I try to make your experience in using Herd as pleasant as possible. However, problems to crop up from time to time, so this document is here to help you get back on course.

Here's what I've written documentation for:

• Features
• Feedback and App Store reviews
• Upgrading to Unlimited animals
• BCMS Download
• Animal lifespan
• Restoring purchases
• Backup and restore
• File format
• Glossary
• Version history
• The author

Features

If you don't find an entry for the feature you're looking for, please email me and I'll add an entry here (but not necessarily the feature).

Animals
Photos	no
Breeds	yes
Species	yes
CTS Online
Download	yes
Upload	no
Syncing multiple copies of Herd on different devices	no
Backup
iTunes	yes
iCloud	yes (only iOS 5.1 or geater)

Feedback and App Store reviews

Happy

I always love hearing how Herd has helped people and I would encourage anyone with good comments to post a review on Apple's App Store. It helps other find Herd and hopefully find it useful too.

Not happy

Having even the simplest issue fixed or feature implemented requires having a conversation with me (the author) by way of email at info@herdapp.com. It sometimes takes a while and can be occasionally frustrating, but it's really the only way to effect change.

If after our conversation, you wish to tell the world what you think of Herd (for better or worse), Apple's App Store review process is the best way to do that.

If you're really not happy and want a refund, you will need to contact Apple. The best instructions I've found to date are in an article entitled How to Get a Refund from the App Store from Gizmodo. I'm sorry the steps are tortuous, however, they are out of my control.

Upgrading to Unlimited animals

The free version of Herd is limited to adding 5 animals manually. The "Unlimited animals" In-App-Purchase allows you to manually add as many animals as you like.

On attempting to add a 6th animal you should see the following:

"Unlimited animals" can be activated by following the following steps:

BCMS Download

In version 3.1 of Herd, no errors would be shown if you had added your CTS Online details incorrectly. You should upgrade to at least 3.2 to obtain a fix this issue.

The BCMS Download function allows you to download details of your cattle from The UK's CTS Online.

Obtaining your credentials

In order to use this part of Herd you will need a CTS Reference Number and password. This is different from the Government Gateway username and password you need for CTS Online. An example Reference Number is “123-456-789”.

To obtain a CTS Reference Number and password please contact the BCMS on either the BCMS Helpline 0845 050 1234 or via bcms.gov.uk, using “Contact BCMS”. Please ensure that when requesting these details you state that these are required for a Farm Software Package.

Additionally, if you used this kind of username and password on the website before switching the Government Gateway username and password, you may need to contact the BCMS as your password may have been reset.

Setting up downloads

Now that you've paid for “BCMS Download” you should have extra properties under the “BCMS” heading for your holding. If you don't already have a holding you can create one by following the screenshots below:

The options you need to fill in are:

• Holding, with something like “12/345/6789”
• Syncing, set this to ON
• Username (CTS Reference Number), with something like “123-456-789”
• Password

Once you've saved the Holding, you're animals should start to be downloaded.

Restoring purchases

If you've already paid for "Unlimited Animals", you will not be charged again. The same applies for "BCMS Download". However, when setting up a new device, you will need to go through the purchase process on that new device. An alert from Apple will then pop up informing you that as you've already paid, the product is free. Please remember to use the same Apple id you used to make your original purchase of a Herd product, otherwise, you will be charged again.

Animal lifespan

An animal's lifespan, as Herd understands it, is as follows:

As you can see, insemination is part of the offspring's lifespan, not the parent. Thus, the process for adding an insemination to Herd is:

1. Physically inseminate animal A.
2. In Herd, create a new animal: B.
3. Set animal B's:
   • dam to point to animal A.
   • sire to point to the sperm donor.
   • breeder to point to you.
   • date of birth to a date in the future matching the gestation period correct for the species.

Animal B will now show up a child of animal A, with the correct parentage and potential birth date.

Note

This functionality was only added in version 2.5 of the product, and as such, there are currently a few issues:

• Offspring of an animal are currently ordered by identifier. This is clearly a problem as it is difficult for you keep track your unborn animals. This will be fixed in upcoming versions of Herd.
• You currently have to work out the correct date of birth from the insemination date + gestation period. That's not very good, and will be fixed (as soon as I work out how best to do it).

Backup and restore

Herd's data will be automatically backed up whenever you backup your device through iTunes or iCloud. However you can also directly access Herd's data file by using iTunes Sharing.

iTunes Sharing

Herd stores most of its data in a file called "KT.sqlite". This can be accessed by using the iTunes Sharing feature within iTunes.

