Joblist templates: a detailed guide

The following is a detailed walkthrough of a complete, generic joblist template and its rules. For a presentation of the general logic of joblist templates, go here:

The rules list

Each rule in a joblist template can create one or more jobs. When you combine it with a project, the rules will be applied in the order they are arranged in the list, which typically follows the chronology of the project steps. The rules can be dragged and dropped to change the order.

However, as you will see, all rules are not necessarily applied to a project. It depends on project or language settings. This allows you to maintain a limited number of joblist templates and use project data to fine tune the results. 

The first rule – explaining the panels

We'll use the first rule to explain all the panels. 

• Add job(s) to:
  • Where should these jobs be added? Well, a project typically begins with media ingest, with one file per part (e.g. an episode of a series). Selecting "Part" will add one job of this type to each part (see Project structure).
• Job options (panel one)
  • In the first panel you can add general information about the job, such as the job type, which together with the Custom label will be shown as the name of the job. 
• Job options (panel two)
  • Use the Delivery method to specify how the job will be done, what tool will be used. 
  • If the job should be confirmed by the assignee, set Confirmation status to "Awaiting confirmation"
  • Use the date options to calculate a job deadline based on information from the project, such as main project deadline, or the dates linked to individual parts. 
    • Tip: you can calculate dates backward from a final delivery date: "when does this need to be done in order for us to complete the project on time?"
    • or you can take a point in time such as the arrival of the source media and calculate dates forward: "how long will this step take, once we have the file?"
• Select parent job
  • This is perhaps the most complex part of creating joblist templates, but well worth mastering. By supplying the right instructions to the rule, it can ensure that an unbroken chain of interdependent jobs is created. In more concrete terms, it determines the ID of the job which should be the parent of this job. 
  • Selecting "No" will make this a job independent of any previous work. It will be open for work as soon as it is created. Since the Media upload jobs are the first to be completed for each part, this is the right setting. 
• Default person
  • You can utilize the automatic assignment logic in Plint right from the start by stating which criteria apply for the created job.
    • In order to do this, choose "Apply critera" and then select which criteria to use. These are the same criteria as those available for individual jobs. 
  • The rules can be applied right away and the "best" person pre-selected as soon as the job is created
  • or you can choose to simply store the rules and make the final selected later. 
    • More than one person may be eligible, and a project manager may want to make the final call
    • or the job may end up in the Shark tank, where anyone who matches the critera will have a chance of grabbing it
  • In this case, the project manager is the right person for the job, so we will use that simple option instead. 
• Advanced edit
  • Finally: anything that can be specified for a single job can be specified in a joblist template rule
    • The settings you select here will be inherited by each job created by the rule
    • A typical example would be "Editor settings", where you determine the behaviour of the built-in subtitle editor
  • If the option you seek is not available in any of the panels, select "Advanced edit" to open a dialogue which matches the edit form for individual jobs