“Pretty” is not often associated with zoological data. But that’s exactly what aquarists and keepers had to say when Assistant Registrar Leslie Silvia introduced the newly revamped Zoological Information Management System (ZIMS) Daily Activity Dashboard at John Ball Zoo.
“I usually only have a small group of people that get excited about ZIMS developments. The new Daily Activity has been important to a much larger population because they can see how it affects them. I really think it’s going to be beneficial,” she said.
For aquarists and keepers at zoos and aquariums around the world, Daily Activity is the go-to companion for recording essential data on individual animals, groups, and enclosures. So when Species360 embarked on a multi-year modernization of ZIMS, the organization began with Daily Activity.
The goal was three-fold: saving keepers’ time, making record-keeping more intuitive, and providing teams with easier access to information about the animals and enclosures in their care. In all, says Leslie, the Daily Activity Dashboard is faster to run, takes less time to open, and is “much cleaner” than other reports.
“Clean, quick and individualized are my three key words,” she says.
According to Leslie, while time savings buy back as much as a half day every week, the biggest win has been improved access to information. Other reports are awesome for registrars, she adds, and “gives us all the data we need,” but that often is too much information for what the keeper wants.
“Before (the new release), I would run a macro report in which all the batch notes recorded by keepers were included. Then I would extract just what they wanted to see,” says Leslie.
She would do this for each area and team, copying relevant information to an Excel template containing all of the notes separated by area. Each team would receive and review this report at the beginning of the day, going to their area for what they needed.
“For 15 years, that’s what they were used to,” says Leslie. She tried giving teams an organic report, not exported, but there was so much information that it was difficult for them to get to what they needed.
The new ZIMS Daily Activity Dashboard is a world apart, says Leslie.
In some cases, the simplest changes can make a big difference. Leslie notes that Daily Activity Dashboard is not hidden under a reports tab in ZIMS – which can intimidate keepers. Rather, it is just part and parcel with the tool.
“I love the fact that care teams can look at a very specific set of information and set it to what they want. They can view the report by animal list, when they are assigned to their run in the morning. They can run the Daily Activity for the run that they need, which means getting right to the information that is relevant to the job,” she says.
The clear view of information is especially valuable to multi-disciplinary teams, adds Leslie.
“We have grand rounds every Monday, when the veterinarians look at every animal that is on the list. If a keeper or other key staff member happens to take the Monday off, the rest of the team can use Daily Activity reports to quickly home in on what has been happening with a particular animal or group.”
“The flexibility to really individualize the information is huge,” said Leslie. Setting a two-day window provides an easy way to see what happened over the weekend, for example.
In addition to filtering for medical rounds or focusing on an individual or group over the previous week or weekend, Daily Activity Dashboard enables keepers and teams to click a box to filter and focus on specific data such as feed logs or weight or behaviour.
“Following trends is a key benefit of Daily Activity Report,” says Leslie. “Sometimes a keeper or manager will have a perception that something is happening with an animal. Filtering and looking at trends confirms or corrects that perception by weeding out the noise.”
Case in point: graphing weight changes. “People love the graphs because they don’t have to stop and do the math. When I’m doing provisional changes for weights, I can also very easily see if there is an error, such as 3.1 grams for a penguin. Previously, I had to find that note and fix it. Now, when I review and approve weight entries, I can look at Daily Activity first, fix the mistakes, and approve it,” said Leslie.
The registrar team at John Ball Zoo had a long list of wants when it came to a keeper report. Readability, accessibility and timeliness were the big three. Until Daily Activity, a limited number of individuals were fully accessing ZIMS while many relied on Leslie and others to extract reports. Among the concerns, would it take more time for keepers than their previous process of typing up notes and emailing them?
Newfound access to relevant information: Not with the new Daily Activity Dashboard. Conversely, the tool generates enthusiasm for newfound access to information. Every day, 45-50 keepers use Daily Activity to extract data from ZIMS.
Training time: Registrars spend about 15-20 mins in 4-5 sessions to teach keepers and other staff how to use the Daily Activity function. And Leslie estimates that they each get 20-30 minutes a day back in their schedule.
“I can’t say enough about (Daily Activity), it was a huge life changer for us,” says Leslie. “I think animal welfare improves because we can make more informed decisions. We are constantly looking at the big picture, not just each day.”