Basically, i've been working on Daylite for all of 3 days and think it's a fantastic little thing but I've been asked to do something by my manager and don't even know where to begin!

We are an interactive Theatre company and as a part of my job i have to produce and print off Hard Copies of what we call "Call Sheets" and "Booking Sheets" so that the actors know where they're going, how much they're being paid, what performance it is etc etc.

My task is to print these sheets off, but using the info we already have entered on Daylite, as we don't really want to have to type everything over and over again. For example, we would already have the address of the venue through "appointments" so I need to create some sort of a report that I can produce that's going to say to itself, "Hang on a minute, we already have that detail here on the system so I'll enter it onto the report for the nice people working on producing the report" :-)

I hope that makes sense?!? At the same time, there's going to be a lot of info that I still have to put in myself...does anyone know if what I need to do is possible so I can create just an A4 document that has the info we need on it?

I really would appreciate any help you can give...and you can probably tell I'm not the MOST technically minded person so if you caould make it simple it would be great :-)

Thanks very much for any help :-)

Andrea andrea_sheridan2003@yahoo.co.uk

Hi Andrea,

What you are asking could be approached in a couple of different ways. The most professional way is to create a custom report, but by your own admission, you are not the most technically minded person, so I think this may be a but too much to accomplish without professional help. There are some consultants on this list who could create that report for you for a fee, if that is something that is in your budget. (I honestly don't know what they'd charge, but I have a feeling it would be quite fair).

I do have an idea though that might get you going and isn't all that hard to accomplish. It is based on creating a custom Form. You do this in the Preferences where you'll find the Forms and Fields sheet. Here's a short synopsis of what you'd need to do. I'm making a number of assumptions here, but you'll be able to customize this quite easily to fit your particular requirements.

1. Open the Forms and Fields Preferences. Select Forms on top.
2. You'll see 2 lists. The one on the left holds the forms you create and the one on the right holds the fields for each of the forms.
3. Create a new list with the (+) button under the left list. Just below that you can now name the list. I named it "Call Sheet - Wizard of Oz". Type a description if you like, just below it.
4. On the right we now add the necessary fields. These fields can be many different types, and you select the appropriate one from the Field Type pull down list. Add the following fields (just for this tutorial. You can add the exact ones you like later).

Venue (Text) - Where the Show is
Rate (Currency) - What the actor gets paid in $$$
Tech Start (Date) - When tech rehearsals start
First Show (Date) - Opening Night
Last Show (Date) - Closing Night
Number of Shows (Number)
etc.
For each of the above, add a default value (so you don't have to enter it for each actor). You can change the defaults as needed when you use the form - such as the pay rate for each individual, or the night they need to show up for tech.

Before closing this sheet, look at the lower left and check all the types of entities that you'd like to use this sheet in. You can check them all for now until you decide. Don't check "Only One Form per Object"

Now you can close the preferences.

Here's how you'd use it:

Select the first actor in the show. Go to the Action Menu and click on "Add Form for X".

Choose the form for the show from the list.

Edit any of the default values you need to change or just click OK of they are all correct for that actor.

Now you can view the Form just below the actor in the list by clicking on Forms (Next to Contact and Activity below the Contact List).

Do this for each of the actors.

Now for the Print Out:

If it's one actor per page, then just select the one actor you want to print for. If you want all or some of the actors printed in the report, then select them all as needed.

While they are selected in the Contact list go to the File Menu and choose Print. Select Contact Summary. Print. You'll get a printout of each actor and his corresponding form.

I hope this gets you started.

For MarketCircle: One enhancement that would help a lot for this use case is to allow a form to be added to more than one contact at a time. So that you could select several and have the same form added to each in one operation. (I'll also send this to support).

Andrea - the only downside to this method is that I don't see a way to print out for the next show the actor does and "Hide" the previous show from the printout. I guess you'd have to delete the previous show's form from that actor and then add the new one when the time for the next show arrives.

That little tutorial was really helpful for getting me started, so thanks Howard
At least I know know roughly what to do and I'm gonna have a little go of adapting it today...I really appreciate your help with this

Regards,

Andrea