Dec

22

Magazine Management

Filed Under Bento Examples 

Sandra Hall is the editor of a magazine and in this article she explains how she uses Bento to keep track of submissions, pictures and ideas for articles as well as keeping track of what needs to be done to get an item ready for the magazine, permissions to be sought, proof-reading tasks and more.

I am the editor of a magazine, Whispering Gallery, for the Dorothy Dunnett literary society (http://ddra.org/) This 40 page or more magazine comes out quarterly and items for inclusion can be sourced or submitted throughout the year by email or by post. I use Bento as a way of keeping track of all these actual submissions, pictures and ideas for articles. I also need to track what needs to be done to get an item ready for the magazine, permissions to be sought, proof-reading etc. Within a few days of downloading Bento I created the basic form and I have added to it and refined it as I have become more aware of what can be done with the program and of new requirements for the magazine.

I have created a library for the main task of tracking these items, integrating it with iCal, Address Book, and a WG Notes Library. A file list shows the location of each submission or image on the computer and the email message list allows me to link in directly to all relevant mail without the necessity of copying the message across to another file.


The Details Form

Click for a Larger View

Within the main library I have used several forms to gather together information. The Details form contains most of the information about an article: its content, any illustrations, contact details, emails, where the data is stored etc. Using a related Notes field rather than a standard text field lets me to sort and search the data. It also removes the necessity of duplicating the same information between records, as I can relate a single note to multiple records in a library. If items have been sent to me through the post then I can link into where I will find them and create an iCal task to scan or type it up. I also record in which issue of the magazine an article will appear, and what section it will fit into.

In addition I have created a Media form to include any illustrations and their location on my hard drive. This allows me to quickly see that my choice of images is balanced and prevents me from forgetting when and where I have stored images, and what they are about.


The Media Form

Click for a Larger View

I can then quickly scan the Overview form to quickly see what still needs to be done to get an item ready for publication.


The Overview Form

Click for a Larger View

I have created some smart collections based on specific issues of the magazine, tasks to be done, so that I can keep track of outstanding jobs and priorities. This has proved a very useful feature to create. Again it allows me to quickly see how many articles I have for particular issues and where I have gaps in coverage etc.

I then became aware that I needed to track the progress of the production of each issue of the magazine, so I created a Project overview mainly consisting of a Choice field and a number of Checkbox fields which relate to specific tasks in getting it ready for publication. A related records field allows me to note the time spent on producing a particular issue.


The Project Overview Form

Click for a Larger View

This is a continually evolving database. I have gradually replaced general text fields with related records fields as this allows me to track more quickly and efficiently information about each article and particular people involved. I feel that I am now using Bento’s ability to be a relational database much more fully, instead of using it as an enhanced spreadsheet which included several text fields for different types of information. The expanded ability of Bento 2 to directly link to Apple Mail messages is incredibly useful. The printing shortcomings or lack of multi-user use does not affect me as I am using it purely as a personal database.

Comments

5 Responses to “Magazine Management”

  1. Curtis Walker on December 22nd, 2008 2:54 am

    Could it be arranged to have these in the template library for easy downloading?

  2. Tod on December 22nd, 2008 3:48 am

    That’s totally cool! Is it available as a template to share with others (like me) who have a need for something like this (see my website)? Or is the template up for sale?

    Thanks,

    -Tod

  3. Simon on December 22nd, 2008 3:38 pm

    The templates for this system are now available at http://www.bentousers.com/20081222-magazine-production-template/

  4. Sandra Hall on December 22nd, 2008 11:45 pm

    My original Libraries captured in the screen shots above use the Neutral Themes pack provided by Patrick La Roque (and available on this website). As those themes are not standard Bento ones, I have adjusted the templates to confine them to those themes provided in the program itself.
    If you need any advice in how to adjust the templates or how I use them then contact me.

  5. Grace Suarez on January 26th, 2009 12:17 am

    Thank you for taking the time to write about your beautiful and useful database. I am just starting with Bento and looking at what others have done really inspires me.

Leave a Reply