Author Topic: Rehearsal Reports Strange Request  (Read 3279 times)

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BethiIdes89

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Rehearsal Reports Strange Request
« on: Aug 31, 2012, 02:57 pm »
Hello all,

The production manager of my company is asking me to look into some way of formatting a rehearsal (and performance) report in which specific departments can click on their section of the report and it would bring up a reply e-mail with only their information. That's probably not very clear, but both he and I are having trouble articulating this.

If anyone has ever done this, any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Mac Calder

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Re: Rehearsal Reports Strange Request
« Reply #1 on: Aug 31, 2012, 09:25 pm »
So you are after a rehearsal report that has a "reply" button for each section which then quotes what was in that section and allows them to respond...

Only way I can think of doing it is web based and with a fair bit of programming involved. You MIGHT be able to do it using the full adobe acrobat and some clever programming there, but either way, it is not an easy task - instead I would enforce the format you want replies in via policy - IE inform everyone that the director would like responses to rehearsal reports to be provided by copying their section of the report into a reply to the email and then typing their response.

nick_tochelli

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Re: Rehearsal Reports Strange Request
« Reply #2 on: Aug 31, 2012, 09:31 pm »
I'd suggest the production manager hire a web developer because that's most certainly not something they should expect a stage manage to accomplish. If they have the form already and expect you to use it: fine. Go for broke.

Unless they are paying you for The hundreds of hours you'd spend on this, I'd say you give it no extra thought.

PSMKay

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Re: Rehearsal Reports Strange Request
« Reply #3 on: Aug 31, 2012, 11:50 pm »
Actually you can do this in Word with a few macros.

Create a doc with multiple sections. As in, use Section breaks. Each section will be used to hold the notes for an individual designer or department.

You don't need a "from" header as any email program will assume it's "from" the person who's sending the message.

Create a macro. It should:

a) selects the text in the a section and copies it to the clipboard.
b) creates a link that reads "reply to notes" at the bottom of the section. The link should be as follows:
Code: [Select]
<a mailto:stagemanager@foo.bar, director@foo.baz?cc=productionmanager@foo.bat&subject=Re: Daily Notes MM-DD-YY&body=Paste contents of clipboard here">Click to Respond</a>Save report as PDF and the link should survive the conversion. Email report.

The reply will automatically go to the stage manager & director with a CC to the PM. The subject ill be "Daily Notes MM-DD-YY" and the content of their section will be auto-populated into the body of the email.

Some email clients will only c/p the first 256 characters of the body but most will handle far more.

If you don't want to do a CC take out the bit between the ? and the &. If you don't want to auto-pop just clip the code after YY.

MatthewShiner

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Re: Rehearsal Reports Strange Request
« Reply #4 on: Sep 01, 2012, 11:05 am »
I think there is a philosophical issue with this . . . in that I think it would encourage departments only reading/responding to their own department . . .

I always toy with NOT breaking down notes by departments, but just listing them and having every department read every note.  I always want to encourage a more holistic approach to reading reports.
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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.

PSMKay

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Re: Rehearsal Reports Strange Request
« Reply #5 on: Sep 01, 2012, 11:54 am »
You can create a mailing list and c/p to everyone, have the email replies go to the list, organize the distribution however you like. The PM in this case wanted it done departmentally.

While holistic, unified reports are a nice ideal I think ego may prevent its success at many levels of production.  I was in too many "not your job" environments where designers would get pissy if anyone else dared to comment on matters within their sphere. At the very tiptop levels where Matthew is working maybe the designers have gotten past petty turf wars but at the community theatre level it is sometimes more appropriate to keep the warring factions separated.

The designers who want to read the full report will do so anyhow, and there will always be meta-departmental issues (see: Hell in a Handbag) that require blending sections.
« Last Edit: Sep 01, 2012, 12:26 pm by PSMKay »

 

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