The Grade screen

The Grade screen is where you work: it shows how far the blade is from the target and, on a Full Automation Kit, drives the valve to put it there. The layout is the same in every workflow; what changes is the target (a design line, a surface, a typed grade or one elevation) and a few buttons. How to grade a ditch from start to finish: Grade the ditch.

Before you start

• A workflow card is picked on Home, the tablet is connected (or the simulator is running), and a design or target is loaded.
• Reading this page takes about ten minutes. Each workflow's view has its own section; read the one you use.

Open the Grade screen

Implementing a design opens it. To come back to it later, tap Grade in the sidebar: the third big button down the right-hand edge, with a mountain icon. It is grey until a workflow card is picked.

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What every Grade screen has

Five parts, in the same places in every workflow: a white stats bar across the top, the map in the middle, the tall Grade / Depth Guide column between the map and the buttons, the profile chart along the bottom (most workflows), and the sidebar of big buttons on the right.

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The numbers at the left of the stats bar:

• Stats bar: Current (blade elevation), Target (what you're grading to now), Design (the final design, shown when a nudge or Auto-Nudge pass makes Target differ), Nudge (green up, red down). Badges: GPS, Auto Nudge switch, Wi-Fi, BM, wrench. See Stats bar and badges.
• Map: up to four chevrons pointing the way the blade must go, with the error and CUT / FILL, or a green ON GRADE bar. Coverage paints behind you. Map buttons as on every map (Map controls).
• Grade / Depth Guide: the triangle is your cutting edge, the yellow band is FINAL TARGET, a blue CURRENT line marks a pass or nudge target. Banners such as Auto Grading Active sit at its top. Read it in Grade / Depth Guide and chevrons.
• Profile chart: the ground, the design, the dashed PASS line and the graded surface, with your position. Drag the grab bar to resize. Edit Design appears for designs made from a survey.
• Sidebar: Start (becomes Stop), Reset (replaced by Hold / Resume while grading), then the nudge group (Nudge Up / Nudge Down) or the AUTO-NUDGE group (Pass + / Pass −), and hold-to-move Raise / Lower. See Sidebars: the Grade screen.

Nothing loaded? The screen says No Slope-IQ Design Loaded (Survey a route then use Slope-IQ to design a target profile) or No Forming Design Loaded, and the sidebar offers Resume to reopen an autosaved job.

Leaving while grading (Home, Settings, the wrench, Edit Design) asks Stop Auto-Grading? first. The job autosaves.

On each kit

• Full Automation Kit: Start drives the valve; Hold stops valve commands while the guidance keeps running; Raise / Lower move the blade while held.
• Guidance Only Kit: same screen; there is no valve, so you work the blade with the tractor lever and Raise / Lower do nothing.
• Ditch Assist Lite: Start runs guidance (Guidance Active). No Hold, Raise or Lower. See Working in Ditch Assist Lite.
• DIG™ Kit: the Excavator view below; guidance only, no valve.

Slope-IQ view: Ditching, Simple Grading, Terracing, Tiling

Grades to a design line along a surveyed route. The picture above is Ditching with Auto-Nudge on. Differences by workflow:

• Ditching and Simple Grading: Auto Nudge switch in the stats bar; AUTO-NUDGE group or Nudge Up / Down in the sidebar.
• Terracing: a CH or BERM tag in the stats bar, big Channel / Berm buttons with an ACTIVE tag in the sidebar, and a CHANNEL ACTIVE / BERM ACTIVE chip on the profile, where the other target shows dashed grey. Switching while auto grading needs Hold first (Tap HOLD before switching the terrace target); in Lite mode, Stop.
• Tiling: no Auto-Nudge (single pass), Nudge Up / Down only; tile line with min / max depth bands on the profile; an on-grade window of ±0.5 in; Start waits for RTK and the plow at depth (Lower 6" to start).

Terracing: the CH tag (green) after the GPS badge, and the two big target buttons near the top of the sidebar.

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Tiling: Nudge Up and Nudge Down in the sidebar instead of the AUTO-NUDGE group, and a green ON GRADE bar on the map when the plow is within half an inch.

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Land Forming view

Grades to a whole-field design surface. The map shows the design as a cut / fill heat map with a legend at the lower left, Cut / Fill (mm), in coloured bands; the green band near zero is labelled BM. Units are metric. Auto-Nudge works; Edit Design does not (the design comes from your design software). Cut / fill opacity is in Map Layers. See Land Forming.

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The legend, close up: fill bands in blue (above), the green BM band for ±10 mm, cut bands below.

Manual Grade view

No design: you type a grade. Before you start, a bar along the bottom asks for Target Grade %, Direction (Uphill / Downhill) and Depth Offset, then Set Grade. Start fixes 0+00 where you are (Ready to Start?). The stats bar adds a grade chip (for example 0.30% ↓) and Dist; each grade segment gets a pin on the map (S1 · 0.30%, 0+00) and Seg 2/3 appears with several segments. Change Grade in the sidebar starts a new segment. Used by Simple Grading's grade-only option and by Excavation. See Manual Grade.

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Leveling view

One flat target elevation. The bar at the bottom of the map has Target Elevation with Set Target and Use Current (your elevation now), plus a Depth Below Bucket box (the label says bucket in Leveling too) with Dig This Deep and Clear Offset to grade a set depth below where you are. Once set, the sidebar shows Change Target. No Auto-Nudge, no profile chart. See Leveling.

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Excavator view (DIG™)

Guides the bucket tip; the valve is never driven. Differences:

• No Hold, Raise or Lower, no Auto-Nudge, no "Auto Grading" banner. Start / Stop, Change Target or Change Grade, Nudge Up / Down.
• The guide shows an excavator arm and bucket instead of the triangle; the on-grade window is ±1.5 in.
• Stats bar: Current, Target, Cut/Fill (and Dist / Grade when grading to a grade or design).
• A Grade sound button in the sidebar (the on-grade tone, on by default) and the DIG logo.
• The map stays north-up and your position is a dot.
• With a LandXML design, a completion grid you tap to mark finished (7 cells complete) and Clear Marks.

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In Ditch Assist Lite, Excavation follows the Reach antenna, not the bucket: check grade between cuts. See Excavation in Ditch Assist Lite and Excavation.