protalentPERFORMER Career Management Software for Mac and Windows!

**martin ewen** · Nov-01-2005, 05:54 AM

all but one (or two)

Its fairly steeply priced, (just my opinion, but price-wise I would think you would need to factor in the P to P tipping point-limewire etc)
Comprehensive all in one program but for an invoice facility, the omission of which is stark given you have every other factor in our business covered.
What (apart from the invoicing) would seal the deal for me, (and ratchet up your workload and coding/programming skills) would be the ability to import data into the program given that manual data import is a huge investment in time and makes the trial period initially laborious which will lose you custom.
As a customer if you make my life easier in the immediate term (import data from any other popular data management software) rather than the intermediate term, (after hours spent manually transferring data from, calendar, filemaker etc) then i would be happier paying you over $100.
In my perfect world, (where only a couple of million people existed and we all had flying cars and fountains ran with stimulating liquids from which there were no side effects and we lived indefinitely.) Your program would cost $79, have import and invoicing built with it.
I should end with something encouraging and complimentary regarding your efforts thus far but really, why waste a perfectly good reputation as an asshole?

**Kim** · Nov-01-2005, 07:11 AM

hey, nice timing, I'm just shopping around for a package...

Palm & Pocket PC Sync is a big deal for me too...

**chris_protalent** · Nov-01-2005, 08:37 AM

thanks for your feedback. The ability to import data is not too difficult to have. But most performers I know are using such a hodge-podge of tools (Excel, paper, memory etc.) that it is hard to pinpoint what applications users should be able to import from.

So according to you the list would be:

1) Calendar
2) Filemaker

And also to respond to Kim's comment we are looking into a PDA version as a complement to the desktop. We have no dates or confirmation yet -- its still in the investigation stage.

Chris

**martin ewen** · Nov-01-2005, 08:56 AM

Its like a software gestation branch of p.net

So lets help him out.
What are some of the data management programs we use to list our contacts
I'm a macphile so use
address book
and from there expand to filemaker.
(I use calendar now in the same way as I would use your version for pinpointing engagements rather than storing in depth info,)
But address book would be my primary lode.

Feedback on our part and an open ear by the developer makes for ideal business relations.

**chris_protalent** · Nov-01-2005, 08:57 AM

Re: all but one (or two)

Can you explain in a little more detail what you mean by invoice facility? Are you saying you want to be able to generate invoices?

Originally posted by martin ewen

Comprehensive all in one program but for an invoice facility, the omission of which is stark given you have every other factor in our business covered.

**martin ewen** · Nov-01-2005, 09:09 AM

invoices

Yep
You have the factors there, who the works for, how much it pays. It works really well up to the job and to be able to have a simple format invoice capacity so that you could print it or e-mail it on completion would make the program stand-alone. One stop shop, I don't see any other reason to leave your software other than to do the invoice.
As it is you would just open whatever template in another program you use presently for invoices but for it to be in your package would be very tidy indeed.

**gav** · Nov-01-2005, 09:49 AM

I'm in no position to comment on what you have to offer, but I will say that initialy i was none too pleased by the way you promoted it. Plastering it on 4 different threads on these boards was a little 'spam' like for my liking.It made me feel that you were desperate for our money.
I can see that with the inclusions that Martin and Kim mentioned, it could be a pretty handy thing.

**chris_protalent** · Nov-01-2005, 10:04 AM

Sorry about the "spam" like posting. To be honest I was not sure who read which groups so I left a message on each one. I'll be more careful next time.

Originally posted by gav
I'm in no position to comment on what you have to offer, but I will say that initialy i was none too pleased by the way you promoted it. Plastering it on 4 different threads on these boards was a little 'spam' like for my liking.It made me feel that you were desperate for our money.
I can see that with the inclusions that Martin and Kim mentioned, it could be a pretty handy thing.

