Equipment compatibility continues to pose challenges for manufacturers, dealers and farmers.

But for the last decade-plus, the Agricultural Electronics Foundation has worked to improve functionality between precision systems, while also increasing awareness of ISOBUS-certified components.

In 2014, the AEF debuted its searchable database of ISO-certified equipment as a resource for manufacturers, and their dealers to assess compatibility.

Initially, dealer access to the database came through the manufacturer, which had its limitations, according to Andrew Olliver, marketing and communications lead for AEF.

At this year’s AEF Plugfest event last week in Lincoln, Neb., I caught up with Olliver who shared some of the planned updates to the database which will improve dealer access.

“The improvements to the database are going to focus around improving some of the parts of the conformance assist for ISOBUS products and also enabling access to the database for dealers. Currently, the way the database is set up, is that a dealer has to request access from his manufacturer and the manufacturer grants access. What we've been finding though is that not too many manufacturers have been actively rolling out this possibility to their dealers. So in time for Agritechnica, we're going to be making improvements to the database to actually allow dealers to create their own access by going to the database registering as a dealer. In the end, that access will need to be approved by the manufacturer whose products they represent but we feel this is a good way to actually get more dealers actively using the database.”

Olliver adds that the goal of the database for dealers is to be a tool for knowing in advance which products and systems are ISO-certified, to minimize troubleshooting.