Cool Farm Platform - Sharing and Aggregation Guide

Cool Farm Platform - Sharing and Aggregation Guide

WarningBeta Phase

As of the June CFP 3.0 release, Sharing and Aggregation is available to all permissioned members as a beta feature. During this phase, we encourage members to trial the feature extensively and provide as much feedback as possible. Your input will help us iterate and improve the experience.

The beta phase comes with a few considerations and constraints:

  1. We are actively refining the report structure, so certain elements—such as the general layout, column headers, and tab contents—are subject to change.
  2. For technical reasons:
    1. The number of assessments in an aggregation group is limited to 250.
    2. The number of assessments in an aggregation report is limited to 100.

We are currently working on Phase 2 of sharing and aggregation, which will remove these limits, and we expect the number of assessments per aggregation report and aggregation group to be in the order of 10,000.

Send any feedback via the Support form on the left hand navigation panel in CFP or directly to tech@coolfarmtool.org.

Section 1: Getting started

What Permissions Are Needed?


To use the Share and Aggregation feature on the Cool Farm Platform (CFP), you must be assigned the "Member Admin" role.

If you do not have this role, please contact support@coolfarmtool.org to request the necessary permissions.

Once the correct permissions are in place, you will see the Aggregation Groups section in the left-hand navigation panel. As a Member Admin, you will be able to:

  1. Create and manage Aggregation Groups
  2. Create and manage Aggregation Reports
  3. View all Aggregation Groups within your Organisation


Section 2: Terminology

The Share and Aggregation feature is similar to the Share Code function in the Cool Farm Tool but introduces some new terms.

  1. Aggregation Group
    An Aggregation Group is like the Share Code in the Cool Farm Tool. When you share your Aggregation Group ID with other users, they can link their assessments to your group. You can then include these shared assessments in Aggregation Reports.
  2. Aggregation Group ID
    This is a unique, system-generated alphanumeric code. Share this ID with assessment owners so they can link their assessments to your Aggregation Group.

Notes
Think of the Aggregation Group and ID like a username and password – you need both to manage the group.

  • Aggregation Report (also called Agg Report)
    This is a downloadable spreadsheet that contains data from assessments shared with your Aggregation Group. You can include all shared assessments or select specific ones.

Notes
This replaces the previous CFT report with a new structure and format.

What Is an Organisation?

An Organisation in the Cool Farm Platform (CFP) is a group of users linked by a common email domain (e.g., coolfarmtool.org). This grouping is used to manage permissions at the organisation level.

By default, all users who share the same email domain are added to the same organisation.

Notes
Users with different email domains can be added to your org. e.g. if you are a member and work with a farmer who needs more than the standard 5 assessments, you can add them to your organisation and they will enjoy unlimited assessments. (same as the CFT group code function).

If you are a Member Admin, you will be able to view all Aggregation Groups created by yourself and by other Member Admins within your Organisation.

What is a Sub-Organisation?

Suppose your organisation includes multiple subdivisions and you do not want to share Aggregation Groups, aggregated assessments, or Aggregation Reports across these subdivisions. In that case, you can request separate Sub-Organisations to be created. Please contact support@coolfarmtool.org for assistance.

Example:
The domain coolfarmtool.org could be split into several sub-organisations, such as:

  1. Cool Farm Europe
  2. Cool Farm Asia
  3. Cool Farm North America
  4. Cool Farm South America

Each sub-organisation would have its own Member Admin, user group and control over who can create Aggregation Groups and manage Aggregation Reports within that group.


Section 3: How to Create and Manage an Aggregation Group

1. Go to the Aggregation Groups section in the left-hand navigation
panel.



2. Click the Create Aggregation Group button.

3. Give your group a name and click Create.




4. Once created, your group will appear in the Aggregation Group table, where you can copy the group ID and see the number of assessments shared with each group. By clicking on the arrow on the right, you can view all the Assessments shared with that group.



