Q&A: We have answered the questions you asked during the conference

[This information was first shared in a newsletter with the participants of the Virtual 2020 Plant Records conference.]

– It would be helpful if we could also have a platform where the different gardens and institutions can share protocols and methods with the IrisBG community. Lets collaborate! Teamwork makes the Dream work!

We fully agree, and welcome that kind of collaboration between gardens and institutions.

Regarding combability of IrisBG and the latest version of Floria

We have received questions about why the latest version of Floria is not compatible with IrisBG. All third parties who are developing add-ons for IrisBG has to follow our guidelines for third party Data Exchange in order for us to be able to secure the integrity of your data. We have prepared an interface for developers to ensure this that has been available for several years and are used by many already,

As a third party, Floria has to follow these guidelines. In order to protect our copyright we have disabled the attempt to circumvent the interface.

We are truly sorry for this inconvenience. 

Unfortunately, there was no time for us to answer your questions directly during the conference. We have tried to catch them all, but please do not hesitate to get in touch if you have further questions or comment below on this post.

Q&A  

Q: Can a task be run from the server as the PC may not always be running?
A: Yes, IrisBG can be installed on the server.

Q: Regarding Task Scheduler, does this upload work if you are not logged in on the scheduled day?
A: You will have to be logged on or run IrisBG on a server.

Q: Where can we read more about the details of 3rd party data exchange in Iris?
A: You can read about this at the Data Exchange-page on our website. If you are interested in getting a solution in place, please get in touch.

Q: Where is the import template?
A: Contact us and we will send it to you.

Q: Are the old website’s forum contents available or archived somewhere that is still accessible?
A: No, but if you’re looking for something specific, get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.

Q: What if we do not yet have IrisBG Data import, should we still update our Floria app and database at this time?
A: Floria’s use of Data Import is not supported by IrisBG, so you should not get Data Import for that reason. The reason for this is that we can’t guarantee the integrity of the data. For Floria we are providing a safe interface for third-party data exchange (Data Exchange). 

Q: Can IrisBG and Floria be coordinated with versions so they are released together?
A: Yes, from our end that is absolutely possible and a solution for this is already in place. 

Q: Is it possible to make a system to choose images specific for Accession for Garden Explorer?
A: Yes, in Garden Explorer the accession number can be shown for the images. Please get in touch if you want us to enable it.

Q: Is there a tutorial for importing data like red lists oder IUCN status, CITES etc for the plant species?

• Would using the IUCN API (opens in a new tab)  be more use in real time ?
  A: We have prepared data imports for IUCN and CITIES. We will share this in the Knowledge Library shortly.

Q: How and why was it decided that Botanical Software would manage the IrisBG databases themselves? 
A: This was not an explicit decision, but a requirement of Botanical Software. We recommend and will be happy to host your IrisBG database in cloud at the same terms as before. Managing your database will allow us to provide better support. Please send us an e-mail and we will arrange the transfer.

Q: We don’t seem to be getting notifications of updates.  We have an early version 4.

• Should we update with every update?  If so what are the implications. Our IrisBG is the cloud based one.
  A: In order to get notification you need to sign in to our Knowledge Library and follow the topic The Latest version of IrisBG (opens in a new tab). We also plan to send out a quarterly summary of new versions in the future. 
• You should have a look at the version history. Often a new version is released to include a feature request from the community. We are considering to label the important updates to make it easier for you to decide.

Q: Would it be possible to make a tutorial on how to import data by an excel into IrisBG? Then make that accessible on the tutorial page. 
A: There’s already a guide for how to Use Data Import (opens in a new tab) in the Knowledge Library. You need to login to access it.