**chris_protalent** · Nov-01-2005, 10:33 AM

Re: Its like a software gestation branch of p.net

We will be looking into this immediately. What we may decide upon is to have a generic IMPORT facility that will read CSV files (most apps can export their data as CSV) and then the ability to choose which column in the CSV files maps to which column in the protalentPERFORMER database. This would be the quickest way to provide an open solution for both platforms (Windows and Mac). Then, if necessary, we can target individual applications.

Originally posted by martin ewen
So lets help him out.
What are some of the data management programs we use to list our contacts
I'm a macphile so use
address book
and from there expand to filemaker.
(I use calendar now in the same way as I would use your version for pinpointing engagements rather than storing in depth info,)
But address book would be my primary lode.

Feedback on our part and an open ear by the developer makes for ideal business relations.

**chris_protalent** · Nov-01-2005, 12:39 PM

Re: invoices

Just thinking about this a little bit more you can pretty much do this with the program now.

If you look at the Income and Expenses pages in protalentPERFORMER you can filter based on the project. So, for example, you can see and print a report of ALL of your expenses for a particular project. You can even filter by project AND category (such as mileage, clothing etc.). This, by itself, can serve as your invoice to the company. As a matter of fact one of my customers is doing exactly what I mentioned above. And if you have a utility to print to PDF you can use that to create a pdf of the expense report and send it off to the company.

Originally posted by martin ewen
Yep
You have the factors there, who the works for, how much it pays. It works really well up to the job and to be able to have a simple format invoice capacity so that you could print it or e-mail it on completion would make the program stand-alone. One stop shop, I don't see any other reason to leave your software other than to do the invoice.
As it is you would just open whatever template in another program you use presently for invoices but for it to be in your package would be very tidy indeed.

**martin ewen** · Nov-01-2005, 02:26 PM

Thanks

I'll look into the dual, expenses, project tweaking.

**Stretch** · Nov-01-2005, 06:46 PM

mailing label management

Not sure about the "management" mentioned on your website. Does this mean your software will sort for bulk mailing rates? I currently am mailing to 3500 plus addresses. (and growing) using microsoft Word. Software that would sort by zipcode as per USPS requirements for bulk mailing rates would save me some money - I think. I mostly send postcards, so am not sure how much I would save. Or if your system is robust enough to handle that many contacts?

Thank you!

**chris_protalent** · Nov-01-2005, 09:11 PM

Re: mailing label management

The management comes in because each of your contacts has a category such as: Agent, Director, Casting Agency etc. When it comes time to print labels you can print entire categories of labels, individual contacts that you've explicitly selected or the entire list. And yes it can easily handle 3500+ addresses.

An on top of all of that since you have FULL submission histories you can add an entry for EVERY single contact you've just generated labels for that indicates on "this" date you sent them a postcard that mentions "whatever". And you can schedule follow up reminders as well. Alll of that in some simple screen.

So yes it is contact management that is more advanced than anything else out there for actors/performers.

QUOTE]Originally posted by Stretch
Not sure about the "management" mentioned on your website. Does this mean your software will sort for bulk mailing rates? I currently am mailing to 3500 plus addresses. (and growing) using microsoft Word. Software that would sort by zipcode as per USPS requirements for bulk mailing rates would save me some money - I think. I mostly send postcards, so am not sure how much I would save. Or if your system is robust enough to handle that many contacts?

Thank you! [/QUOTE]

**chris_protalent** · Nov-01-2005, 09:44 PM

Re: mailing label management

I just wanted to clarify that you can add a submission entry for EVERY single contact you've just generated labels for by simply pressing one button. This feature eliminates the need to update each contact individually.

Originally posted by Stretch
Not sure about the "management" mentioned on your website. Does this mean your software will sort for bulk mailing rates? I currently am mailing to 3500 plus addresses. (and growing) using microsoft Word. Software that would sort by zipcode as per USPS requirements for bulk mailing rates would save me some money - I think. I mostly send postcards, so am not sure how much I would save. Or if your system is robust enough to handle that many contacts?

Thank you!

protalentPERFORMER Career Management Software for Mac and Windows!

protalentPERFORMER Career Management Software for Mac and Windows!

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