Deliveries for tracking I/O

Contents

• Setting up Deliveries (for Admins)
  • Step 1: Enable Delivery
  • Step 2: Set up your Address Book
  • Step 3: Configure Delivery email notification defaults
• Sample Delivery pages
• Creating a new Delivery
• Read vs. Unread
• Statuses
• Delivery Method
• Email notifications
• Example workflow
• More workflow ideas
• Default Delivery fields

Deliveries are used to track the files and data sent to and from the studio. Many studios simply refer to this as In and Out (I/O). Think of Deliveries as a shipping log that tracks what got sent where and when. Common examples are tracking plates and references sent to the studio from a live action shoot, or data sent out to a client, partner studio, or outsourcing vendor.

Setting up Deliveries (for Admins)

Here’s a step-by-step guide for Admins to set up Deliveries.

Step 1: Enable Delivery

Admins can enable the Delivery entity under Site Preferences.

_{Click the image above to enlarge.}

Choose Delivery under Entities. Select "Yes, enable entity."

Step 2: Set up your Address Book

You can address Deliveries To and From a Person or Group. You can create accounts for each company or person you will use to address Deliveries. If you don't want to buy more accounts for this, you can simply deactivate the account status (disable), which will still make them available in the To and From fields, but will not allow that person to log in to Flow Production Tracking. Note that we're not yet supporting external client or vendor sites with restricted permissions to access limited data, though that is on our roadmap.

Step 3: Configure Delivery email notification defaults

You'll want to create some good settings for your users in the Email Layouts and User Defaults section of the preferences page.

Sample Delivery pages

Below is a sample Delivery list page and detail page. The list page is where you'll see lots of Deliveries, and the detail page is where you'll see a view of one specific Delivery.

Below are common fields on a Delivery list page:

• Delivery # or Title: Click to see details of the delivery and the conversation thread.
• From, To, and Cc fields: Address the Delivery to People or Groups. Comments on that Delivery are emailed out to those people.
• Status: Default statuses are Delivered, In Progress, Open, and Received.
• Due Date and Received Date: Track expected and actual delivery dates.
• Delivery Method: Track Delivery Method, Type, and other details about each Delivery.

Clicking on a Delivery's # or Title field takes you to its detail page.

• Contents: Text field with a list of files that were delivered. Easy to search.
• Replies: Thread of replies facilitating conversation about the Delivery and resolving any problems. Each reply sends out an email to everyone addressed to the Delivery (To, Cc., From).
• Sidebar: Shows related information (this can be customized by an Admin).

Creating a new Delivery

To create a new Delivery, click the + button on any Delivery page. The form, which appears in an overlay on top of the page, will look something like this (though this can be configured by an Admin):

Read vs. Unread

All Deliveries have a special Read and Unread field that works just like your email for each person looking at the Deliveries. Here's how it works:

• When you create a Delivery, it automatically sets the Read and Unread field to "Read" (everyone else will see that same field on the Delivery as "Unread" because they haven't seen it yet).
• When you click on the the Delivery link to go to the detail page, that Delivery's Read and Unread field turns to Read for you.
• Each person can manually set the Read and Unread field, which only affects that value for them.
• The entity icon next to each Delivery appears as colored or greyed out, based on the Read/Unread field:
  • Unread
  • Read

Statuses

You can use the Status field to help manage the Delivery workflow. The defaults are:

“Delivered” can be used when the data has left one location, and then "Received" can be used once the receiving location confirms the data was received and checked for errors.

Delivery Method

The Delivery Method is a drop-down list with four defaults: FTP, Aspera, FedEx, and Sneaker Net. If you would like to add additional methods, right-click on the Delivery Method column header and select Configure Field.

Email notifications

Email notifications are sent out when the Delivery is created or when anyone adds a reply. The people who receive the emails are those in the From, To, and Cc fields, or anyone that created a reply on any Delivery. Note that each person can turn these emails on or off by navigating to the Email Notifications page via the Account Settings link in the top right corner of all Flow Production Tracking pages:

In your Account Settings, you can set your email notifications, upload a profile picture, and change your password.

There are a few caveats on email notifications:

• By default, Managers and Admins can view any Delivery for any Project, and therefore can receive emails on all Deliveries (if they choose to subscribe to all Delivery emails)
• In order for Artists to receive email notifications on a Delivery, they must be linked to that Delivery's project
• Inactive and deleted user accounts will never receive email notifications on anything (including Deliveries)

Admins have the ability to modify these settings for any user by directly editing the field values on a People page. Note that these email notification checkbox fields will only show up if the corresponding entity is turned on.

Example workflow

1. Upload files to Aspera manually.

2. Create a new Delivery or update the detail page of a Delivery, and fill out the description and contents fields.

   • Enter a brief description and in the contents field list the files uploaded to Aspera.
   • Include where the files live on the Aspera server, as well as the total size of the file.
   • Attach any zip files, such as a PDF with data about shots. Doing so will also make it easier to reply to the email notification thread. These files will be stored in Flow Production Tracking, which may be more secure for sensitive downloadable files.

3. Once the email notification has been sent, change the Status to Delivered, to indicate that the files have been uploaded to the Aspera server and delivered.
4. Optional: Link all Versions to the Delivery.

More workflow ideas

• You can schedule Deliveries in advance when requests come up in meetings.
  • For example, you can create a new Delivery when a Production Designer promises to send over some reference by a specific date.
  • You can also create Deliveries to schedule specific turnovers expected from a client or partner studio. This then creates a "todo" list that can be easily tracked. To do this, just use the Due Date field.
• If you are filling out the Delivery by hand, you can quickly paste in a list of files in a folder that is part of the delivery into the "contents" field.
  • To do this (OS X), open the directory, select all files, and copy them to your clipboard.
  • Then go into Flow Production Tracking and paste them into the field. The list of all the file names will be pasted in.
  • This makes it handy for searching for specific files or anything in the naming convention across all Deliveries. (This can also be done automatically via the Flow Production Tracking API if you have scripts automating parts of your I/O process.)
• Make multi-entity links on Deliveries for Shots, Assets, or Versions that are included in a Delivery.
  • You can then track all the Deliveries a Shot or Asset has been included in, and each Delivery can show all Shots and Assets included.
  • Consider making a "Deliveries" tab on the Shot or Asset detail pages showing all related Deliveries.

Default Delivery fields

Below is a list of the most commonly used default fields on Delivery:

• Project: The Project the Delivery is associated with.
• Delivery #: Created automatically by the system.
• Title: Similar to an email subject line; this a short description of the purpose of the Delivery.
• Contents: Text field that displays the contents of the delivery.
• Delivery Method: Drop-down list, including FTP, Fedex, Aspera, Sneaker Net, etc.
• Description: A longer description about the Delivery, its contents, purpose, etc. Like the body of an email.
• From: A single Person or Group that the Delivery is from. This must be someone with an account in Flow Production Tracking, though the account can be deactivated.
• To: One or more People or Groups.
• Cc: One or more People or Groups.
• Due Date: Date field, indicating when the Delivery is expected.
• Received Date: Date field, indicating when the Delivery was received.
• Read and Unread: Indicates if the current person looking at the Delivery hasseen the detail page since the Delivery was created or since a new reply was added.
• Status: Open, In Progress, Delivered, Received, etc.
• Attachments: Files attached to a reply.
• Tags: One or more keywords.
• Thumbnail: An image that represents the Delivery, which must be uploaded manually or through the API.