🌱Farm Profiles on Hylo

We developed these special features for producers in partnership with OpenTEAM

Purpose of Farm Profile Pages on Hylo

Peer-to-peer learning and support among producers is critical to building healthy soil and spreading regenerative land management.

Farm Profile Pages on Hylo allow producers to showcase their operation, discover what others are doing, learn from their successes, and find ways to work together. Producer networks can use these new tools to:

Share updates across their network
Grow connections among land stewards
Organize & promote in-person or online learning events
Find collaborators for research projects, coops, joint ventures, etc
Connect with nearby land stewards with similar interests, or find a mentor
Expand market access by connecting with local purchasers and the public
Connect with other producer networks and the larger regenerative agriculture movement

Farm profiles offer a way for land stewards to build relationships with each other, benefit from peer-to-peer support, and connect with purchasers and the public. Land stewards can share their goals, products, land management practices, needs, and the types of connections they are open to.

Glossary

Group

A Farm Profile is a Group on Hylo, where producers can share about their operation, invite other teammates to join and collaborate on initiatives. Groups can be nested under other Groups (creating [producer] networks) and linked to other Groups (or Farms). The term Group will be used to represent a Farm Profile.

Moderator

The term moderator will be used to represent farmers, ranchers, and land stewards with admin privileges on Hylo. This could be the producer, someone representing the producer, staff, or volunteers. Moderators can adjust Group settings, invite others to join the Group, and receive messages to collaborate. Moderators need to first be members of the Group prior to being assigned admin privileges.

Producer

This term will be used to represent farmers, ranchers, and land stewards on Hylo.

Member

Members could be workers, volunteers, advocates, or others who are connected to your operation. Depending on your privacy settings, other Hylo users can request to join your Group as a member and collaborate on initiatives.

Manager

Manager is another term for a moderator, who has admin privileges in your Group. The term Manager will change depending on the Group Display Names that are set (see below).

Creating your Farm Profile Page on Hylo

Farms can be created through our API integration with OpenTEAM, by filling out a quick survey on OpenTEAM’s open source tool, SurveyStack. Learn more about this here.

Farm Profile Settings

Once your Farm is created in Hylo, you can adjust your settings by navigating to your Farm Profile by clicking the Group Menu icon in the upper left corner → Home → “Group Settings”.

Settings

Description

Enter a description or intention statement for your farm, ranch, or land project.

Add an "About Video" URL

Moderators can include a YouTube or Vimeo link to embed a video about their operation on the Group's About page.

Location

After you type the location for your farm or ranch, ensure you select the correct location from the dropdown menu.

Location Privacy

Group Moderators can adjust their location privacy/obfuscate their location on the map. Options are:

Precise (show exact location)
Near (show location offset by a slight amount)
Region (don't show a location on the map at all, shows only city, region & country).

Group Display Names

Group moderators can specify the nouns that are specific to their operation, so that the UI for their farm can specify that they are a “Ranch” led by a “Ranch Manager”.

Relevant Skills or Interests

What is the purpose of your operation? Are there relevant skills or interests you want to know about members who join? This is a section to share the skills and interests most relevant to your operation. You can require that new members fill out their skills and interests prior to joining your Group, so you can get to know each other better.

Create a Group Shape

Moderators can draw a geospatial shape/polygon to indicate the bounds of their land or operation on the map. Keep in mind, the shape you draw will only show on the map if a location has been set.

Set the location of your land
Click on the pencil icon in the upper left corner and begin drawing the boundaries of your land by clicking on the bound and moving the cursor around the border and continuing the click on the map until the shape is drawn
Once the shape is drawn, double-click to set the boundaries
Click Save Changes To edit your shape, click on the shape and click the X on the left side of the map

Managers

This is where you can assign additional Moderators to manage your Farm Profile. The term ‘Managers’ will change depending on the word you set to describe a Group Moderator (see Group Display Names above). This is also where you can remove a Moderator from your Group.

Keep in mind, a Moderator will need to be a member of your Group before they can be assigned as a Moderator.

Privacy & Access

Hylo has two dimensions as it relates to Group privacy.

Visibility

Who is able to see your Farm Profile page?

Hidden - Only members of this Group or direct child Groups can see the Group.
Protected - Only members of the Group or parent Groups can see this Group.
Public - Anyone can find and see that this Group exists and their About page. If a Group is tagged as public, it will show up on the public map. Note: While the user can see this Group, their ability to join depends on the accessibility settings.

Accessibility

Who can join your Farm Group?

Closed: This Group is invitation only and is only visible to members of the Parent Group.
Restricted: People can request to join this Group and must be approved. Note: They can see the Group image and description. (see Join Questions below)
Open: Anyone who can see this Group can automatically join it.

Join Questions

If you are a restricted Group, you can set Join Questions for users to answer prior to joining your Group, which you can set to be required.

What do you want to know about users before they join? These can serve as a screening process for your Group.

Prerequisite Groups

Prerequisite Groups are “parent” Groups that if selected, users must join prior to joining your Group.

Only parent Groups can be added as prerequisite Groups
If you select a prerequisite Group with hidden or protected visibility, only members of those Groups will be able to see your Groups. Caution! With these settings, people who find your Group will not be able to see the prerequisite Group.

