Getting Started
User Levels
As an All Access crew member, you have the ability to Create shows, View and Edit the shows you create and View and Edit shows that other crew members add you to.
As a user with a Crew Pass, you have the ability to Edit and View shows that other crew members have created and added you to.
As a Back Stage Pass holder, you have the ability to view those shows that other crew members have added you to.
Shows, Events and Tours
Crew Contacts now organizes work three ways. A Show is a single job. An Event groups several shows happening around one venue or client. A Tour is a series of stops, each stop becoming its own show.
From the Home (Choose) page you can create a Show, an Event or a Tour. Events and Tours each get their own Dashboard listing every show underneath them, plus an Info page for the details shared by all of them — production company, prep location, prep hotels, prep and travel dates, venues and stops.
Information entered on an Event or Tour flows down into its shows automatically. Anything you then change on an individual show stays that show's own — the parent won't overwrite it.
Dashboard Views
Every show list — Home, Event Dashboard and Tour Dashboard — can be viewed three ways using the toggle at the top: List, Icon and Calendar. Your choice is remembered.
List and Icon views show each show's venue, room and load-in / load-out dates in date order. On a Tour Dashboard the list also shows the prep location and the drive distance and time between consecutive stops.
Calendar view can be shown by Month, Week or Day, highlights today, and includes a Today button. Load In, Show and Load Out days are drawn as colored bars, splitting a day when events overlap. Click any swatch in the legend below the calendar to pick your own colors.
Event and Tour Level Pages
Events and Tours have their own Personnel, Production Schedule, Tasks, Drawings and Time Sheet pages, reached from the hamburger menu. These roll up every show beneath the Event or Tour into one place, so you can see and edit crew, schedules, tasks, drawings and hours across the whole job instead of one show at a time.
Like the show tabs, these pages have View and Edit modes, and save as you type.
Menu and Preferences
The hamburger menu in the top left is the same everywhere: Home, Search for Crew, Manage Tabs, Preferences and About. A Back button appears when there's a previous page to return to. Inside a show the menu also groups the tabs by department — Production, Audio, Video and LED — and on an Event or Tour it lists that parent's shows or stops.
In Preferences you can choose Metric or Standard units, which changes every distance shown in the app, including tour drive legs.
Profiles and Search
Each crew member has a Profile page they can view and edit. Adding roles and availability to your profile makes you a better candidate when other crew members Search profiles.
You can Search for Profiles that fit your needs based on the following criteria: Available Dates, Roles, Locality (local airport). The Search page is reached by the hamburger icon Menu in the top left of the screen. Click Search for Crew. Crew members can access their own Profile by clicking their name in the top right of the screen.
The Basics
The app is organized so that you fill out the tabs top to bottom. It has a split personality — View and Edit. The app defaults to View mode so you can't accidentally click on something. Edit mode (for users with permission) is entered by the Edit button on the top right of the screen. All possible fields appear and can be filled out as you choose. Keep in mind that the Auto Fill buttons you encounter later will always work back to tabs further to the top.
Pages
Show Info
Locations will auto fill address etc. based on a few characters then picking the location from the drop down. Dates will be used to populate other pages.
Personnel
Names already used previously will auto populate email and phone numbers. The In and Out dates are used in the user's Calendar on their Profile page to determine Availability. The COM choice will populate sections of the COM page. The paper airplane icon is used to invite someone to the app. The Profile icon (small circle with a bust) takes you to that crew member's Profile. The Bell icon is used to notify a current user that they have been added to a show. The names on this tab grant permission for users to view a show. Here you can share a view only link for non users. Specify the tabs that they are allowed to see, with the link expiring the day after load out (as entered in the Show Info page).
Schedules
Add, rearrange and delete rows as you need them. Use the Add Row button to add a quantity of rows. Grab the six-dots icon on the left of the row to drag a row up or down. Click the red trash can on the right of the row to delete it.
Tasks
Add tasks as needed for Pre-Production, Warehouse Prep, On Site and Post Production.
Sources & Destinations
Kinda self explanatory…but this is a place to list every goes-inta and goes-outta.
Drawings
Use this tab to upload images. Room drawings, diagrams etc. Also there is a place to add links to external drives for larger file sharing.
Time Sheet
Use the Add All Crew to pull over names from the Personnel tab. Start and stop dates will be automatically assigned based on the Show Info page. Time can be configured to match 8 or 10 hour days. Overtime and Double Time are automatically populated based on changeable parameters.
