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1. Plan your resources, foresee costs and check for time and/or locaton conflicts.
2. See detailed booking information - Tooltip shows all important information, including customized additional fields.
3. Precisely define resource costs - Fixed or variable, extra cost per booking, extra extra costs, TRACK tracks it all.
4. Check how much it's worth - Detailed cost and efficiency reports help improve returns on your bookings.
5. Assign bookings to stories - with simply drag'n'drop.
We, at Octopus, are always learning very important lessons from ours satisfied clients. No matter whether there is one 30 minute bulletin per day or round-the-clock flow of information, it all comes down to being in the right place at the right time. But today it is critical for managers to know how much money is spent on news gathering and production. The result of the experience is introduced now: TRACK, a software module that gives you - Total Resource And Cost Knowledge. - But TRACK is more than that because most importantly it helps build a framework to better manage the assignment and planning side of the news business.
 Keep track of all your personell and equipment
Everything starts with simple inventory of the equipment used in the production. In a customizable inventory, the newsroom can keep track of cameras, cars, cell phones, laptop editors-just about anything you want in the system. Every item is assigned a "cost." The cost can be changed or corrected at anytime. This is an important concept because it allows the managers to track costs within the station as well.
Easy resource planning
It allows the early and smart assignment of resources to each story that is a potential assignment. Forward planning has never been easier. But when there is breaking news, TRACK really pays off . At a glance the planning desk knows where everyone is, right down to the finest detail of crew and equipment resources. No more looking through paper files, or trying to find notes buried in the computer. It is all in front of you!
Just a few timescale clicks away
TRACK presents information in a very intuitive graphical user interface that allows scheduling crew bookings with drag and drop. The user can add "resources" to the booking with few clicks of the mouse, or adding, for example, extra costs for parking in the same way. Reporters can ask for crew bookings for their stories and a particular time, and costs are tracked all along the crew-booking-story chain. Booking for a story can be created by just dragging the story slug to the booking area and setting the period. And of course, vice versa.
Tracks even more
Actions are similar to bookings, but typically don't have a specific story attached. For example, long-running coverage of an event or a place, such as the Parliament, can be tracked this way. This can be a big help in scheduling scarce facilities such as editing rooms and control rooms for projects, which have a post-production component. Budget tracking becomes more complete and realistic.
Looks before you leap
The TRACK module helps to resolve any conflict that might happen. It alerts users in the case when the same equipment or people are supposed to be at two (or more) different locations at the same time but it also helps save money by watching for different crews going to the same location within a short time range. Instead of sending two fully equipped crews to the same location you can now save money and deploy only necessary resources!
Confidential
The module was created with a great respect for privacy. Sensitive data - like reporters' salary - are carefully hidden to all but privileged users. Entry of data into the system can be controlled by password. Access for viewing can also be controlled. However, general access to the scheduling components means that any user of the system can very easily check his schedule. The module also is set up so that it can send emails with work schedule, SMS alerts and downloading the schedule to the PDA.
Detailed Reporting
All this is very exciting and useful but still, it's not all. The most important part for editors-in-chief or managers is the "Reports" function. The reports can inform you about every cost in your newsroom. Expenses are tracked for a single resource, and for a particular story or show. Therefore, you can see how much a particular story did cost and compare this with the number of on-air broadcasts. Also, watching the efficiency of the facilities is now much easier. Just make a report on how many stories were made by any reporter, how many stories were edited in any particular editing room … all kinds of reports are just a mouse click away.
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