Studio Manager 11
Version 11 adds iPad and iPhone Access
Mobile devices are carving out a permanent place in the computing landscape and changing the way we work. With Studio Manager 11, we’ve done the heavy lifting to add features and functions that make it useful and useable from an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
The Mobile Advantage. It goes where you go. The iPhone or iPod touch resides in your hand or pocket when you are away from your desk. The iPad could be your new clipboard with job details, task list and timesheet as you move about the office or leave the office.
If you haven’t gotten around to setting your router to allow FileMaker to work from home, starbucks or a remote city, the time has come .
FileMaker Go is the cheap, thin FileMaker client we’ve been waiting for. FileMaker Pro is a powerful application that enables you to enter, view, manipulate and report on data. But, it also has a full-strength database development capability in every copy. Many of us have wondered why we need all that power (and accompanying investment) at every workstation. FileMaker Go at $20 and $40 a pop could be an alternative to FileMaker Pro for some of your users and use cases.
Making it All Work
Mobile devices are different. The slower processors and fact that a tap of the home button or receipt of a phone call could abruptly interrupt a FileMaker script and possibly leave your data in disarray needs to be taken into account. Studio Manager 11 gets you past these obstacles. We have honed the functionality to match the capabilities and unique characteristics of the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.
With a full-scale application like Studio Manager, it makes sense to use the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch in a particular way. An iPhone or iPad can give you quick access to job status and contact details. It can allow you to enter time, expense and task data while in your office or on the road. Keep in mind, of course, that performance may degrade in remote access if your connection is slow such as might happen when trying to access over the cell network when reception is spotty. That being said, sometimes a slow connection with its attendant delays is worth the trouble to check the status of a critical project, budget or bill.
iPhone and iPod touch
You get iPhone-sized Entry and List layouts for access to the most essential data in Studio Manager. Due to screen size limitations, we’ve limited the fields displayed. Your priorities may vary, and just as you can with the full desktop Studio Manager product, you can easily replace the fields we’ve chosen and increase or decrease their sizes to match your unique priorities. You’re the boss!
iPhone and iPod touch Data Access
- Contacts. Contact details plus a portal showing client jobs.
- Jobs. Job details and a portal showing job deadlines.
- Timesheets. Full timesheet entry with the option to specify the task worked on and a note.
- Tasks. Task details for a quick access to full task description and notes.
- Calendar. You can see your tasks spaced out on the calendar. Click a day to see deadlines that day. Click a task to view task details.
Studio Manager on the iPad
The iPad lands squarely in between the full powers of a Mac or PC and the always with you iPhone and iPod touch. We chose to downsize the iPad layouts but keep their similarity to the full-sized desktop layouts in Studio Manager to make it easier for someone to use an iPad part-time and a Mac or PC when available. You’ll find the Places buttons at the bottom right on entry screens that allow you to zip around the database. You’ll find more data, tabs and portals than on the iPhone but less than on their desktop counterparts. We’ll fill in more details on iPad shortly.
Studio Manager 11 on the iPad provides a full-function timesheet. If you choose, to track time against tasks in addition to billing codes, you can do that from the iPad. If you don’t want to track task time, you can simply remove task number and task and enlarge the Job Title and Descriptions fields to take advantage of the newly found space. We put the task info in there because it’s easier for you to remove fields than add them.
The screenshot above is an example of the value you might derive from an iPad from a more executive or managerial perspective. We’ve added tabs in Jobs so you can comfortably check job estimates and invoices from your iPad. Billing and budgets are key facets of Studio Manager and we wanted you to have the ability to check the facts on the spur of the moment from your iPad (Don’t worry, financial details are protected based on the user access levels you set.).
We’ve also included powerful monthly and weekly calendar views in our iPad functionality. By default, the user sees their own tasks on the calendar. But, we’ve also provided the ability to filter the calendar by Employee, Job or Client. You can drill into any task listed on the calendar to see full details about it (and edit or make notes there if access privileges allow).
Other Studio Manager 11 Features
Except for the addition of iPad and iPhone/iPod touch screens, SM11 is pretty much the same as SM10. See these features below.
I’ve written over ten blog posts on specific Studio Manager 10 features. They are all on the Home tab above. Here’s the executive summary with links to relevant blog posts where available.
Studio Manager 11:
A Calendar for Job Deadlines. This was our #1 asked for feature. Now you can see what’s going on with your deadlines in a way your brain likes. You get a Month and a Week view.
Slipping Tasks Forward and Back. In the dynamic world of creative services, things change all the time. Stuff happens and sometimes you need to jam in just one more job. But where to put it? And how to juggle everything else so nothing crashes and burns? This feature will let you quickly move blocks of tasks on different jobs forward and back in time to allow for some creative schedule juggling. And it does it fast and easy. Click where you want slipping to start and all incomplete tasks that are marked as dependent will slide the number of days you request, skipping weekends and holidays of course.
Employee Dashboard. You start your day with Studio Manager at your dashboard. There you can see the tasks you need to work on, the jobs you’re on. And, you can click the tasks or jobs to make entries into your timesheet. Simpler without the travel.
