Software superstar, Toro’s Intelli360

Janel Hinde

Digital Product Marketing Manager at The Toro Company

The original brief was simple

As we continue to grow our digital offerings, we needed something to improve the user experience by bringing more functionality in a streamlined design. We wanted to create a web-based digital toolbox that allows users to plan proactively, work productively and manage tasks efficiently in a single, easy to use and end-to-end interface for all digital products from Toro. That became Toro Intelli360.

Customer-led design to improve user experience

We did extensive Voice of Customer research, collecting data from customer satisfaction surveys, interviews, social media and customer service interactions on what users liked about our old version of this software – myTurf Pro – and what they needed to see improved.

The reinvention of myTurf Pro

Intelli360 was intentionally designed to improve the user experience, with fewer clicks to get to the information needed. It is positioned to grow with us as we continue to add more digital offerings whereas myTurf’s design became limited in that respect. 

Collaborative team product development

We partnered with a leading design firm that had a strong reputation in the industry. The team consisted of software developers, quality assurance analysts, a scrummaster and a business analyst, the total team size was 12 people. They took the time to understand our existing myTurf application, absorb the user feedback and create a new product that will make users’ day-to-day work process easier. Testing was thorough, including infield, over the course of a year.

It’s a total fleet management solution

Customers can input any asset they have in their fleet – both Toro and non-Toro – but when it’s Toro it’s possible to access the manufacturer’s maintenance schedule, resource materials like manuals and bulletins and from there they can easily create work orders to ensure maintenance is done on time. They can track their equipment and see what it’s doing real time as they plan their day. Those using non-Toro products can upload PDFs with similar information for their equipment to the Resources area. We have an extensive road map of more features lining up and in the coming months we will first be introducing the ability to manage parts inventory and view fault codes as they arise. 

Why it matters

There’s a lot this software can do but the things that stand out with tangible real-world benefits are providing the understanding of what course maintenance is needed at what time relative to the hours on the machine. This allows the user to create and assign a work order to a team member. By knowing what a machine is doing on the course in real-time means you can see when the job is almost done and plan the next task – no time is wasted. 

Equally, if a machine has been idling for too long, you can contact the operator to see if they ran into an issue completing their job. I also really like the fact that it’s possible to stay on top of stock inventory, continuing to place parts orders to replenish stock, allowing for efficient just-in-time (JIT) management, ensuring you have the parts needed when maintenance is due.

Direct correlation to improved Total Cost of Ownership

A structured software solution used consistently will yield data about the TCO of maintaining equipment. The alternative is piles of paper work orders, in files that makes learning from the data nearly impossible. 

If customers consistently use work orders to track the labour time spent on a maintenance task and the parts used to complete it, they will have, at the end of the year, a comprehensive TCO report on the labour time spent and parts cost to maintain that product – all the information needed to assess whether to replace a machine, restructure a team, or to review procurement processes for the better. 

Taking advantage of telematics data

All current myTurf users across every subscription tier can log in to Intelli360 using their existing credentials and explore the features of the new product. With most new equipment now shipping with standard telematics devices, early use of the Intelli360 interface will help users decide when to upgrade to the Ultra subscription tier, enabling them to take full advantage of telematics data such as operating status and map-based geolocation.

There are three subscription options for new customers including a free version – Lite – and two paid options – Pro and Ultra. Ultra has all the features of Pro but also leverages the telematics devices for geolocation of equipment on a map and current status of the equipment. We have quite a bit more functionality coming from the telematics devices for the Ultra subscription in the future.

Efficiency first

The key thing for me when we started the design process was to provide the customer with one complete view and I love how we’ve delivered that. With the simplified design of the user interface, I believe users will find the information they need quickly and will be able to get their work done much more efficiently. 

Low cost stand out

Whenever I’ve been asked why customers should invest in Intelli360 it’s been an easy one to answer: this is a relatively low cost option for a fleet management solution and with our plans to continue adding functionality every 3-6 months it will become an all-in-one interface for Toro’s digital applications. 

We have modified our parts ordering workflow from myTurf to follow a more standard online e-commerce experience utilising a single cart and shopping lists. Orders are placed directly with their distributor for fulfillment.

Future growth guaranteed

As a web-based product, customers will not be required to keep the application up to date themselves. Intelli360 will continue adding functionality which will be shown to the user when they log in. They may occasionally need to update the firmware on their telematics device on the machine, but that is all. 

As highlighted earlier, we are planning to integrate parts inventory management capability in the coming months and after that fault codes coming from the machine will be monitored, helping users understand a fault and take steps to address them.

Then we have the introduction of the IntelliDash dashboard, this will bring in wider operational context — weather, irrigation, agronomic dashboards, and other integrated systems — giving a fuller picture of site operations, consolidating information from not only Toro products but also third party partnerships like Maya, ezLocator, Playbooks, taskTracker and more. Our intention is to move this dashboard into Intelli360 so it becomes the landing page upon login and all that information is then presented instantly.  

Global reach

This is a global product and has been translated into 13 other languages. Most recently it was launched to the UK at BTME and shortly after to the US at our equivalent GCSAA show. Interest was immediate with customers enrolling and giving it a try. Developing this customer-first solution has been really enjoyable and I can’t wait to keep bringing more features and functionality to the product to continue benefiting our customers. 

Toro’s Intelli360 is available to order now! Speak to your Reesink rep or local Toro dealer about demonstrations and orders.