Author Topic: TECHNOLOGY: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs  (Read 8408 times)

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margaretheff

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TECHNOLOGY: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« on: Aug 02, 2014, 06:58 pm »
Hi all,

I am wondering how other people share documents between yourself and your ASMs. In the past, I have created a Dropbox folder where all paperwork is stored for the full stage management team to access. The downside to this is if one ASM does not have Microsoft Word, and if something is updated they need to reupload the document and delete the old one.

I have also used Google Drive as an ASM, which was great for myself and the other ASM to work on documents at the same time as things changed. What was NOT great about Google Drive was the formatting issues...I like everything to look the same from document to document and it's hard to format in general with Google documents.


How do you share paperwork within the stage management team?

Edited to add topic tag - Maribeth
« Last Edit: Aug 06, 2014, 12:11 pm by Maribeth »
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iamchristuffin

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #1 on: Aug 03, 2014, 03:16 am »
I do the same - Dropbox all the way! I also try to enforce saving everything as a PDF. It makes it easier to preview the document in an email or on a Mac (for example), and Acrobat is often quicker to open than Word.

Also, always, always have version numbers and dates on every single page of every single document!

I'm not sure what you mean about having to delete the file and re-upload though...if you've downloaded the app, you can just hit save and Dropbox will automatically update.

C

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #2 on: Aug 03, 2014, 03:23 am »
Google drive - pdf
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babens

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #3 on: Aug 03, 2014, 11:22 am »
I'm not sure what you mean about having to delete the file and re-upload though...if you've downloaded the app, you can just hit save and Dropbox will automatically update.

I assume it would be in the case where one ASM does not have Word and is working in Pages on their Mac.  You can export your work then as a Word file, but it wouldn't register the changes to the original file in Dropbox because as far as Dropbox is concerned it is a new file, not the original Word file that is there that you opened in Pages to work on.

MatthewShiner

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #4 on: Aug 03, 2014, 02:31 pm »
I have never had an issue where the ASM doesn't have WORD

Drobox

And every sub folder has PDF folder internally

So there is

PROPS
and
PROPS/PDFS of DOCUMENTS

Everything sent out is as a PDF

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Anything posted here as in my own personal opinion, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of my employer - whomever they be at a given moment in time.

MarcieA

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #5 on: Aug 03, 2014, 03:03 pm »
I have never had an issue where the ASM doesn't have WORD

I have had an assistant without word, PAs and recently a PSM who didn't have Microsoft Office. It is always because they had a mac that came with iWorks and were able to mostly work around this by exporting as a word file, as Babens mentioned, or by sending out everything as a PDF.
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MatthewShiner

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #6 on: Aug 03, 2014, 04:56 pm »
Ugh . . . that would suck.

I would buy them word.  (Or at least license it for the rehearsal period)
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Anything posted here as in my own personal opinion, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of my employer - whomever they be at a given moment in time.

loebtmc

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #7 on: Aug 03, 2014, 05:36 pm »
I actually had a director who had apple's iworks and didn't understand why NO ONE could read his notes. Since I have a Mac, I ended up translating the format for him. 

But - basic Word at least used to be standard on Macs too - has this changed?

Much as I prefer Mac to PC systems, it has become the standard and therefore among the basics of what we all need have.

BenTheStageMan

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #8 on: Aug 03, 2014, 05:55 pm »
Going between Word and Apple's Pages isn't too bad.  Going between Excel and Apple's Numbers and Excel is terrible.
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iamchristuffin

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #9 on: Aug 03, 2014, 05:59 pm »
Honestly, Office for Mac is £99 or $140....it's worth it, seriously!

Maribeth

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #10 on: Aug 03, 2014, 06:00 pm »
Open Office is free and compatible with Microsoft Office formats.

EDITED TO ADD: And it works on both Macs and PCs.
« Last Edit: Aug 03, 2014, 07:09 pm by Maribeth »

SMeustace

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #11 on: Aug 04, 2014, 01:07 pm »
Open Office is free and compatible with Microsoft Office formats.

EDITED TO ADD: And it works on both Macs and PCs.

OpenOffice is great. It allows you to save in a DOC format that can open on PC or MAC.
It also has a feature to record revisions and changes.

 
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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #12 on: Aug 04, 2014, 01:24 pm »
Note: the original "OpenOffice.org" suite has been forked into two different software packages. Most of the original developers have moved over to a fork called LibreOffice  while the original software changed owners several times and fell behind a bit, eventually becoming Apache OpenOffice. The two suites are mostly the same right now as the split is recent, but different licensing means that LibreOffice is more likely to get new and interesting features first. (Basically, LibreOffice can steal code from AOO, but not the other way around.)

Michelle R. Wood

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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #13 on: Aug 04, 2014, 05:29 pm »
I second the Libre Office plug: I'd been using Open Office in years previous, but switched over to Libre due to some file issues and the need to seamlessly share files between my Windows and Linux boxes. You can open just about anything with Libre Office and output it as just about anything as well.

We used Google Docs on a props tracking sheet last year for a show. On the plus side, viewing it on my phone was a breeze, as was editing between the three of us. But, of course, there's the inevitable issue of versions and rights (you may not want everyone to be able to edit the document as easily as we could, especially if it was a bigger production). Most shows I work on use DropBox to exchange PDFs, which also works very well on mobile devices. The only problem I've had there was reaching the storage limit when people upload lots of pictures and video.
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Re: Sharing Paperwork with ASMs
« Reply #14 on: Aug 04, 2014, 08:12 pm »
I'm happy with dropbox for most things, but as an ASM, I want my run sheets in google drive. I can export it later for sake of having it all in one place, but I need to be able to edit run sheets on the fly during tech, and the easiest thing is to have it open on my phone. This is so much more convenient for me than carrying around paper and pencil (plus I don't have to go back after rehearsal and type up my notes, if I can just put it in my phone immediately). If we're coming up on a shift that we've never teched before, I want to be able to quickly type up who is assigned to every aspect of the shift, and exactly what they do. So I make sure all crew/PAs/PSM are invited to the google doc, I maintain it, and then once everything's actually set I'm happy to export it to Excel and save that in the dropbox... but it's just so convenient to edit the spreadsheet from my smartphone!

 

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