This blog that will explain the status of our next update as well as our future direction and product offerings.
Pet Diet Designer for Windows (PDD Beta) has been successful beyond our wildest dreams. Our original mandate was to create the world's first consumer-based pet nutrition software, targeted primarily at the US market. And we did! What we didn't expect was such widespread acceptance among professionals and consumers worldwide.
At the present time 30-35% of our clients are veterinarians, animal/veterinary nutritionists, veterinary teaching colleges, pet food kitchens, and small and medium pet food producers (mostly raw). So we have a diverse customer base, from pet parents to industry professionals; all being served from a single, low cost product.
Many of our customers just want to create complete and balanced meals for their pet but are intimidated by the detailed graphs, etc. Our professional customers would like to see more detail and more functionality. Further, many of our current customers would prefer a Mac based version of our software (to use our current software on a Mac, you have to install virtualisation software that can run the Windows operating system).
To better serve our customers we decided to create 7 different products. We also decided to re-brand our product, as people were using our product and company name interchangeably, which was causing some confusion. Our Pet Diet 365 line of products are for pet parents and professionals. The Pet Diet 365 line of products are for formulating individual diets for pets. Our Pet Diet 365 line of products are being developed concurrently and will be released within a few months of each other. Our Pet Diet Formulator product is for producers. Our Pet Diet Researcher product is for researchers.
New product name, versions, and release year:
Pet Diet 365™ (Home edition) (2023)
Pet Diet 365™ (Home Plus edition) (2023)
Pet Diet 365™ (Home Pro edition) (2023)
Pet Diet 365™ (Nutritionist edition) (2023)
Pet Diet 365™ (Veterinarian edition) (2023)
Pet Diet Formulator™ (2024)
Pet Diet Researcher™ (Experimental)
Pet Diet 365™ HomeFor Healthy PetsOur current beta product (PDD Beta) will be replaced by Pet Diet 365 Home. Both products will run concurrently so you won't have to uninstall PDD Beta, unless you want to. With the release of our Home version, we will discontinue PDD Beta. All of our loyal supporters with a current subscription will receive a 12 month subscription to Pet Diet 365 Home, from the date of release. This free 12 month subscription is a thank you for taking part in our beta and helping us to create the world's best pet nutrition software.
Our first release this year is the Home edition. We have had feedback from hundreds of customers. The most glaring issue with PDD was complaints about the user interface. So our primary goal was to make our product more user friendly, while at the same time providing more power and functionality. We believe we have accomplished that with our new task-based approach to creating recipes.
Another issue was inappropriate food items. Many of these will be removed for our next update. We are also adding many food items specific to countries like Australia, UK, New Zealand, etc. On the same theme, some of our customers have requested better filter capabilities for foods and food groups. For instance, raw feeders would prefer to see only raw food items while customers making cooked meals would prefer to see items specifically for their meals. Other customers have requested that we get rid of all processed food items.
It is not our mandate to dictate what type and/or method of feeding our customers use. Pet Diet 365 is a tool to help you create scientifically complete and balanced recipes no matter what method of feeding you choose. In addition, we have redesigned our software to add other species besides dogs and cats. Some of those species will require foods that may not be appropriate for dogs and cats. To accommodate everyone we have decided to filter out groups and food items automatically, depending on the type of recipe you are designing. So even though many foods will be filtered out, you can still get them back by unchecking some food groups. The filtered food groups will be easily accessible from the Recipe Balancer.
Here are some of the enhancements that will come with Pet Diet 365 Home edition. Note that there just is not enough space (or time) to give a comprehensive list of enhancements.
- completely redesigned user interface
- better search
- 30,000+ foods
- species specific metabolizable energy
- nutrient bio-availability
- better food wizard (for entering your own foods and supplements)
- animal husbandry
- input and balance batches
- balance over time (days or weeks)
- balance for life stage (not only individual pet)
- balance for ratio diets
- bone-in ingredients (for our raw feeders)
- whole prey (for our raw feeders)
- safe upper limits for diets
- task based recipe design approach
- override computer generated pet calorie requirement
- break down nutrient analysis
- enhanced diet tracking
- meal planner with integrated batch tool, shopping lists
- better help
- many more videos
- tons more features and enhancements...
Pet Diet 365™ Home Plus
For Sick Pets and Special Diets
- All features of Home version, plus
- Our Home Plus edition will let consumers design recipes for single disease conditions.
