Client Onboarding Portal

An agribusiness company in northern Santa Fe managed irrigation for 1,200 hectares of corn and soybeans using a system of daily paper reports and phone calls. Every time a tractor operator detected an anomaly in the pivot, they had to report it by radio and wait for the supervisor to review the report at the end of the day. This caused delays of up to 12 hours to identify a stuck valve or an out-of-range flow sensor.

The client needed a portal where each operator could log incidents from the field, and where the engineering team at the central office could see the status of each piece of equipment in real time. Additionally, they wanted the system to automatically calculate the volume of water applied per plot, to compare it with the recommendations from the RainLink module.

What we did

We designed an onboarding portal that not only registers new users but also configures their profile according to their role: tractor operator, supervisor, or engineer. Each role sees a different dashboard. The tractor operator has a quick incident form with photos and GPS coordinates. The supervisor sees a map with all pivots and color-coded alerts. The engineer accesses water efficiency reports per plot and can export data for internal audits.

The portal connects to the RainLink API to fetch accumulated rainfall data and irrigation recommendations. It also integrates with the company's reporting system, so at the end of each day, the supervisor receives an automatic email summary with the day's incidents and the water applied.

How we implemented it

We worked in three two-week sprints. In the first, we defined the registration flows and role-based permissions. In the second, we connected the RainLink API and developed the interactive map with Leaflet. In the third, we conducted field tests with three tractor operators for a full week, adjusting the interface based on their feedback: for example, we enlarged the buttons on the incident form because they use gloves and touchscreens in the field.

The database is hosted on the client's own server, with daily backups. The portal is developed with PHP 8.2 and MySQL, and the frontend uses Alpine.js to keep the interface reactive without relying on heavy frameworks.

Results after three months

The average time between a tractor operator detecting an incident and the supervisor receiving it dropped from 12 hours to 4 minutes. The volume of water applied per plot is now automatically recorded, and the client discovered that in two plots they were irrigating 18% more than recommended by RainLink, which allowed them to adjust the irrigation schedule and save approximately 22 million liters of water during the season.

The engineering team uses the exportable reports for good agricultural practice certification audits, and the client plans to extend the portal to two other production units next year.