I have a bunch of Qs across the spectrum of OMP issues, any help on any of them will be muchly appreciated
MERCI first:
Where and how does one add Accessories to MERCI? I'm talking about the Batteries that come up on as "Accessories for Testing" on the Inventory Content and Reservation pages - but aren't listed in the Inventory and don't appear to have an associated Node or content type. - I'd also want to add cables, adapters, etc. via this approach and input our actual batteries, with applicable stock IDs, is it worth doing this rather than just listing them in the inventory.
Is Show specific or only Project specific tracking possible in MERCI?
On the MERCI Reservation page is there an easy way to move "Authoring Information" up top for Staff reserving for a Member through MERCI and call it something more obvious so as to avoid confusion?
Is there an Option to report Problems with Equipment at check in? Or is that now a feature request, discuss.
And the rest:
What swearing/ hate words filter do you recommend for comments? Is anyone using this? http://drupal.org/project/webpurify
Does only “Safe for All Ages” content appear in Carousel? - Are there page specific warnings for adult content?
How is the OMP/ Drupal configured for Usage by the Hearing Impaired?
I'm going to set up an auto logout feature for IDs – especially for our Front Desk where a different staff member might be there every 2 minutes… - this looks like the best module unless any of you have other suggestions: http://drupal.org/project/autologout
Can an individual producer decide whether they get comments on their project/ shows?
I want to boost the "share with other locations" feature to the top of the page– can I adjust this through fields?
What happens to the MPEG2 files after
Can we set something up with Tightrope with the existing API to have a "Check when this is next playing on ACTV" option? Equally has anyone successfully configured Carousel (Tightrope's Community Calendar software) to play with CiviEvent or within an online embedded calendar? I'm going to try this next week.
Thanks People
Comments
I can answer two
"What swearing/ hate words filter do you recommend for comments?" I've had great success with Mollom: http://drupal.org/project/mollom
"Can an individual producer decide whether they get comments on their project/ shows?" Yes. When they add or edit the project page they can select whether to have comments Disabled, Read only or Read/Write.
See, I read this too quickly
See, I read this too quickly when I skimmed it and thought Craig was asking what colorful language we recommend USING when dealing with Drupal and CiviCRM etc.
Personally, I've always been happiest with the basics: the f word seems to flow most frequently these days, but sometimes I will say "fudge" in deference to my officemate who's on an swear-reducing kick that he f'ing hates.
-- Lane
Hopefully A wide spectrum of OMP answers for your edification
Craig,
I'll do my best to answer your questions below. Disclaimer: I do not work for, nor represent Portland Community Media.
Accessories are added through the Taxonomy module. Each type of accessory is defined as a vocabulary which then is allowed to be posted into a content type for checkout. When you see the drop downs on checkout for MERCI that is a vocabulary that is allowed for that content type. Each accessory is defined in the terms for that vocabulary.
Accessories are essentially slush. There is no inventory control on them and they do not have associated numbering system in MERCI. I thought that this was a breath of fresh air from working in many centers who setup Facil to control everything as a resource.
PCM made the decision to configure MERCI as a checkout system rather than an inventory system as there are other open-source and enterprise systems that do invintory management better than MERCI at the moment allowing, for example, depreciation levels and replacement time-lines for equipment. I pasted PCM's MERCI scheme at the bottom of this post.
As far as I know just project tracking.
That's what I'd try first if that's the route you want to go. PCM is using Masquerade http://drupal.org/project/masquerade with DOM's blessing for their staff made reservations and management.
If you enable comments on the content type you create for your resources staff can make comments on specific equipment. This would show up under recent content that your staff would be reading. If you enable the producer roles permissions to create comments on your merci_content types then producers and staff can create trouble reports.
I'm assuming you mean the flash versions of the programs submitted for this question. This has been an ongoing debate on the web and a major shortcoming of all online video. With that said, youtube and aol video have started supporting CC on their videos over the last year. There is some limited support in the JW player for CC but as of now I don't know of any OMP integration.