Before I list more, I want to remind you that we know every work group is different. We’ve designed Studio Manager so that you can change things around to your liking really easily. Let me give you an example.
Optionally assign up to 4 people to tasks.. Prior to SM10, you could only assign one person. That was great for smaller firms, but some firms want to assign more people to a task. We’ve built the infrastructure to allow up to 4 people per task, but you can change it by double-clicking the Who field and changing the 4 to 3, 2 or 1. Click OK. Customization done! [Blog Post]
When you want to strip down a layout to the essentials that will work for your team, just duplicate it for reference in case you ever want to reinstate a feature and then trim away!
End-User Features in Studio Manager 11 (Continued):
Controlling What Gets Billed When. Check my blog post for details, but the bottom line is you can adjust your actuals as needed so what you want gets billed when you press the Get Job Costs button in Invoices. You can hold things or designate them unbillable in a flash. This is a lot faster than correcting the invoice after everything gets summarized on your bill. Our Get Job Costs button is very popular and this extra front-end help makes it better.
Tracking Task Time. If you like, you can assign a budgeted number of hours for your job tasks. That’s optional, but if you do it, you can then show your employees the time remaining on their assigned tasks. Never hurts to remind them how fast a task needs to get turned around. After all, designers are professional perfectionists and that perfectionism leads to greatness. We just want you to do great things, and stay in business!
Assigning People to Jobs Up Front. Every owner likes to see who is assigned to a particular job. Just in case something comes up. Besides that payoff, assigning people to jobs on day 1, begets efficiencies down the line. For example, when you fill in what job you worked on for your timesheet, only your jobs show up in the pop-down menu. Same goes for assigning people to tasks. When you fill in who is on a task, your list of eligibles is the list of people on this job. Goes faster. Of course, making job assignments is completely optional.
Error Trapping Interactively with Training Attached. FileMaker’s Script Triggers allow all sorts of good things. Every time you click in, change or exit a field, FileMaker knows it and a script can be triggered to do a little something extra. The temptation is to go wild adding little extra programs for each field. But, that would be overkill. Instead we’ve just taken a few minor annoyances and made them go away. For example, I wrote a script trigger to eliminate unwanted carriage returns (for when a user hits Return to exit a field instead of Tab or Enter). That carriage return can wreak havoc on addresses and you end up with a blank line in the middle with no city, state zip line at all. Or how about first name on line 1 and last name on line 2 of a mailing label? Fun! Like I said, I figured out a single script that checks for these carriage returns as you type and stops you in your tracks. Cleans up after you and reminds you not to do it again. No more training. No more errors.
Summarizing Data and Protecting It. This is a little one but we found a way to clean up the look of Contact and Job Screens. We’ve summarized the basics about the person and company in contacts and the job in Jobs on the front tab with minimal labels and no boxes. To edit, just click and you click right into the edit tab where you see the all the field boxes and labels.
Capturing Important Job-Related Emails. We figured out that single, individual emails are actually a lot more important to capture in the Mail Log than the big email blasts. Especially when it comes to correspondence with clients, vendors and other employees about jobs and estimates. There’s a now a tab in Jobs called Mail Log where these emails show up for review. Great for those client calls about things that happened a few days ago. We’ve added a little email pop-up window that assists you in marking which job you are referring to. Studio Manager now knows which jobs clients have and which jobs employees are assigned to. Check the blog post for more details and a screenshot.
Widening Studio Manager. See the post. Starting with FileMaker 10, the Status Area was moved from the left side of the window to the top. This customizable toolbar across the top of your database screen adds an inch of height while removing about an inch of width that the old vertical status area took up. We Grabbed the extra width and redesigned the layouts to take advantage of modern day wide screens. You will immediately appreciate the improved aspect ratio.
Client Summary Report. We have a Summary Report for all active jobs. It’s a crucial summary of what is and has been going on at your shop. The Client version of this report just shows you all the jobs for a particular client. By popular request.
Your next step is to proceed down the rest of this page for more information including a full list of our blog posts about Studio Manager 11 plus the link to our free SM11 demo.
Additional Information
We added a new tab to this blog: Help. It contains links to web pages with detailed instructions illustrated with screen grabs. Excellent for training or for refreshing your knowledge about assorted features.
Here’s the link to all our posts about Studio Manager 11.
Hope you enjoy.
If you pop for the FileMaker Go iPhone ($20) or iPad ($40) app, you can try out the functionality in our free Studio Manager 11 Demo.
Don’t hesitate to call 415-789-5219 or
write for details on any questions you have about the functionality.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Happy Release Date!
We will definitely do the upgrades in SM and FM so I can use the iCal/Filemaker together. Can I enter our 2011 Calendar onto my laptop ical and then transfer it into the office/Filemaker? Will I truly be seamlessly set up on iphone, ipad, laptop and our network? Is there a God, and if so can I shake his or her hand, fall down on my knees and say thank you, it’s about time!
Get some sleep Janet, and Merry Christmas to you and yours!
With gratitude,
Lhadron
Thanks, Lhadron. Let’s talk.
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