MusicMaster Blog

Assignment Grid Patterns

By Jesus Rodriguez

I often get calls from clients who want to get creative with their clock assignment grids, whether for competitive purposes or having different clocks with different categories every hour. The challenge at times before MusicMaster PRO Version 8 was implementing the clocks in the grid quickly when not positioned in hours next to each other. You may recall in our previous versions that you can still drag your mouse across the grid to select multiple hours and then type the clock code to see those hours assigned with the clock. What if you wanted to do the same quick task, but your clock needs to be across the grid in multiple hours that are not next to each other?

We have some great new shortcuts built right into the Assignment Grid. Let’s start with the first fantastic solution to select multiple hours anywhere on the clock. Press down on your Control button on your keyboard, then use your mouse to click on any hour square, even rows, and columns.

We also added a new tab in the assignment grid to help you quickly select any pattern you prefer based on your broadcast week, specified hours, shifts, match current hour, and the ability to invert your current selection.

With the Select Days option, you can select the hours of the week based on odd days, even days, and even both possibilities with and without the weekends included.

We can even make patterns based on hours. You can quickly select all your odd and even hours.

As they say, AND THERE’S MORE!!! We get crazy and quickly select your odd and even hours in a diagonal pattern.

Next, select your format clock to implement it into any of your desired patterns.

One common thing I see by many of our users is clocks specific to a daypart shift. You may have particular clocks for mornings, afternoons, nights, etc. Now you can implement them right away by selecting the shift pattern option.

You can also select a group of hours and apply any patterns only to that selection.

Did you decide to create a new clock to replace another used randomly throughout the week? Did you know that as of version 8, you can now select that clock no matter which hour it is on the grid and replace it in a couple of clicks with your new clock? Now you can! Simply select Match Current Hour from the pattern options.

This option will select all the same clocks on your grid to then select and replace them with your new clock.

This option will replace your old clock on the grid with another.

Whether you are the type of scheduler that enjoys different clocks every hour, you do not have the same clock at the same hour every day, or you are super competitive to prevent anyone across the street from figuring you out, this new feature will be a significant time-saver and workflow enhancement.

We hope you enjoy this new addition to MusicMaster PRO Version 8.0!

Contact your Music Scheduling Consultant with any questions.