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Callsheet App: Android Testers Wanted


NewEndian

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Hi everybody, I'm working on a callsheet app with a very different premise: just display the callsheet on your screen.

I need testers but for the moment there are specific requirements:
- You're on Android
- You use Gmail or Microsoft (outlook, hotmail, etc) to receive your callsheets
- You're comfortable letting an app search your email for today's callsheet (no data is ever transferred off the device)

If you're interested, you can check it out here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newendian.android.opencallsheet

 

Best,
James

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Just checking if I understand correctly.. you download the app, and the app searches your inbox for PDF files that look like they could be today’s callsheet? And that is all you would see in the app, as in if there isn’t a PDF file that looks like a callsheet in your inbox, nothing is displayed?

 

 I’m not the target user and I can’t help you with using the app since I’m currently not in the business where callsheet are a thing, just interested in how it works:)

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That is correct Olle. Though if you don't have a callsheet for the day, it should say "No Callsheet Found". I'll check on that.

If for some reason you do have a callsheet but it wasn't detected, you can look at a list of pdf attachments with the lower left button.

I should change the ads moment to only run when a pdf is about to be displayed (once per day is the plan, with a paid no-ads option)

I have opened it up to Canada

All important feedback

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7 hours ago, John Blankenship said:

Once a call sheet is open, does this do anything different than any other PDF reader? 


Not at the moment, but possibly in the future ;) 

 

Technically it is worse than a PDF reader because you can't select text, and that is something I plan to remedy. Still my hope is that there's a lot of utility there already.

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54 minutes ago, NewEndian said:

 

It's about speed. One button access instead of searching through your email every time you need to look something up.


Except I transfer the callsheet to a pdf reader, as soon as I receive it, where I can mark things (which is important to me) and have it quickly accessible. 
So I’m sorry, but I‘m not seeing how your app would help me at the moment. 
Maybe if it could also bring up the relevant pages from the script, or somehow tie in with the alarm clock or maps app, it would gain more interest - for me...
 

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Update: Microsoft email support has been added (Outlook, Hotmail, etc)

It seems people are suspicious that something so simple could be useful, so let me start again. I have gotten a lot of suggestions to make a "Callsheet App". It's a reasonable inquiry: the digital age, the digital callsheet. The problem with most callsheet app concepts is that it requires both the AD and the crew members to use the app in tandem. If the app doesn't do something the AD needs, then all support is lost.

So this concept turns that around: don't depend on cooperation from the AD. Take all the varied forms that ADs distribute, and take what information from them we can. And for that, we turn to artificial intelligence. Which, believe it or not, is not so simple, but can do enough to detect what a callsheet looks like. Things get complicated when you have to do something like detecting which date (of the many things that look like dates) is the titular date of the callsheet. And way more difficult when detecting where basecamp is.

Luckily, much of the utility of a digital callsheet comes merely from having the callsheet accessible at one's fingertips. We can all read. If we're about to approach a person whose name (but not title) we've forgotten, we don't need that name on a specially formatted menu screen. It's midway down page 2. And that situation happens so much - just need to check one thing, but I don't have the paper on me - it's worth creating an app for that.

Most people use the built-in pdf reader, and at least on Android, file management is non-existent, so opening the callsheet at the spur of the moment means searching through one's email every time a person wants to open it. Even creating a shortcut to a downloaded file is a cumbersome experience.

Now there are certainly integrations that people want to see in a digital callsheet, but without the cooperation of each individual person making the callsheets (and trust me, convincing people to use your app is not easy), you have to rely on AI. And that means that sometimes it won't detect the information, but you still have to have functionality to fall back on.

So I need beta testers to make sure the foundation is solid. Because I do want to expand on this concept, but it has to start from a place where everyone can use it.

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I really like the concept of this app. Simple and easy, it does one thing, you don't seem to have any ambitions to turn it into an app that gives you everything you need (I for one don't see a benefit from getting directions to set or stuff like that). The simple beauty of an app that is the replacement for a paper. Great idea. Shame I'm I not in the business (and frankly I think you are too cus my language is spoken by 10 million people and I imagine programming Swedish into your app won't be an easy task). All the best 

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On 10/3/2019 at 3:12 PM, NewEndian said:

Open Callsheet Beta on Android now does text selection that will also link to Maps, Phone, and Email

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.newendian.android.opencallsheet

 

Users can now import pdfs. Signing in with Google or Microsoft is no longer required

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/15/2019 at 9:14 PM, Chris Woodcock said:

Why are your apps for USA only? 

 

Timecard Buddy and Open Callsheet are dependent on the conventions used in the US.

Timecard Buddy provides templates of the paper timecards we use in the US. I can support those because I am familiar with the accounting practices here. And when it comes to people's paychecks, I have to be very sure I can support the accounting practices of my app.

Open Callsheet is in beta, so starting small is a natural part of that. But the app also uses AI to detect information from the callsheets emailed to us. The AI has to be trained on sample callsheets in order to work. I only have access to US callsheets to train the AI, so I have no idea whether it would work with Ireland's callsheets.

Generally speaking though, it really should not be taken for granted how the idiosyncrasies of each country multiply the complexity in an app. There've been many bugs in FreqFinder related to the difference in number format. 512,000 in the US means something different than 512.000. The solution to that is to use the phone's locale setting to provide context. But I did have one user who wanted English language and French numbers.

Still that's a relatively simple example. When dealing directly with a country's conventions is at the core of the app, I can only program what I know.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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