Word on the street is that some folks out there are tracking artist training classes in SG. That's something we're starting to discuss, I was just wondering how others had approached this. What entities are used, what kind of connections are made, etc.
Thanks!
-Tommy
Hi Tommy.
Linda asked me about this at Siggraph, and also emailed me about it. Sorry for the late response, I had been on vacation since pretty much...Siggraph...
We use Shotgun for tracking training classes at Digital Domain. It's a pretty simple setup, although we are in the process of slightly tweaking the entity scheme. Here's a quick rundown of what we do:
- We created a "Training" project that all the data lives under.
- We mainly use three entities:
- Sequence = Type of class (i.e. 2D, FX, Production, etc.).
- Shot = Class (i.e. Nuke Basics for Lighters), linked to Sequence.
- Task = Task (i.e. go to this class), linked to Shot.
- The change we're making is to stop using overloaded entities, and instead use one of the custom entities.
- The custom entity will be named Training Class and will just have a "Type" field.
- I found that they weren't really needing to put any data on the Sequence so I cut that part out.
- Classes don't seem to need a ton of fields, basically just:
- Code.
- Date.
- Description.
- Instructor.
- Location.
- Status.
- Thumbnail.
- Time.
- Type.
- Wiki URL.
- We didn't really need any extra fields on Tasks beyond what was already there for Production.
- Guessing this will be the same for most studios.
- The "Attend Class" Tasks show up in people's "My Tasks," which is nice.
- The only other entity linkage to speak of is for File.
- Some instructors will upload their Maya/Nuke/Houdini/etc. test file for the class and link it in Shotgun.
- URL tabs are used on detail pages.
- This shows the "Wiki URL" field by default.
- Calendar view is pretty popular, obviously...
That's basically it! We put this in place before Shotgun opened up all of the custom entities, which is the main reason why we went with the overloaded Sequence/Shot setup. I probably would have just gone straight for the custom entity if we were setting it up now.
There's some other niceties that we should probably add to the setup, which will probably happen at some point in the near future (not sure when for the non-trivial stuff, since admittedly, production needs are usually higher in priority). This would be for stuff like:
- A cron sends a note to remind users on the day of the class (super easy one).
- Some sort of tie-in with the HR system so that training for new hires gets set up automatically.
- Clickable links to open the test files in the app with the right environment.
- Probably more that I'm missing off the top of my head...
Let me know if you have any questions - hope this helps!
Ryan.
