Smart Group Criteria Reference

This article lists all available filter criteria for smart groups and explains how each one works.

Available Criteria

Filtering by Age

The Age section filters on how old an animal is today, rather than on a fixed birth date range.

• Min age — Include only animals at least this old.
• Max age — Include only animals no older than this.
• Age unit — Days, Months or Years. Months is used if you leave it alone.

Set either bound alone, or both for a window. Because the age is recalculated every time the group is opened, a “six months and older” group keeps picking up animals as they age in — and lets them fall out of a max-age group as they get too old — with no maintenance. A Birth Date Range, by contrast, is frozen to the dates you typed.

Animals with no birth date are excluded from any group that uses an age filter, since an unknown birth date means an unknowable age.

Filtering by Last Seen on a Check

The Last seen on a check section filters on when you actually laid eyes on an animal, using the results of Checks. Choose a mode, and a window in days where one applies:

• Seen within the window — found on a completed check in the last N days.
• Not seen within the window — has been seen at some point, but not in the last N days. These are the animals that have actually gone missing.
• Not seen within the window, or never seen — the same, but counting animals no check has ever found.
• Never seen on a check — never found on any completed check. No window applies.

Two rules matter here:

• “Seen” means found on a completed check. Being on the roster of a check that missed the animal — or of a check still in progress — does not count as being seen.
• Never-checked animals are a separate choice on purpose. Checks are new, so most herds still hold plenty of animals with no check history. Folding them into “not seen” would hand back the whole herd on a filter meant to return the handful that went astray — so Not seen within the window leaves them out, and Not seen within the window, or never seen includes them.

The window rolls against today, so the group stays current with no maintenance: an animal drops out of a “not seen in 30 days” group the moment a later check finds her. Pair this with the Last Seen column so the group shows the date alongside each animal — the column and the filter use the same definition, so they never disagree.

Exclusions

Exclusions are the one subtractive criterion — every other filter narrows the result by matching, while exclusions remove animals after all the other filters have run. Use them for cases like “all active cows except the retained heifers” or “every pasture but the lease”.

Only static groups can be excluded, because a smart group stores no membership list of its own.

Combining Criteria

• AND between criteria — If you select Status = Active and Type = Cow, only animals that are both active and a cow are included.
• OR within a criterion — If you select Type = Calf and Type = Cow, animals that are either a calf or a cow are included.

Examples

• Calves ready for sale — Status = Active, Type = Calf, Age min = 6 months.
• All active calves born this year — Status = Active, Type = Calf, Birth Date Range = Jan 1 to Dec 31 of the current year.
• Bred cows and heifers — Status = Active, Type = Cow, Sex = Heifer, Breeding Status = Pregnant.
• Animals in a specific pasture — Pastures = [your pasture name].
• Purchased animals — Purchased = Yes.
• Yearlings, minus the replacements — Status = Active, Age min = 12, Age max = 24 (Months), Exclude Group = Replacement Heifers.
• Cattle to go looking for — Status = Active, Last seen = Not seen within the window, Window = 30 days.

Tips

• Don’t over-filter. Start with broad criteria and narrow down as needed. Too many criteria may exclude animals you want to see.
• Review the results. After saving, open the group to verify the membership looks correct.