PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS
Regional botanic gardens records management system – welcoming Botanical Software Tex (Terence) Moon, Ranger Team Leader, Dandenong Ranges Gardens
BGANZ negotiates great deal for members Two years ago, a BGANZ working group embarked on a journey to find a suitable plant records management system to provide to member gardens. The objective of the project was to be able to
Tex Moon
give members access to a plant records management solution that is robust, reliable, secure and accessible, with optimised performance to meet the current and future needs and demands of regional botanic gardens. After a long and thorough EOI and tender process I am happy to announce Botanical Software as the successful tenderer. The product developed by Botanical Software is called Hortis. It is cloud‑based, user-centric and adopts a mobile-first philosophy. The system is primarily designed to be used in the field, and to be interactive and intuitive with multiple levels of access and details that are typically accessed by dropdown/expandable menus. Input is validated at the time of entry and can be used in areas with and without mobile phone coverage. It was judged to be the sort of system that a moderately competent user of a mobile phone could use with a limited amount of training. The evaluation team was particularly impressed with the customer/user focus of Botanical Software, their organisational capacity (in partnership with the Candide group) and their general understanding and experience of collections management.
Great BGANZ deal for all members Botanical Software’s costing model works on a pay-per-service model with the choice of monthly or annual plans (like a phone plan). BGANZ has negotiated a BGANZ member discount.
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THE BOTANIC GARDENer | ISS 56 WINTER 2021
