How to use the Day, Area & Tag Context Adding Activity
1pm was built for planning and executing complex events, across multiple days, physical areas and teams of people.
When adding Activity within 1pm there are always three contexts that can be set as the default. That means these fields will cause new Activity to automatically include these filters and settings. For example, if you have the Day Context set to a date, new Activity will be set to this date.
The three Context settings (Date, Area, Tag) also filter the data shown, so if you select an Area Context for example, only that Area’s Activity will be shown.
This makes the process of adding Activity more efficient, and less prone to errors.
Day Context
The Day Context is always active and is a required field, this is the date that new Activity will use. This Context is always set to something as new Activity must be set to a particular date as the starting point (as a minimum). The actual date that will be displayed when the page is first loaded depends on some ‘behind the scenes’ calculations, like the last accessed date, whether the date is in the past etc. For that reason, it pays to double check you are viewing the correct date before adding Activity.
If you make a mistake and add Activity into the wrong day, that’s easy to fix using the Bulk Change feature within 1pm to transfer all of the selected Activity to another date in one step.
Area Context
Area Context is associated with the Areas added to the underlying Contact record of a Crew Member (remember that a Crew record always has an associated, underlying Contact record).
Let’s unpack that statement because it may not be immediately clear!
Areas come under Contact records where that Contact has the ‘Location’ switched on. The Location switch indicates that the Contact has physical areas that are of interest, because Activity may be held there (for example a hotel might have a ‘Ballroom’ Area). Here are those relationships expressed in the logical order they should be setup:
Contact (with Location On) > Areas
Crew (Based on a Contact)
Activity (Area)
Areas in 1pm relate to physical Areas or spaces such as sectors, buildings, floors, wings, rooms etc. Areas are not ‘Areas of Responsbility’, these are best setup within the Tag Context below. You can set one Area to one Activity record.
One Contact (Location) can have multiple Areas available to them, and of course there can be many Contacts all with their own multiple Areas. That’s why when you are selecting an Area for an Activity record, you first select the Contact (Location), then all the Areas within that Location are shown.
When you set the Area Context, Activity will filter to that Area, and all new Activity will use that Area Context as the default.
Tag Context
Tag Context is an association between an Activity and a specific Tag.
Tags are setup on the Tags tab, and are not related to other entities. One Activity can be linked to one tag.
The Activity Tag is very versatile, because while you can only link one Tag to one Activity, a Crew Member may belong to multiple Tags.
When you set a Tag against an Activity, that Activity record will only show for Crew Members who also have that Tag.
So Tags are very useful for limiting or restricting access to the Live Runsheet to certain groups of people, for example teams, squads, functional areas (back of house, front of house) etc.
While there is a Volunteer setting for Crew members, it is also very useful to setup a ‘VOLUNTEER’ Tag if you have any volunteers.
Because you can add multiple Tags to one Crew Member, it is possible to design your use of Tags so that the access is layered. For example, you might setup a Tag ‘Staff’ to include all your Staff Members, and another Tag ‘Volunteers’ to denote your unpaid volunteers. In addition to this, you could setup a Tag ‘SECURITY’ and only assign Security related Activity (or Hazards via Activity to the security staff).
When you set the Tag Context, Activity will filter to that Tag, and all new Activity will use that Tag Context as the default.
How to use Contexts
Firstly, make sure you have all your Contacts that are Locations setup with their correct Areas, so these are accessible when adding Activity.
Design how you will use Tags within 1pm to associate Tags with Crew Members to suit your event scenario. Generally speaking, the more complex the Event the more Tags you might use, in addition to Areas.
When adding Activity into 1pm, be aware that all three contexts are important, the date, area and tag all contribute to defining the scope of which crew member (through that Crew members Tags) visibility on the Activity on their actual personalised, live runsheet.
