CXCS Case Study

The Business Problem

Over the years these systems had grown organically. Nutricalc began life as a desktop WinForms application, and in places configuration was hard-wired: reports pointed directly at the live database, errors were written to a local text file that could grow without limit, and there was no separate environment in which to test changes safely. Agronomic rules – yields, sowing dates, silage and potato nitrogen recommendations – needed refining to reflect how advisers actually work, and staff were relying on manual workarounds for everyday tasks such as preparing correspondence and tracking client satisfaction.

Change needed to happen without disrupting a busy advisory team or the farmers who depend on their plans.

The Solution

wildesoft.net has taken a steady, low-risk approach to modernisation. Since April 2026 it has closed 38 issues across the three systems and delivered 18 new features. Two dedicated staging environments were built, for Nutricalc and The Cabinet, so every change is tested and signed off by CXCS before it goes live. Nutricalc now talks to a central API, with secure token-based sign-in, centralised logging and automatic crash reporting, version checks that warn users running an out-of-date copy, and job timing so performance can be monitored.

Six key calculation and planning features were reworked with CXCS's advisers – including yield handling, plan-to-actual date copying, silage SNS, potato nitrogen ranges, buffer-strip areas and a manual SNS override – alongside clearer, better-printing reports.

The Cabinet gained an automated Insights integration that collects client-satisfaction feedback on a schedule, ad-hoc surveys, forward-year producer information and time-saving tools such as one-click copy to Outlook and clipboard. The Portal was moved onto properly managed configuration, email services and an automated housekeeping service that keeps document storage under control.

The Result

CXCS now has a modern, supportable platform rather than three systems held together by workarounds, with almost 80,000 lines of code actively maintained. Changes reach users faster and with far less risk, problems are spotted from the logs before staff report them, and advisers have tools that reflect real agronomic practice. Farmers benefit from accurate plans and a reliable online portal for their documents and signatures.

The project shows that legacy systems don't need a risky "big bang" rewrite – a well-planned, incremental programme can deliver improvements every month while laying the foundations for future growth.

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