Welcome to the SMS Demo Download and Install video and to the Precision Ag Data Management Course produced by the Nebraska On-Farm Research Network. This video is the first video in a series of videos that make up the SMS Advanced – Software Management section of the course. The SMS Advanced – Software Management section of the course is designed to walk you through getting started with the SMS software, importing data to the software, upgrading the software, migrating data through upgrades, and getting familiar with the SMS interface. This particular video will address how to acquire and install your version of the SMS Software. It is a fairly straightforward process, so let’s get started.

Downloading the Software

First we need to find a link to download the software from the internet. On the page for this video within the SMS Advanced – Software Management section of the course, we have included a link to the Ag Leader Knowledgebase list of available SMS software versions for download. If you click this link, it will take you to this list and we will proceed from that point in just a little bit. An alternative way of finding this list begins with searching “SMS Software” on your desired search engine, such as Google. When we do this, one of the first results will read “SMS Software | Ag Leader Technology.” We will click on this result and that will take us to the product information page for Ag Leader’s SMS Software. Once we are on this page, we will scroll all the way to the bottom where we will find a blue bar that reads “SMS Trial – Download it here!” We will click on the green box on the right side of the screen that reads “Try it Free Now” and this will take us to the Ag Leader Customer Support Knowledgebase, specifically the part of the Knowledgebase for SMS Software.

On this page, there are some instructions for upgrading SMS that we will discuss in subsequent videos as well as a list of software versions with downloadable .zip folders for downloading and installing the software. If you are a current SMS user and you already have data stored within the SMS software that you would like to keep, you can either keep the version that you already have or you can upgrade to a new version and migrate your data. If the software version that you already have is more than 1 version older than the newest version, I highly recommend upgrading your software. If you need help upgrading, please exit this video and find the “Upgrading SMS” video in the SMS Advanced – Software Management section of the course. 

If you have never used SMS software before, I recommend that you select the newest version of the software to download. Before you select the download link for this version, though, I also highly recommend that you check the minimum system requirements for the software in the release notes for that version. Of the system requirements, the most important is that the Windows operating system that you have on your computer is compatible with this software version. If it isn’t, you should check the previous versions newest to oldest until you find the newest one that is compatible with your operating system. My last recommendation for you before downloading and installing the software is that you ensure your windows operating system is fully updated. This can be done by finding update and security within windows settings and checking to see if there are any windows updates available.

Once we have made sure of system compatibility with the software, we will click the download link. This will begin the download of the .zip folder that contains the software files. The download will likely take a few minutes, depending on your network’s download speed, because of the size of the folder. Once the download is completed as indicated in the bottom bar on our internet browser, we will click on the folder name to open the .zip folder within the file explorer on our computer. In most cases, the .zip folder will be located in the downloads folder of the computer.

Installing the Software

With the .zip folder successfully downloaded to the hard drive and its location opened in the file explorer, we will double click on the folder. This will reveal an application file called “setup.” We will double click on this file. Doing this will initiate the Ag Leader Technology SMS – InstallShield Wizard.

The first window that appears in the InstallShield Wizard asks us to select the language for the installation. Here, you should select whichever language you are most comfortable with. In this case, we will select English and click “ok” to proceed with the installation. This will initiate the next step of the process. If there is no previous SMS Software version installed on the computer, the next window that will appear will be the Ag Leader Technology SMS – Install Wizard. The first step in the Install Wizard is simply an introduction to the install wizard. We will click next.

The next step in the Install Wizard is the End User License Agreement. If you’d like to read the full agreement, please pause the video and read the agreement. Here, we will go ahead and select the bubble to accept the terms of the license agreement, then select next.

This brings up the next step in the Install Wizard, which is to select the folder where the program will be installed. Generally, the default folder will be acceptable because it will be in the program files folder in the main drive (C drive) for the computer. If this isn’t the case, you can select change and navigate to the program files folder in the C:// drive of your computer. Because the default folder here is acceptable, we won’t change anything and we will click next.

Now we have the opportunity to select the type of SMS software to be installed. The text for this step explains that if we purchased SMS, we should make sure to select the version that was purchased. Here we will be using a free trial of the software, and we want to have the necessary features to complete tutorials for the Precision Ag Data Management Course and possibly to use for other applications. Therefore, we will select the bubble for SMS Advanced. With this bubble selected, we will now click next.

Here we have the opportunity to select which language files to be included in the software. You may feel free to choose as many or as few as you like. In my case, I only need the English version, which is already selected, so we will click next.

Now we are ready to install the software, and the final step in the Install Wizard explains this. If there are any changes that need to be made to the settings we selected, we should click back here to go and change them. We are comfortable with our settings here, so we will click install. The installation may take several minutes to complete depending on your system. When the installation is completed, we will be notified. Then we will click finish to complete the installation.

With the installation completed, we can go to our desktop and we should find an icon for SMS Advanced that looks like the one currently shown on the screen. Now, all we need to do is double click the icon and the program will start.

This concludes the SMS Demo Download and Install video. With the newest software successfully installed, you should proceed to the video titled “Importing SMS Files” to learn how to import SMS files that are not already saved in the software, which is a skill you will need for the tutorials in this course. If you had trouble installing the software, please rewatch the video or watch the “Upgrading SMS” video for additional help. Should you have any comments on challenging steps to understand in this video or any suggestions for additional help videos to be made, please feel free to contact us. Continue on to the next video to learn more about the SMS software!