MusicMaster Blog

By Drew Bennett

Fridays can be tough on a music director or program director because you’re scheduling multiple days to get your logs in for the weekend and the beginning of the next week. Just scheduling and editing on Friday alone can take hours. Maintaining good music logs from day to day can sap up a lot of your time especially if you schedule and edit logs by yourself and without the help of an assistant. I’ll bet you’ve wished for an assistant at least a couple of times a week. I have good news. There is a way to automate tasks in MusicMaster using some fancy files and Windows Scheduled Tasks. Together, they can help automate tasks within the database. It will be like having extra hands to get some of the work done.

Command files are files you create and place in the same directory as your database. They tell MusicMaster to open up and perform a task. Currently, four different tasks can be run automatically. You can export a log, reconcile, schedule a day or run a special history report. In this example, I’ll show you how to create a command file that opens a database and schedules a day.

The first section of the command file needs to define the name of the file and what kind of file it is.

[Description]
Name=WXYZ Log Scheduler
Type=Command

We called the file WXYZ Log Scheduler and we made sure to define the file as a command file.

Next we define some things about the command file itself.

[CommandProperties]
RunDaily=1
RunFilter=Instr(1, MM.DatasetLogo, “WXYZ”, 1) > 0

RunDaily is the value that defines the number of times this command is run in a day. 0 is default which means the command is run when it is specified. 1 could be used to define the number of times the command is allowed to run per day.

RunFilter is where a script command can be used to run against the database. In the example above this command can only run on a database where the database logo contains WXYZ.

Next, we will tell the file about the actual commands we want to run.

[Commands]
F1=Schedule[Numdays:1]

The section [Commands] is a subsection of our main section, [CommandFile]. The command is specified first. In this case it is Schedule. Then any necessary command properties are written. In this case that is [Numdays=1] specifies the number of days we will schedule when this command is run.

Once you have your file written, it should look like this:

[Description]
Name=WXYZ Log Scheduler
Type=Command

[CommandProperties]
RunDaily=1
RunFilter=Instr(1, MM.DatasetLogo, “WXYZ”, 1) > 0

[Commands]
F1=Schedule[Numdays:1]

Now, save the file and call it WXYZ_Scheduler.DEF

In order to run this command and actually automate the task, you must place a command switch into a scheduled task in Windows Scheduled Task. To do that, go to Start in Windows, then Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance and finally, Scheduled Tasks. Choose to Add a Scheduled Task and go through the wizard of choosing the MusicMaster application, choosing the days and times to run the task, and any usernames and passwords that might be required to access the software. Finally, choose to Open Advanced Properties For This Task When I Click Finish. When Finish is chosen, a Task screen will appear. In the Run field, you should see C:\MMWin\MusicMaster.exe or something very similar. After the .exe type a space and then type your command:

N:/Path/To/WXYZ.MMD /STARTUP=WXYZ_SCHEDULER.DEF /AUTOEXIT

Where N:/Path/To/ is the path to the database file and WXYZ.MMD is the name of the actual database. Choose OK here and you’ve created your task.

Now, it’s up to Windows to perform your tasks when you schedule them. Be sure to have your computer on when the task is scheduled to perform!

Any of the four tasks that can be automated can be set up this way. You could set Windows and MusicMaster up to reconcile the data, schedule a day, export the log and print a report for you all without every having to touch the database. It’s like having an assistant there to handle tasks for you.

If you would like to set this up and save some serious time during your day, check the Help section in the software under Technical Reference, Definition Files, Command Files. You can always call your assigned Music Scheduling Consultant for one-on-one assistance with this as well.

Command files are a great way to automate tasks and save you a lot of time during the day to focus on log editing and other important day-to-day tasks. Happy scheduling!