1. Connect your device to iTunes.
2. Within iTunes, go to your device in iTunes.
3. On the device view, go to the Apps section.
4. Within the Apps section, scroll down to the "File Sharing Apps" area.
5. Within the "File Sharing Apps" area, select Herd from the list.
6. Go to the "Herd Documents" area to the right.
7. You should now see a list of files, one of which is called "KT.sqlite".

You can either save this file on your computer by using the "Save As..." button to the bottom right of the list.

You can restore the file by using the "Add..." button also to the bottom right of the list. This will replace the data in Herd with the contents of the file you provided.

File format

The details described in the section are provided for those tinkerers out there. The details will change over time and if you rely on this, you do so at your own risk.

Herd stores all its information in a file called KT.sqlite which can be accessed by following the instructions in the Backup and restore section. This file is storing your animals, events etc as Core Data objects in an SQLite single file database.

I have some friends who have unpicked these kinds of databases, but it's pretty fiddly.

Glossary

Holding

In the UK a "holding" is usually your farm.

On holding

"On holding" details when the animal arrived your farm (Date), from which other farm (Seller) and how much your paid for it (Price). If you bought the animals at a cattle market, you should add an entry in the Market line.

Off holding

"Off holding" details when the animal left your farm (Date), to which other farm (Buyer) and how much your paid for it (Price). If you sold the animals at a cattle market, you should add an entry in the Market line.

Version history

Version 3.2:

• Added data of death record for Animals
• Added Weight and Note events.
• Fixed an issue with BCMS Download which could cause the app to crash.

---

Version 3.1:

• Added support for the iPhone 5.
• Removed support for iOS 4 and the iPhone 3G. iOS 5.1 is now the lowest version supported.
• Entering incorrect details for BCMS Downloading could cause the app to crash. No error would be shown and you wouldn't know what went wrong.

Note, 3.1 does not support iOS 4 and with it the iPhone 3G.

---

Version 3.0:

This a big upgrade. Herd has been completely re-written. Note that you v2 data is safe.

• Fields now exist even if you don't have any cows in them.
• See all the animals you've treated with a certain medicine.
• You can now delete animals (be very careful with this).
• All animal events can be seen in a single consolidated view.
• Listing of animals by gender is not available.
• Listing of animals on and off the farm is not available.
• Lots of stuff has been moved around.

Also, this version allows you to access the underlying data files by connecting to iTunes. This means you can back it up elsewhere if you wish.

Note, 3.0.x will be the last version to support iOS 4 and with it the iPhone 3G. 3.1.x will only support iOS 5 and 6.

---

Version 2.7:

• Now a universal app. This means a new layout for both the iPad and iPhone.
• All dates now include a time. This enable you to add multiple medications per day.
• You can not have two animals with the same identifier (setting the identifer to nothing is fine). If this is the case, the saving the second animal will silently fail.
• Random crashes on some iOS 6 devices.
• Crashes when adding medication events on iOS 6.

---

Version 2.6:

• Inseminations are now separate from other offspring, although they are still animals. The workflow should now be more apparent.
• Now works correctly on iOS 5.

---

Version 2.5.1:

• Added a Restore button the the Store. You can now restore, or setup a new device quickly and easily.
• Fixed crash when adding an animal with no identifier.
• Animal detail view now prefers the animal name as its title.

---

Version 2.5:

• Fixed issue in 2.4 that could cause Herd to crash after an In-App-Purchase was complete.
• Redesigned the animal detail view to split fields into sections. This means some fields have been renamed:

  Old field	New section	New field
  Age		Date of birth
  On date	On holding	Date
  On price	On holding	Price
  Off date	Off holding	Date
  Off price	Off holding	Price

• Added new animal fields:
  • On Holding → Market and Off holding → Market. This allows you to note where you bought the normal and where you sold the animal.
  • On Holding → Seller. This allows you to note who you bought the animal from.
  • Off Holding → Buyer. This allows you to note who you sold the animal.
  • The section Insemination allows you note when an animal was potentially conceived and who the breeder was.

---

Version 2.4:

• Added new animal fields:
  • Species
  • On price, Off price, and Profit (generated)
  • EBV Index and EPD Index (generated)
• Added (generated) list of animal children
• Added summary view of all animals in a filter

---

Version 2.3.1:

• Added the full list of bovine breeds back to breeds list (by request).
• Fixed an issue in in 2.3 where the app will occasionally crash when add your animal or location.
• Fixed an issue where tapping on the "Upgrade to unlimted animals" banner would do nothing.

---

Version 2.3:

• Ability to allocate animals to fields.
• Predefined filters to allow you to find your animals quickly. These include animals breeds, fields and sex.
• Fixed an issue in 2.2 that significantly slowed down app startup.

The author

My name is John Scott and I currently live in Hampshire. I was born and brought up in a farming family in County Durham but moved down to Hampshire over ten years ago for work.