What is an Event Programme?
A "programme" for an event is a timetable of what will be happening during that event, be it a rehearsal, performance, workshop, or any other type of event. This feature is known to some people as "Strategic rehearsal planning", although it does not pertain only to rehearsals. Any type of event can have a program. When the event is a rehearsal (or a workshop), your music director is usually the person to create the programme, several days or weeks before the rehearsal. Once the programme is complete, the details are emailed to members (as part of the regular event notification email), so that everyone knows what will be happening during the rehearsal.
When the event is a performance of some sort, the programme can be made public, if you wish, so that your audience can see in advance what will be happening during the show. Or the programme can be visible only to members.
Here is an example of what an event programme might look like (in the example below, the event is a rehearsal for a choir):
Things to note about this example, and using event programmes in general...
- There are various types of activities in the Activity column. Your Making Music Platform has been pre-loaded with several types of activities. You can, of course, define your own, or even remove the predefined ones.
- If your event has a start time, the start time for each programme item and the finish time for the entire programme are calculated automatically - from the number of minutes duration of each item. If your event's start time is later changed, your programme automatically updates itself.
- Aside from Print programme, the set of links across the top of the programme is available to administrators only.
- A set of programme items (the entire programme, in other words) can be saved as a "template", for other similar events. Programmes can take 10 minutes or so to create - but if you already have a template that closely matches the programme for your event, you can simply decide to create the programme from the template. It takes two clicks. You can then make adjustments to the newly created programme to tailor it to the current event. Note that templates can only be created from the programmes of events (not from scratch), and only if you're logged in as a member. In other words, if you're logged in as one of the "anonymous" administrators, such as "preadmin", you will not see a link to save a programme as a template.
- When creating or updating a programme, if you find that you want to reorder the sequence of items in your programme, you can simply drag-and-drop the items into their correct sequence using the little <>icon on the far right of the item's row.
- You can nominate what access level people need to be able to see the programme (the programme's "visibility"). For example, you may have a public event, but you want the programme to be visible only to members. If so, you can specify the programme's visibility separately from the event's visibility. Similarly, if you have an existing event, visible to members, but you are still working on the programme, you can set the programme to Data Administration Access so that only administrators can see it (not regular members). When you have completed working on the programme, you can change the programme's visibility back to Regular Member Access. By default, the programme's visibility will be the same as the event's access level.
To get started with event programmes, simply visit any event's page, and look for the new link called Create programme in the set of admin links across the top of the page.
Finally, if you work on a particular song over several events (rehearsals, performances, etc), and each event's programme accurately reflects this, then the system collates all activities about that song and presents them on the song's page. At the bottom of the song's page, there's a report called History/Schedule that lists every instance where a song has been (and will be) worked on (rehearsing, performing, choreo, etc). There's even a total of all the minutes spent on that song.
If you have no need for event programmes at all in your group, you can turn off the module. Do this by clicking the little "cog" icon in the top-right corner of the site. Then click the cog icon next to Making Music Platform. Then click the Configuration tab. At the top of the tab, there is a set of tickboxes that represents all modules in your Making Music Platform. Untick Event Programmes to turn off that module for your group.