Group Access Questions

You can set Group Access Questions that another Group is required to answer when they request to join with your Group. These are similar to Join Questions, but are for Groups rather than users.

Hide Farm Data

Here you have the option to hide farm data if you don’t want specifics of your operation to be displayed on Hylo. This would omit:

Keywords
Social media links
Farm Details
Products
Certifications
Land management techniques
Opportunities to collaborate
Operating hours
Public Offerings

Ex: This is how an operation would appear with hidden Farm Data

Topics

Topics are specific tags to curate the conversations in your Group. They are similar to hashtags on twitter and help organize Posts so everyone stays notified on content they care about. Group members can follow a Topic and they will get notified when there is a new post on that Topic.

Group Suggested Topics

Moderators can create set default topics for their Group, which will be suggested first when members create a post. These topics can be relevant to your Group or your operation.

Note: Topics need to be one word, so don’t create a space between two words. Example: Farmers Market → FarmersMarket

Topic List Editor

In this section you will find a list of every topic that has been created by members of your Group. You can search the list of topics and filter them by popularity. Members of your Group can add any topic to their post, though moderators can edit the visibility.

Visible: These topics will be seen by community members
Pinned: pin topics to the top of the list to ensure users pay attention to posts in these topics
Hidden: hide topics that you prefer members of your Group don’t use

Invite

Here is where you can invite members to join your Group on Hylo. Members could be workers, volunteers, advocates, or others who are connected to your operation. Inviting members to join allows you to create shared conversations on Hylo and keep folks up to date on what’s happening in your operation.

Here you have two options. A shareable link that can be copied and shared through any platform, and a private invite by email. You can personalize the email you send out in your invite.

Join Requests

Users who request to join your Group will show up here. Moderators will also receive a notification when a user requests to join their Group. You can accept or deny their request to join.

Is your Farm or Ranch collaborating with other land projects? This is the place to set up those connections.

Parent Groups are Groups that your Group is a part of
Child Groups are sub-Groups of your operation.

Ex: Shoestring Ranch is a member of the Bay Area Farm Network, which is a network of farms and ranches in the Bay Area. The Bay Area Farm Network would be the Parent Group and Shoestring Ranch would be the Child Group. Members of Shoestring Ranch would be able to see the data in the Bay Area Farm Network and connect with those operations who are a part of that network.

Export Group Data

Moderators have the option of exporting member data as a CSV file. The data will be emailed directly to the Moderator.

Delete

If you delete this Group, it will no longer be visible to you or any of the members. All posts will also be deleted.

Editing your Farm Profile Page

To edit content on your Farm Profile page, you will need to resubmit your Survey in SurveyStack. Instructions on how to do so can be found here.

The following content in Farm Profiles that need to be edited in SurveyStack:

Keywords
Website and social links
Farm details
Products
Animals
What interests you
Opportunities are you looking for
Public offerings
Opening hours
Certifications
Land management plans
Goals

Connect with other Producers

Farm Explorer

The Group Explorer is a directory of public Groups on Hylo, which allows users to find relevant Groups through searching relevant keywords. You can choose to filter the Group Explorer by Farms. To access this, click on the Group Menu in the upper left corner of your screen → “Public Groups”.

Sort the list of farms by their Name, Member Count, and by those nearest to you. In the tab dedicated to Farms, you can filter by Farm Type, Operation, and Land Management techniques. Use this tab to discover nearby farms, find producers growing specific crops or with specific land management techniques, or with expertise in different skills that might be relevant to you.

Clicking on a Farm will take you to their Farm Profile page where you can learn more about them!

You will see:

Farm keywords
Website + Social Media Links
An “About” section
Farm Details + Products
Opportunities to collaborate (see below)
A map of surrounding Farms
Farm stewards
Privacy Settings

Want to Join another Hylo Farm?

You can request membership to join another Farm at the bottom of their Farm Profile. Click the Request Membership button to do so. If your request is accepted, you will be a member of that Group.

What does this mean?

You will see all Group content and posts from other members in the group
You can create posts in the group (Discussions, Requests, Offers, Resources, Projects, Events).

Learn more about what you can do in a Group here.

Opportunities to Collaborate

Producers can share ways they want to collaborate and other producers (or the public) can send a message to connect and offer their support. Producers can specify exactly what they are open to collaborating about in SurveyStack.

Click on the chat icon on the right to send a message to the Farm stewards.

Hylo’s Map Feature

Hylo’s map is a great way to connect with other producers in your area. Click the world icon on the left side of the screen to view a geographic map of all groups/farms, members, and posts with a specified geographical location.

You can zoom in & out of the map by scrolling on your mouse or trackpad and move around by clicking and dragging.

Single color dots represent different types of posts - Discussions (blue) Requests (purple), Offers (green), Requests (yellow), Projects (orange), Events (red), Members (pink), Groups (grey).

Click on the “post types” button in the bottom left to choose which types of things you’d like to see on the map.
Clicking on a group or post will open it up on the side, so you can interact with it.
Clicking on a member will open their member profile.

As a producer, you can see other farms and land projects in your region! Click on a Farm to navigate to their Farm Profile and learn more about them.

Map Layers

Users can change the base layer of the map to satellite or street view. You can display indigenous territories as a layer on the map using data from native-land.ca.