protalentPERFORMER Career Management Software for Mac and Windows!

[chris_protalent]

protalentPERFORMER 1.5 is Total Career Management Software for Performers

Available for both Mac and Windows!

Created by performers for performers, protalentPERFORMER is designed to
help you keep your busy life and career organized. protalentPERFORMER is designed to finally fill the longstanding need for total, paperless career
management all in one simple tool.

Benefits include:

- Full Contact Organization
- Detailed Submission History
- Follow Up Reminders
- Find It
- Education Log
- Auditions
- Bookings
- Income/Expenses
- Calendar
- Print Labels
- Batch Updates
- Map It
- And MUCH MORE...

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW!

Please visit our website to take a closer look and learn more:
http://www.protalentperformer.com

Also feel free to contact us with any questions or comments at
customersupport@protalentsoftware.com

protalentsoftware – TALENT IS ONLY HALF THE BATTLE

[martin ewen]

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]

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

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

[chris_protalent]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

[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!

[chris_protalent]

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]

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!

[Mr.Taxi Trix]

Nice bit of work. My contacts are all on matchbooks and napkins still.

I think an "invoice" button, on each contact page, would be more along the lines Mart is talking, where, on hitting the button, you go to a template invoice you've picked, or to an invoice you've imported from word, and the client's name and info is already on the invoice, no cut and paste required, and ideally, the most recent gig and price info, expenses optional, also appear. It would be nice if the software auto-generated unpaid invoices every 15 days.

[Josh Casey]

I've been using Now Contact for years and it's awesome and does all the printing, merging, invoicing, contract generating etc. But I have imagined it would be nice to have something that had all that I liked about Now Contact but more streamlined for a perfomer.

The cool thing about Now Contact is that you can sync with your Blackberry. Which is why I'm looking into getting one. If I couldn't do this with protalentperformer I probably wouldn't want to use it. Being able to sync all my contacts and take them with me easily would be huge.

-Josh

[scot]

I'll start by saying, I probably won't buy your package. It's not for me. I don't get gigs.

I like stretch's idea about sorting all the printed labels by zipcode. It seems like a total pain and it's required for bulk rate mail.

Import from csv, vcards, excel, ics(icalendar), and tab deliminated text files. That should do a lot of it. the importing shouldn't be much of a big deal, but the main problem comes with making it match up with your product the right way.

also, something that I see picking up in the next few years in webdav. You might want to look into it for future versions. Ical and mozilla's new calendar use it to publish and subscribe to internet calendars. I don't know it's power, but its an information sharing platform.

[Lynneski]

Originally posted by chris_protalent
So, for example, you can see and print a report of ALL of your expenses for a particular project. This, by itself, can serve as your invoice to the company.

I'm not sure that's an adequate solution. I can easily see a situation where your actual expenses for a gig might be $40 in gas and a dozen doughnuts, but you'd bill the client for X kilometres of gig travel at $0.31 (some gas allowance plus general wear and tear, insurance, blah, blah blah) plus three meal perdiems. Your rates to invoice a client are not the same as the expenses you incurred to do the gig.

If you input the mileage and meals figure as your expenses, the program would be no good to track your actual expenses and income, and thus net (hopeful) gain.

[chris_protalent]

You're right performers did need something tailored especially for them. That is why we wrote protalentPERFORMER. Now Contact is definitely more for corporate use.

And just to let the cat out of the bag we ARE going to be releasing a PalmOS companion to the Mac and Windows desktop versions. So you WILL be able to take your data with you.

thanks for your feedback.

Originally posted by Josh Casey
[b]I've been using Now Contact for years and it's awesome and does all the printing, merging, invoicing, contract generating etc. But I have imagined it would be nice to have something that had all that I liked about Now Contact but more streamlined for a perfomer.

The cool thing about Now Contact is that you can sync with your Blackberry. Which is why I'm looking into getting one. If I couldn't do this with protalentperformer I probably wouldn't want to use it. Being able to sync all my contacts and take them with me easily would be huge.

-Josh