- enhanced weight loss
- enhanced weight gain
- Special diets (Racing sled dogs, ketogenic, etc)
- Breed specific diets (Dalmatians, etc)
Pet Diet 365™ Home Pro
For Sick Pets and Special Diets
- All features of Home and Home Plus versions, plus
- ability to formulate diets for other pet parents.
- drag and drop reporting
Pet Diet 365™ NutritionistFor Professionals
Our
Nutritionist edition will be released in 2023. The
Nutritionist edition has much more functionality than the
Home Plus/Pro edition. There are far too many features to list but here are some of the key ones:
- focused on projects and formulating for clients
- design recipes for single disease conditions
- comprehensive client and patient data input
- import/export recipes and patient data from/to customers with Home/Home Plus/Home Pro editions
- Dry Matter calculations
- NRC standard, including year variations
- create your own ratios
- side by side Dry Matter and As Fed graphs
- create complex reports using drag and drop
- automatic client reporting
- team ready (kanban, gantt, etc)
- single and multi-user
- your own branding (for reports, client communications)
- help and videos
- tons more features and enhancements
- paid add-ons for extra functionality
Pet Diet 365™ Veterinarian
For Veterinarians Only
Our Veterinarian edition will be released in 2023. Pet Diet 365 Veterinarian edition will let veterinarians formulate homemade diets for their clients based on NRC. The software will also allow veterinarians to formulate for multiple disease conditions:
- everything from the Pet Diet 365 Nutritionist edition, plus
- design recipes for multiple disease conditions using a drag and drop metaphor
- automatic dispute resolution (i.e., resolving conflicting nutrient recommendations) when designing for multiple disease conditions
- built-in drug/nutrient interactions
- comprehensive client and patient data input
- import/export recipes and patient data from/to customers with Home or Home Plus editions
- Dry Matter calculations
- side by side Dry Matter and As Fed graphs
- create complex reports using drag and drop
- automatic client reporting
- team ready (kanban, gantt, etc)
- single and multi-user
- your own branding (for reports, client communications)
- help and videos
- tons more features and enhancements
Pet Diet Formulator™ For Small, Medium, and Large Commercial Producers
Our Pet Diet Formulator™ product will be released in 2024. This product is part of our commercial line and is designed for pet feed producers. We have unique data sets not found anywhere else:
- Dry Matter calculations
- NRC, AAFCO, FEDIAF standards, including year variations
- create your own ratios
- side by side Dry Matter and As Fed graphs
- side by side "any standard" graphing
- create complex reports using drag and drop
- team ready (kanban, gantt, etc)
- single and multi-user
- your own branding (for reports, client communications)
- labelling
- product mimicry
- help and videos
- tons more features and enhancements
- paid add-ons for extra functionality
Pet Diet Researcher™
For Animal Nutrition Researchers
Our Pet Diet Researcher™ edition is currently experimental. The Researcher edition is developed for animal nutrition researchers in government, business, and university:
- everything from Veterinarian edition, plus
- NRC, AAFCO, FEDIAF standards, including year variations
- create your own ratios
- side by side Dry Matter and As Fed graphs
- side by side "any standard" graphing
- create complex reports using drag and drop
- enhanced analysis tools
- integrated spreadsheet
- automatic client reporting
- team ready (kanban, gantt, etc)
- single and multi-user
- your own branding (for reports, client communications)
- help and videos
- tons more features and enhancements
- paid add-ons for extra functionality
Breaking Changes
Our products will no longer be available on Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Translations
Immediately after the release of our Home edition we will start to translate our product. We are looking for people to assist with this. We offer incentives to anyone willing to help. Special incentives for people who wish to partner with us and provide product support in their language (non-English).
Pricing
*to be announced
Income Opportunities
We are introducing an affiliate system after the release of Pet Diet 365™ Home. So you can make money by helping to spread the word.
Conclusion
We are happy to share some of what we are doing and are very excited about our upcoming product releases. Exactly when? As soon as it is ready, and not a moment before. :)
We hope that this has answered some of the many questions that you may have. This is all that we can say at this moment and ask that you please have patience as we will answer more when we release Pet Diet 365.
Note: Pet Diet Designer reserves the right to modify and/or change any of the information in the above blog about our new products(s) as we see fit and at our discretion.