Justin, that's a good idea to make the workflow a little more streamlined. I'll note the idea on our wishlist so we can discuss it. We always try to be careful about the plant info's real-estate for more buttons, to keep it intuitive and not too cluttered. But we did just remove a button!

Also a quick note just in case - a feature like this would really only be useful at first. Later on, it'll be much better to import your already-set-up plants from a past project or template. No more editing needed.

Thanks for the quick response Amanda!
I agree that importing would (and does) speed this process significantly, Our office is still new to Land F/X, and at this stage I find that even after importing some plants, I still need to edit some plants to ensure consistency within each project. So even after importing a large collection into a project a next button would be useful (IMHO) even just as a tool for reviewing.

I'd be curious if other offices are able to entirely standardize plant lists, or if editing plant info still occurs regularly?

I used Land F/X before working here and set up my import game pretty nicely, I think.
The trick is to standardize your plant codes to suit the typical plant sizes you'll need and find in your local nurseries.

I love the 6-letter/number code standard. With trees, I could set up my template like this:
ACE RU1 - seedling Red Maple
ACE RU2 - whip Red Maple
ACE RU4 - 40mm Caliper Red Maple
ACE RU5 - 50mm Caliper Red Maple
ACE RU6 - 60mm Caliper Red Maple
ACE RU7 - 70mm Caliper Red Maple

This made it really simple to pick out different sizes, pre-set-up, straight from the template for reforestation plans. It also made it super simple to read the plan on the field without flipping back and forth between the plan and schedule.

It'd be interesting to get others posting in here on their strategy. I know mine's not the only good one.

Edit: Make sure to select a different symbol per code - that way it sticks through the import.

Hello Justin & Amanda,
I have similar thoughts on a "next button" but before I say that I want to clarify that I am not doing the wrong steps. Like Justin, my team and I have just switched to Land FX for our design program. We have set up everything but our plant manager for our template. When following the documentation from "Adding Plants to your Plant Manager" - "Plant Manger" - "Importing plants" I am a tad confused about plant sizes. In the documentation, it shows adding 'New' plants to the manager very well described. In the documentation it shows these plants already have a default size shown when added it to the manager. Yet, when we add our plants, it has no associated size. Is there a way to have the plants added to a specific default size? Or do I have to go through each individual plant and assign a size and container manually once? I can see from the reply above you showing different sizes for plants and trees through the plant code, but am wondering if that is just all manually set up? If it is the case, that my team needs to manually add plants, I would be a big advocate for a "Next Button".

Daniel,

Adding a plant with the New button, yes, those plants will always come in with the default size (which can be a different default for trees, shrubs, shrub areas and groundcovers) set in your preferences. I changed the new client default preferences to have this default be "---" so it'd be clear you hadn't assigned a size to a newly added plant yet.

Yes, you need to manually edit the plants at least once to customize the size and change the code if you want your code to correspond to your sizes like that.

I don't have it on the radar for when we can implement a next button like this, but will add your name to the wishlist so it's clear several people need it when we're parsing priorities on wishlist items.

-Amanda

I think a "next" button to toggle through your plants would be beneficial even if you are importing from a template. Sometimes you might need to update one line of info or change all the symbols already assigned and it is time consuming selecting every plant to edit. Sometimes I lose my place in what I have edited, toggling thru would keep my place while also speeding up edits!

On a similar note, an option for a mass edit would be helpful too, especially while trying to figure out what works and does not work on a template. For example if I need to change 20 template plants' classification from "Trees" to "Deciduous Trees" it would speed things up if there was a edit all option (or to be able to select multiple plants at once) then the plant info dialog box opens to allow a mass edit.

Amanda,

Note that the Plant Manager already allows moving multiple plants from one group to another. Simply select the plants, then choose the different group from the dropdown, and confirm that's what you want by clicking Yes.

--J