Mic Assign
Use this as a live tool during shows for the A1 and A2 to share information. Presenter Name, Mic Type, Mic Color, Head Position, Mic'd, Panel Member, Head Amp Gain Level and any notes can be entered.
Gear Lists
Import pdf, csv and Excel sheets that become searchable.
FOH / MON / REC I/O
Gives you 3 different consoles I/O for any given show. Templates can be saved and recalled for future use. Columns can be hidden by clicking their name when in Edit mode. Click Show All to return to the default appearance. RK ID (Rack ID) and RK CH (Rack Channel) are data used to populate the Stage Rack on the next page. Build your console in 24 item steps.
Stage Racks
Here you can create and add Stage Racks. The ID from the Console tabs will determine the racks that get populated with the Auto Fill feature.
Inventory — racks come from an Inventory list shared across all your shows, split into Default items (created by an admin and available to everyone) and User Created items (yours to add, edit and delete). Standard racks are defined by their analog and AES input and output counts; slot racks are built slot by slot, each slot holding a card of a chosen type and channel count. Once an item is in Inventory you can drop it into any show without re-entering it.
Speakers
Add clusters as you need. In Crew Contacts a cluster is any group of speakers — that could be a Main Left line array, a group of Front Fill Lip Speakers, or even a Delay Row of line arrays. Anything that has similar elements can be grouped. You can import Sound Vision reports, JBL Rigging reports and D&B Array Calc files to populate the Clusters. Here you can generate a QR code and link to share with non-users in the field. This QR code shares this tab only and expires the day after load out (as entered in the Show Info page).
Amplifiers
Create and identify amp racks in your show. Add Location of the rack, list amp types to see a total count at top right.
Amplifier Inventory — amplifier models live in a shared Inventory list, again split into Default (admin created, available to everyone) and User Created. Each model stores its input count, AVB input (bus) count and output channel count, which is what feeds the BUS and channel choices on each amp's rows.
Amp Rack Inventory — build a reusable rack by naming it and dialing in how many of each inventory amplifier it holds, then drag the list to set the physical top-to-bottom order. Save it once and add that same rack to any future show in a click.
Processors — this page also holds your drive processors (Lake, Galileo, etc.). Processor Inventory records analog, AES, Dante and AVB inputs and outputs plus bus count, so once added you can place a processor in a show and lay out its input and output channels.
COM
If the Personnel tab is pretty well filled out, click the Auto Fill from Personnel button and Names, Roles and COM type will be auto filled. Then, click the Auto Fill Ch button to let AI populate the channel assignments based on historical use. Like other tabs, you can save this page as a template to use on other shows, import your own list in pdf, csv or Excel etc…..Or add rows in each category as you need. The Channel List at the bottom of the page is where you define channels available to the various packs and panels. Also in the Channels List, click on the 2-person icon left of the Name to see a list of all participants on that channel. Belt Pack and Panel type can be chosen.
Signal Flow
Draw simple wiring diagrams.
Style Guide
Build the video style guide for your show by filling out a guided questionnaire covering screens, resolutions, aspect ratios, file formats and graphics specs, so every content provider delivers to the same standard. Click Add Version to keep more than one version of the guide, use Load Example to start from a sample, and Save as Template to reuse it on other shows. Export any version to PDF to send to vendors. The screens you define here can also be imported into Screen Presets.
Screen Presets
Lay out the video screens and sources for your show, then build looks for them. Add each Screen with its name, resolution and type, and add Sources (cameras, playback, graphics, etc.) with a color so each one is easy to spot. Drag sources left to right to reorder the list.
Presets: create a preset for each look, then place sources onto the screens as layers. Use the layer options to size and position each one. Presets wrap across the page to fill the space you have and export cleanly to PDF.
DSM Presets
Plan what the stage manager and confidence monitors show for each part of the show. Start with Setup to set the number of monitors, how they're grouped, and the Academy screens.
Add sources in the source bar at the top. Click a source to rename it. Click Add Preset in the toolbar, then drag a source onto any monitor or Academy screen in that preset, or tap a screen to pick one. Use the x to clear a screen. You can copy and paste a preset's assignments into another, rename or delete presets, and save the layout as a Template to reuse on other shows. Export to PDF to print the presets, up to 3 per row.
Manage Tabs
This lets you show/hide tabs in your list per show, for faster navigation.
Crew Contacts was created by John Landsman. Reach me at john@DirectionsMedia.com for help or suggestions. THANKS!