Section 4: Share with an Aggregation Group

Share the ID With Assessment Owners

  1. Copy your Aggregation Group ID by clicking on the copy icon next to the ID.
  2. Send this ID to the owners of the assessments you want to include in your Aggregation Group. They will use it to link their assessments to your group.

Assessment Owners Share Their Assessments

To share their assessment, the assessment owners should follow these steps:

  1. Open the relevant assessment.
  2. Locate the Aggregation Group widget on the Assessment Overview page.
  3. Click on Share Assessment.



  4. Enter the Aggregation Group ID and click on Share Assessment to confirm and share.

  1. To unshare an assessment from a group, go to the aggregation group widget in the assessment and click on the cross icon on the right of the relevant aggregation group.


Section 5: Generating an Aggregation Report

  1. Go to Aggregation Groups from the left-hand navigation panel.
  2. Click the arrow on the right-hand side of the table to expand the group details.



  3. Select the assessments you want to include in your aggregation report.
  4. Click the Download Aggregation Report button.


Notes

Assessment Status

Only assessments with a submitted status can be included in an aggregation report.
If an assessment is in edit in progress, any changes made since the last submission will not be included in the report.
TIP - Ask assessment owners to submit all assessments before sharing them to ensure the latest data is included.


Section 6: Aggregation Report Format

The new Cool Farm Platform Aggregation Report has been significantly upgraded from the version in the Cool Farm Tool.

Previously, data was spread across multiple tabs with a large number of columns and many potentially redundant (NA) fields. In the new version, each input category and results category has its own dedicated tab. These tabs display disaggregated inputs and results using a fixed number of columns, with the number of rows varying based on the number of records in each category.

This new structure helps us to:

  1. Maintain consistency across all model categories
  2. Reduce the number of columns required in the results tabs
  3. Provide a more logical ordering of input and results categories
  4. Enable easier integration with data intelligence tools (e.g. Power BI)

Notes
We understand that the new format represents a change and may cause some initial disruption to your downstream workflows. However, we are confident that once you become familiar with it, you will find the new format much easier to work with

Report Tabs Overview

Summary
The first tab provides a high-level overview of the report. It includes a count of the assessments included, and indicates whether all assessments were successfully processed.

Assessments
This tab lists all assessments included in the report, with the following details:

  1. Assessment ID
  2. Assessment Name
  3. Farm ID
  4. Pathway
  5. Created By
  6. Year
  7. CO₂e Balance (assessment level)
  8. CO₂e Emissions (assessment level)
  9. CO₂e Removals (assessment level)
  10. Emissions breakdown by flag category

Model Aggregated Results
This tab provides a breakdown of greenhouse gas emissions (CO₂, N₂O, CH₄, and total CO₂e) for each model category of each assessment, including:

  1. Emissions per area
  2. Emissions per unit of yield

Farms
This tab includes details of the farms associated with the assessments in the report.

Results Tabs (R)
The tabs marked with an (R) contain disaggregated results for each item and model category. Some tabs apply across multiple pathways, while others are specific to a single pathway or a subset of pathways.

Input Tabs (I)
These are the final set of tabs, showing disaggregated input data for each model category. Like the results tabs, some input tabs are shared across pathways, and others are unique to certain pathways.

Notes

Example Report

Download the attachment below for an example aggregation report. 

Warning

Sensitive Farm Data

Aggregation reports may contain sensitive data. To protect privacy, farm names and location details are redacted by default in the current version of the report.

In future releases, we plan to reintroduce an option to include this information, if required.

As a best practice for data security, we recommend that you and your assessment owners use the Farm Identifier field, following a pre-agreed naming protocol. This allows farms to be identified internally without sharing sensitive location data.


Section 7: Aggregation and Sharing via API.

If you are an API user, you can now create and manage Aggregation Groups and Aggregation Reports through API calls.

This could be a game-changer if you're looking to programmatically integrate aggregation reporting with a third-party system.