/13 & 4/15.  Next meeting will be at MYM.

Membership Committee

• Membership Committee did not meet in April

• Marilyn and Chris Crutchfield led an orientation webinar on 4/12 with 19 people in attendance.

• Their next meeting is 5/10 where they will be reviewing the mentoring program and determining the date for the mentoring training in May.

• Stephanie Frazier is our first official mentor to SePRO for both Specialty & CP councils.  Stephanie helped with a “dry run” session for the mentor training and provided feedback.  She’s ready to start

Standards & Guidelines:

1.  

   1. Continued the discussion around the use of Accept/Reject and PostingInstructions in OrderResponse in the Seed Council.

   2. Jim Wilson released AgGateway Open Standards version 5.4 draft for public review. (Jim Wilson in his OAGi role)

•  

  • The home page at http://agglossary.org has been accessed over 200,000 times (estimate).

  • Ongoing activities

    • The group is fine-tuning its processes

    • The group is encouraging submissions

    • The group is considering how to promote the glossary outside of AgGateway

    • The group is spot-checking quality and addressing issues

    • The group is considering implementing functionality to improve content organization and search-ability.

•  

  • The current focus of the AIDC WG is to promote the work they've done. To that end:

    • Susan Ruland worked with Marcia Rhodus to develop a promotional page on the website to highlight the project deliverables. It is live at http://goo.gl/3aDJ9n

    • Working on identifying fora for promoting AIDC, notably:

    • ASTA Board

    • AgGateway Mid-Year Meeting

    • Developing the "story"

Other Initiatives:

ResponsibleAg:

• The ResponsibleAG working group has completed a series of four requirement calls. 

• CSC has completed a change request document of the modifications that will need to be made to AGIIS to support the ResponsibleAg certification notification process.

• On 5/6 the working group will have a conference call to review the final process. They will also be discussing the value/benefit this enhancement will provide companies and this discussion will start the process of promoting this service to other potential AgGateway members.

Membership Campaign:

• Acquiring new members is an essential component• Developed more formal membership campaign for 2016

  • First step - develop a prospect list

  • Determine approach by prospect/prospect group

  • Develop solicitation materials

  • Initiate outreach

  • Invite to MYM and ensure experience is positive

  • Considering a regional meeting to engage potential members

  • Second wave timed to target the Annual Conference

• Types of communication:

  • Letter sent via USP, Letter fb, Personal Call, or Personal Call

    • Key message points

      • AgGateway empowers agri-businesses

      • The work of AgGateway teams has positive and proven
        benefits

      • AgGateway provides a unique, successful model that
        continues to produce solutions and attract industry
        participation.

      • Membership benefits

      • Testimonials

• Assistance needed from Councils

  • Provide contacts and contact information

  • Identify additional targets

  • Review messages and provide input, additional
    benefits

  • Provide introductions

  • Reinforce the message

AGIIS Subscriber Drive:

• To increase the ubiquity of unique identifiers in
  agriculture and horticulture 

• To promote the value of full subscriptions and the
  services offered with them

• To expand use of services by those who may not be
  taking best advantage of them

• To reduce overall per-subscriber fees

• Timeline:

  • April 2016

    • Identify member and non-member prospects

    • Begin development of value proposition and sales collateral

  • May 2016

    • Begin awareness and education campaign for members

    • Develop content for industry outreach

    • Validate prospect list with councils and project participants

  • June 2016

    • Obtain video testimonials for website content (MYM)

  • July 2016 

    • Begin concerted outreach to prospects with immediate
      needs (Ag Retail, Service Providers, others) 

    • Publish video testimonial to web site 

    • Outreach to associate members 

    • August - Last Half 2016 

    • Continue outreach and begin calls to non-member prospects
      to promote awareness