I'd personally suggest masquerade for your staff interaction on a minute-to-minute basis. you can also set administration settings on the local machine your staff would be using to auto-login/out. If your staff machines are Debian-based there's a super cool app called Blue Proximity that ties auto login or logout to any bluetooth device. Sounds super cool.
If you give them the permission to configure that aspect of their project.
That's where I'd look first.
...after they are transcoded? Not sure what you mean by this.
OM_Project will automatically display the next airdate for all shows related to that project that are scheduled through OMP. I haven't used tightrope before but I couldn't find any rss in with CiviEvent. If your interest is to display your programming schedule I believe OMP has support for that already. At least DOM has found a way to display it on their site. CiviEvent was really created to setup fund-raising events etc. and would be way too much for a program schedule.
Hope some of this helps you out.
-petepo
PCM MERCI Current Structure
Content Types [Buckets]
Accessory Only
Camera PD 150
Camera DSR 250
DV Deck
Hard Drive
Laptop
ME Laptop (For classes)
ME Cam
Content Types [resources]
Conference Room
Dub Rack
Linear Edit Suite
Mobile Production Unit
Non-Linear Edit Suite
Projector
Studio
Voiceover Suite
Workshop Space
Vocabs:
Power 150
Power 250
Field Audio
Studio Audio
XLR
Lighting
Tripods
Firewire
Misc
MERCI
I love it when I find the time to respond and many of the questions are already answered. Thanks Peter!
Where and how does one add Accessories to MERCI?
Like Peter said, MERCI's accessories are controlled by Drupal's core Taxonomy. I posted a detailed description of the how and why behind the decision to utilize Drupal's core taxonomy functionality back when we started developing MERCI.
I always describe accessories as items you want to track the number you have, but not the specific item. You know that a user took a battery but not which battery they took. When I ran university checkouts, we would always track any item under $100 as an accessory and keep enough of those in stock so we'd never run out. The logic was that it's cheaper to buy more than the staff time to track and inventory things like that. An example would be DV camera batteries. I'd never track the specific battery a student checked out, but I know many PEG stations do that.
MERCI users also have an option of using accessories with detailed serial numbers in the taxonomy terms, but there is nothing stopping a checkout employee from incorrectly checking the same accessory out multiple times. The only real reason to add multiple taxonomy terms for the same type of accessory would be reporting, but I don't know of anyone who has written a report that takes advantage of that.
Is Show specific or only Project specific tracking possible in MERCI?
In the Open Media System implementations, we link MERCI Reservations to Project using Organic Group functionality. That OG link isn't required. Show isn't a group so you can't link it that way, but you could add a node reference field to MERCI's Reservation.
On the MERCI Reservation page is there an easy way to move "Authoring Information" up top for Staff reserving for a Member through MERCI and call it something more obvious so as to avoid confusion?
Since the author field is part of Drupal's core, it is not included in the CCK interface for managing fields. To change this, you'd need to write a small module that invoke Drupal's hook_form_alter function. That is not a difficult module to write (5 or 6 lines of PHP and a .info file). It is common for developers to add these hook_form_alter as a "glue" module for every site they work on. These are customizations that are specific to that site that go beyond what can be done with themeing, but isn't the type of module that would be uploaded to Drupal.org because they are so site specific.
Is there an Option to report Problems with Equipment at check in? Or is that now a feature request, discuss.
John spec'ed this out to the point any developer could do it as a Kata project, but nothing came from that.
Thanks Darrick, Pete and Kevin
.. and Lane, though more for chortles than assistance this time.
I'm working my way through sorting those issues out, and feeling slightly sheepish for not realizing a couple of them myself.
And good news: I'll have some extra challenges for you all tomorrow.
oh and the graphics on John's spec for the Equipment problems at check in aren't uploaded: http://drupal.org/node/463894
and some more Questions
Firstly one –hopefully- useful Observation:
The discount setting in MERCI Settings doesn’t work in quite the way the field description suggests – it’s actually a multiplier. So a 100% member discount is not achieved by entering 1 or 1.0 (the decimal equivalent) rather 0 Likewise a 60% discount is obtained by entering .4 not .6.
