Production Roles

The Production Roles tab shows the assignable production tasks for the project with dates. It is designed to be used within Editorial as a way of communicating between the Editorial and Production teams. For example, by creating a production schedule, with a clear start and end date, the Editorial team can make sure to hand over the task to Production in sufficient time for the publishing deadline. Costs & notes may also be added against tasks from within this screen. If you wish to use this tab within Editorial, then you will need to Configure a Production Roles Schedule Template first.

NOTE: this tab, whilst showing within Editorial, is in fact a screen from production. When you move a title from Editorial to Production, the information held in this screen will be visible in the new production record.

When you click on the Production Roles tab, a screen similar to this will show:

First select a Production Label. The production label indicates the name for the schedule/project. For instance, the first label may be "initial print run", the next being "1st reprint", etc. It is intended to simplify projects administration on a book. How you use this is, again, up to you.

Check the boxes to mark if you want the task to show on the Check List (this refers to the production Cover Checklist, not the Editorial checklist). Then check if this is a Reprint. 

Archived is simply there to move the schedule out of the normal list view. So if you have finished working on a project, you may archive it.

If you wish to change the sequence of this project, you can edit the number within the project sequence (it is 1 in the image above, to the right of the archived box). This indicates the order in which the project occurred. For example, the initial one might be 1, and the first re-print might be 2. The project number will auto increment but you may adjust if required.

Choose your Editor, Designer, Controller and Status from the drop down-menus and add a Status note in the blank field if it is relevant/useful. Your Statuses are configured in the production module.

The system will automatically be on the default schedule template, but you may set the Applied Schedule from the drop-down menu on the right-hand side. There is further information available regarding setting up your schedule templates.

Depending on the chosen Schedule, a list of tasks & durations will apply. When you set a Start Date for the first task the system will ask you if you wish to automatically update subsequent dates for the next tasks:

You can also enter the dates manually, however it is far easier to have the system update them based on the schedule template.

Fill in the Estimated Cost, Actual Cost and choose a member of your team to be an Assignee.

Tick the complete box only when the task is Completed.

You can modify the schedules tasks, task duration & task dependencies by clicking on Edit All in the right hand corner:

This can be used to modify the tasks, their duration & the task dependencies on this production project without disrupting the schedule template that you configured onto your system. We know that the templates may change depending on the specific needs and details of a project. This is why you have flexibility within this screen. Please note that once a schedule template is applied to a title, any subsequent edits to the template will not affect the schedule in the title. The schedule applied is a copy of rather than a live feed from the schedule template. When you click Edit All, a new window will pop up where you can edit your schedule:

Clicking on a notes symbol at the end of each row will enable you to either view or add notes. To add notes, select a Note type from the drop down menu. You will have configured your note types when setting up your Production Manager. For more information, please go here. Type in a note and click Add when you are finished.

A red number will then appear above the notes icon, establishing that there are notes waiting here. In the image at the very top of this article you'll notice that there are Notes added to Production Informed and Cover Final Colour. 

If there is also a £ symbol beside the notes icon, then that means the particular task is also a cost. You can add further details to this cost by clicking on the currency sign.

If the task has Outputs, there will be a chain symbol next to it where you can view and add new  outputs by clicking on Create New Output:

For more information about the Outputs tab, please click here.

Set the Target Publication Date and add any Comments you might have. Target Publication Date will not automatically fill when the schedule is applied and the start or end date are entered. This is so that you can have a fixed target pub date, whilst also having an End date which reflects the progress of the schedule.

When you have finished, click the Update button.

You can create subsequent production deadlines by clicking on the New sub-tab:

Doing so will enable you to keep track of the full printing history of a single title.

If the project is eventually approved for publication, then you will be ready to move the item into Book Production and Title Manager.