Toolkit Tricks (Or things they never told us but thought we knew!)

1. Toolkit Tricks(Or things they never told us but thought we knew!) Rick Zellmer GIS Specialist

2. Setting The Scale For Hardcopy Maps In ToolKit • Setting the scale in ToolKit with the “Map Products” tool • Getting the Scale Bar you want

3. Map Products Tool In selecting the scale for the map – make sure that the map will fit the size sheet of paper that you are going to print on! Remember that a 160 acre farm (1/2 mile x 1/2 mile) would be 4 inches x 4 inches at a 660 scale and at a 330 scale would be 8 inches x 8 inches.

4. If you areunsure if your map will fit the paper at the chosen scale, click the “Apply” button and your map will redraw without closing the “Map Products” window.

5. Please save your plan maps as a “PDF” file!

6. Note the value in the “Scale Box” this is the absolute scale – it should equal the scale that was chosen! 330 ft/inch = 1:3,960 660 ft/inch = 1:7,920 1,000 ft/inch = 1:12,000 2,000 ft/inch = 1:24,000

7. Adjusting the Scale Bar(Quit stretching the bar and put in the divisions that you want)

8. Scale was set to 660 ft/inch (1:7920) but the scale bar has divisions of 380 ft instead of 330 ft. or 660 ft. – Don’t stretch it, select it!

9. Use the “black arrow” to select the scale bar

10. Right click on the scale bar and select “Properties”

11. In the scale bar properties window, change “Adjust division value” in the “When resizing” box to “Adjust width” by clicking on the down arrow.

13. Note that the width in the “Division value” box is 380 ft., but instead of being grayed out can now be edited!

14. Change the “Division value” to the desired setting – in this case 66 ft. Note: you can also adjust the number of divisions and subdivisions by editing the “Number of divisions” and the “Number of subdivisions”., Click “Apply” to see how the adjusted scale bar will look.

15. Scale bar divisions are now 660 ft. Divisions are now 660 ft apart. With the new “Division value” the scale bar extended into the North Arrow – the scale bar can be dragged to the left or the number of divisions could be reduced to 3.

16. Note: “Scale box” is set to 1:7920 and the divisions on the scale bar are one inch apart (660 ft.)

17. Another way to check your scale is to left click on “Insert” and then left click on “Scale Text”

18. Click on “Absolute Scale” and click “OK”

19. The “Absolute Scale” shows the scale of the map, even though the scale bar shows divisions at 380 ft. intervals. Note: the “Absolute Scale” matches what is in the “Scale Box”

20. When everything is set correctly, the “Scale Box”, “Absolute Scale” and “Scale Bar” should all reflect the desired scale.

21. Plan Reports Include in plan reports only those practices that are applicable – such as EQIP practices

22. In the “Practice Schedule” tab you can select the practices to be included in the Plan Report by selecting the individual practices. Sort practices by “Program” or other criteria and then use the “control key” and left click on practices to select individually or use the “shift key” and left click on the first and last practices to be selected to select all practices in between.

23. Only the practices selected were included in the plan report.

24. Using The FSA Common Land Unit (CLU) Layer The CLU Layer can be used to create a conservation plan – however, user beware, not all CLU layers are created equal!

25. The Lee County file was renamed within ArcMap/Toolkit . clu_a_al017 Is the correct naming for a CLU layer, which can be found in f:\geodata\common_land_unit\fsa_clu The CLU layer must be listed in the “Table of Contents” (left side of ArcMap) – it can be checked or unchecked.

26. To use the CLU layer for creating a cons plan, click on the Hardee’s star to open the “New Toolkit Layer” window, then select “Planned Land Units” under “Digitized Land Units”. Under “Create Plan”, the CLU layer can be used with either option.

27. Answer “Yes” to “Use features from a source layer?”.

28. Answering “Yes” brings up the “Create New Layer” window. Use the drop down arrow to enter the CLU layer in the “Source Layer” field. Most of the time you will use the “Query By” option – select it, then use the drop down arrow to select querying by either “Tract Number” or “Farm Number”. Once Tract/Farm number is selected the box below will be populated with the tract or farm numbers. You may also enter the tract/farm number directly into the box below “search for item”.

29. After selecting tract/farm number, the tract/farm numbers appear. Scroll to the desired number and left click on it to select it, then click “OK”.

30. Click “OK” to create a cons plan from the CLU layer.

31. After selecting “OK” you will be zoomed to the selected tract/farm number and will be in edit mode. If the CLU layer is an active layer, uncheck it.

32. Fields can be selected and subdivided or combined with adjacent fields.

33. FSA CLU data is populated, however, you will still need to attribute the fields for Toolkit.

34. Select a field and use the “Attribute Tool” to populate field data. Note the difference between “Acres” and “FSA Official Acres”!

35. User Beware of the Shift!! The Shift

36. When it comes to the CLU – It is User Beware! • The CLU layer was created using the old imagery • When over laid onto the 2006 NAIP imagery there can be a shift • CLU digitizing can be excellent in one part of the county and “shifted” in other parts • The CLU layer can be used as a guide for digitizing the cons plan