Red Sky Farm Performance Analysis is available for unrestricted download from this website for anyone who wishes to use the software.
After clicking on the Free Download button on the Home page, you then select the file and then the destination where the downloaded file is to be saved. After the download is complete then you will simply go to the file and double click on it. You will be led through the unzipping of the file and the establishment of the application on your computer. A Red Sky icon will be placed on your desktop.
Double click on the desktop icon to start the application and follow the wizard to create a Farmer/Client and then a Farm and then the Year that is to be entered first.
When you first install Red Sky there are 4 sets of example data immediately available which represent a New Zealand dairy farm, an Australian dairy farm, a New Zealand 50:50 sharemilker/sharefarmer and a mixed sheep, beef and other farm. There are more recent benchmarks available to download to your database that you can retrieve once you have installed Red Sky.
To obtain this data after installing the program you go to the second wizard screen and enter ‘Retrieve Farmer/Clients’ or go to the Main Menu and ‘Farmer/Clients’ then ‘Retrieve’. The Login Names and Passwords for the benchmarks presently available are listed on this website under Benchmark Data.
When you use Red Sky for the first time the column widths will be uniformly too narrow. To quickly reset them you should firstly place the cursor within the top title row and between the first and second column, then double click. This will reset the first column to a width that allows all first column words to be grouped on a single line. Then if you click and drag the right hand side of the second or subsequent columns then all the columns bar the first one will be resized. Any further alterations in column width can be completed by clicking and dragging the right hand side of any column. Although you will need to repeat this a number of times as you work through the entry of data, this resizing of the columns will be remembered when you next return to the same screen.