Add support for milking shifts or batch milking to icarMilkingVisitEventResource

[cookeac]

Discussed in https://github.com/adewg/ICAR/discussions/446

^{Originally posted by **jdoemel** March 23, 2024} Hello, question regarding missing data scheme in the `milking-visits` POST endpoint to indicate a milking shift. Many dairies have a milking shift that crosses 12am and in this example "milkingStartingDateTime": "2024-03-15T05:40:28.000Z" converted to the dairy's timezone is Mar 15, 2024, 12:40:29 AM. When this milking visits comes via the POST milking-visits endpoint: this is a real farms "milkingStartingDateTime", where does this milking belong in a herd mgmt software program if there is no shiftNumber being posted with the milking? Secondly, this real life milking visits was actually for Shift 3 2024-03-14. So we also need a way to tell the partner accepting the POST not only the shift but also the day the shift belongs to. I'd like to start a discussion on adding additional data schemes in the POST milking-visits endpoint. I could explain better probably "shiftNumber" "milkShiftDate"

[cookeac]

The context here is that with batch or shift milking (i.e. not robots), it can be useful to distinguish the shift within a local date. Two primary drivers:

• Herd improvement - Ability to adjust for variation caused by staffing or process in different milking shifts (potentially important environmental factor if different sets of animals end up in each shift)
• Farm management - ability to organise data in farm management software by shift/batch.

This is related to the discussion on intervals in the ICAR milk recording guidelines (section 2), but interval would be a strange term to use in this context.

[cookeac]

In discussion 2024-04-10 (depending on your time zone) we agreed on:

• milkingShiftNumber numeric
• milkingShiftLocalStartDate (date, in local time not UTC)

We will each consider and discuss further in our organisations, and perhaps someone could propose a pull request for review.

[jdoemel]

@cookeac I would like to adjust my proposal to use the term milkingShiftNumber

[cookeac]

@jdoemel I have updated the notes above. Given this is a Milking Visit, its not essential to prefix the attributes with milking, but I understand it will help people to put the shift into context.

[cookeac]

Discussed 2024-05-08 - @cookeac to create a PR