Now the Questions
Why does the MERCI calendar view: http://YOUR_URL/admin/merci/reservations default to March 2009 for the month (and a week in March for the weekly view)? Is there a way to change this in Views so it chooses the current month by default? If you select month then click back then select month again it sometimes works, otherwise you have to scroll through the months manually to get to the correct one.
Where is the link to the Project when you make a reservation through it – it doesn’t appear on the Project block (I realize I could just add it but is it the same link as a regular create reservation one?) nor does it appear to be recorded or noted anywhere else that the reservation is project specific.
How do I setup Crew Connect? - have it enabled on the modules admin page, what should I do next?
The site doesn’t send email messages for new user signups, or via the contact form – although it does log these in reports, and tell me onscreen that it’s sent them. Any suggestions on how to remedy this?
Thanks Again
C
Why does the MERCI calendar
If you click on the [edit] link above the exposed filters when on the /admin/merci/reservations page you will be editing the view. From there you can select the "Date: Date (node) (Content: Reservation (field_merci_date) - From date) Exposed Select Day " link. You should see a Date Default section where you can enter something like now -3 day.
I don't have the Crew Connect module installed at PCM, but I do have it working. It's really nothing more that implementing a core module, doing some configuration, and adding a content type so users can submit "Crew Requests", and a couple views. First, you need to make sure that the Core module, Profile, is enabled. Once this is done, you are going to have to add the options to the Profile(s). To do this go to Home>Administer>User Management>Profiles. From here you will need to setup the "Skills". See the attached screenshot for an example, but you will need to look at DOMs site to get the rest of the config details. These will appear in a 2nd Tab in the user form, and each user will apply their own skill level for the respective area. Next you can goto DOMs site and export their Crew Request content type (or, your Crew Connect module may have added this already) as well as their volunteer_search and crew_requests views. Go back to your site and import the Crew Request content type, then the views. Lastly go to the Permissions admin page and look for profile listings and forms and give the roles that you need permission to see and get to the Skills form. Let me know if you need help, or if I left out anything.
The MERCI Calender View was
The MERCI Calender View was just a quick fix from DOM that was meant to be temporary, but we haven't written anything better yet. One of the tasks we have on our list is rolling, the Views and Blocks into the modules.
What Daniel's done at PCM is correct for the configuration for Crew Connect. The module simply uses JQuery to improve the default Views interface for any select list in that's exposed so that users search for users that match multiple criteria.
Without Crew Connect's JQuery UI...
Firstly one The percentage
Firstly one
The percentage description is a bug and should be entered in MERCI's issue queue, the 1 does give a discount of 100% on the version we're using at DOM.
Any content type (including MERCI's Reservation) are displayed in that block based on their Organic Group setting. The OG setting can be found in the content type settings.
As far as Crew Connect, I'll take a look at that we I look at getting you Broadcast Synchronization working to populate Airings. That was something you asked early that I didn't respond to about RSS and upcoming Airings. I just did an update of Media Mover for UPTV and have been working with Daniel on getting his Facil users re-connected to their Projects. If nothing comes up at DOM, I should be able to get the Broadcast Synchronization configured there next week.
Filtering on Reservation Type
Another question:
Is there a way to filter a calendar on reservation type? I am trying to organize the check out of about 30 items from cars to computers and like how MERCI will time check the items. That said, I want to display a calendar of each individual item, is there a way to do that set up?
Thanks for any help!
Huckle
View MERCI reservation calendar and basic date validation
This is a great module. Its full of promise. It has been difficult figuring out how it works thought - documentation being a bit thin...
A very nice-to-have feature, if it isn't already there (if it is I cannot find it) - is to be able to see the reservation calendar for a particular resource at the time of making the reservation. Otherwise making a reservation with a busy schedule is a bit of a hit and miss affair?
Also is it possible to put basic validation on the date of the reservation in addition to the holidays exceptions? For example, a date not in the past (>= today).
GlossyIbis