How can I be sure that all open (i.e., active) jobs appear on traffic reports? How do we handle fast-turnaround jobs that only last a day or two? What's the difference between "production status" and "billing status" ? The Production FAQ has all the answers:

Q. What are milestones?

Milestones represent a job's key phases or steps. Each milestone defines a step in the job's work flow. Milestone-based traffic reports help balance work flow by showing the upcoming work for jobs in progress in a spreadsheet-like view. Up to 12 milestones can be tracked for each job. Some example milestones include: Concept (Concept); Initial Development (Init dv); Copywriter's Revisions (Copy rv); Artist's Revisions (Art rv); Art Director's Approval (AD ok); Account Executive's Revisions (AE rv); Creative Director's Approval (CD ok); Rough Drafts (Roughs); Mechanicals (Mech). You can then give milestones a due date. Different types of jobs will have different milestones, based on the production process. The names of the milestones are pulled from the Job Types/Spec Sheet for each job type. The milestone dates for each job are updated in the job's Traffic window. Milestones for all open jobs can be updated together on the Traffic page.

Q. Are milestones and job tasks linked?

Yes. If a milestone and a task have the same name (e.g., PRNT for Printing) the date entered into the job schedule will update the traffic milestone automatically. This feature is handy if certain tasks are critical to a job's progress (like copywriting, printing, etc.).

Q. What's the difference between "production status" and "billing status"?

Production status is used to track jobs from production and traffic point-of-view, while billing status is used to track jobs from an accounting perspective. The production department will print their traffic reports by production status; only jobs that have the selected production status will be printed. They'll use production status to track jobs by estimate pending, in production, waiting for final approval, or finished - ready to bill. The accounting department can use billing status to note when a job's estimate has been approved, when the job has been pre-billed, and when the job has been billed, paid, and closed. The production status doesn't interfere with billing status, so each department gets job reports their way.

Q. What's the difference between traffic milestones and job status?

Milestones mark key phases or steps in a job's lifetime, while status codes show the status of the job today. Traffic milestones are used for planning and balancing all of the shop's resources in order to meet all of the client's deadlines. Status codes are used to track the up-to-the-minute progress of jobs from day-to-day. Milestones are forward-looking, while status codes only focus on what's happening today. They're both useful when used together because they let production people see what the need to keep the work moving.

Q. How do we handle fast-turnaround jobs that only last a day or two?

Quick jobs don't need a lot of scheduling, since there's very few deadlines to plan and manage. It's important to add the job ticket as soon as possible so that it appears on the day's job lists and traffic reports. There's no need to enter its milestones or task schedules, since it'll be completed so fast.

Q. How can I be sure that all open (i.e., active) jobs appear on traffic reports?

Be sure that the range of status codes you've entered selects the right jobs. For example, entering status codes 1 - 999 will select every job that has a status. But any job that doesn't have a status (i.e., it appears blank or as zero) won't be printed. Sometimes jobs have a different status that you expect, so end up being left off the report. If so, you'll need to print reports using a broader range of status codes (e.g., 1 - 999) or by making sure all of the jobs have the correct status codes.