Introduction to Production Manager

Production Manager is the module that provides you with the workflow and tracking tools that enable you to manage the creation of new products, effectively allowing you to break the process down into stages and tasks that can then be attributed to people and organisations. In addition, you can report on all of this, providing much useful information that will enable you to manage the business more effectively. 

Production Manager is very flexible; the functionality is determined by you, based on the items within schedules that you create. The configuration of the system is established by you to meet the requirements and work flows of your business. Adjustments can be made throughout the production schedule and notes can be added to remind you of past decisions. This allows you to improve on your production processes in the future. You can also establish a sophisticated level of permissions in order to ensure accuracy throughout your system.

There are mandatory fields within the system, which enable you to get the best use and functionality from the system. All mandatory fields are marked with a red *.

Sections within the Production Manager main menu:

Pre-Production: 
This is the area of Production Manager that Editorial will work from. It lists the Ideas, Acquisitions, Proposals and Submissions that are all working through the discussion point prior to getting to the all important production process.

Book Production:
This is where all of the titles currently in the production process are listed. Clicking on a particular title name will take you to a set of tabs of information relevant to creating a schedule. We will take the tabs in turn a bit later, as much of the information that appears in them is populated from different areas of Production Management.

Production Scheduling:
Here is at-a -glance information, essentially the production schedule with its various elements laid out on a grid. This allows you to quickly spot check the items within your schedules. All of your titles appear in this screen, and are displayed in order of publication date.

Cover Checklist:
This is a quick review of where titles have got to, similar to a paper-based checklist just in electronic form.

Production Meetings: If you have regular meetings in the business to review all new ideas and where titles are in the workflow process - this section allows you to take notes and review all aspects. 

Reports: The reports section is where you will find multiple different reports, allowing you to review: Production Schedules, Editorial Schedules, Print Orders and many more. 

Production Admin: This is the area you need to review to configure all areas of production and editorial workflows and systems.

You can also find information about getting started with the Production Manager module.