WHAT IS THE SHOWTIME SCHEDULER?
“ShowTime Scheduler” – A tool that makes managing hundreds of one-on-one appointments a child’s game.
CS Paris Commercial Specialist Christophe Joly developed the "ShowTime Scheduler," a tool that facilitates easy management of ShowTime meetings requested by U.S. companies prior to and during trade shows. This tool, which features drop down lists, pop-up alert messages to prevent conflicting meetings, and well-formatted individual schedules that can be faxed or emailed to meeting participants, required several hundred hours to develop but will bring many times that amount in time savings to its users.
After the Scheduler's successful test inauguration at the Paris Air Show 2003, it was used by Jason Sproule and Erica Chavez from the Newport Beach USEAC respectively for the Aerospace Congress and Exhibition in Montreal, Canada in September 2003 and WEFTEC in Los Angeles in October of the same year.
Since then, the ShowTime Scheduler was improved and packaged so that it can be used very easily by new users. More recently, it was then used again by Jason Sproule and Gimtim Yong at the Asian Aerospace Air Show in Singapore, and by Monica Toporkiewicz at the National Manufacturing Week in Chicago in February 2004 , and by Erica Chavez and Tony Michalski at the Natural Products Expo in Anaheim in March 2004. Since then, It has be used by many OIO and ODO Trade Specialists to schedule Showtime appointments at hundreds of events.
It now includes features from the feed-back provided by all its users and can be advantageously associated to the Emenu Online Showtime Standard Registration forms e.g.
or Emenu Online IFP/Showtime Registration form e.g.
or any other registration form that you would prefer to use. Please note that some questions are very important i.e. "meeting location", "Date & Time you are NOT available for meetings", etc.
Please note that to view these e-menu public forms you need to logout from e-menu or if not, you need to open them into a different browser e.g. if you are log in into e-menu using IE, you need to open the public forms from Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
All in all, “ShowTime Scheduler” is a useful tool that can save you valuable time and energy. Carefully read the instructions and run the Quick Demo to evaluate how the Scheduler can help you organize your ShowTime projects. This application can and will be improved with feedback, so feel free to send all your questions, comments, and suggestions to Christophe Joly.
Christophe Joly – CSParis
Tel: +33 1 4312 7003
E-mail: christophe.joly@trade.govtrade.gov
P.S. The Showtime & Matchmaking Scheduler has its limits e.g. if your project requires
- more than 114 time slots per country, or
- more than 114 countries, or
- that for one given companies meetings need to be scheduled in more than one location
- that several countries need to meet together with a company at the same time
then the Showtime Scheduler will not work for you. Please do not hesitate to contact me or other experienced users before starting your project
- on large projects i.e. 30 some countries, 250 companies, 1000 appointments it can take up to 15 to 20 minutes to generate the company schedules. (It should be easy to shorten the process time by optimizing the code. Whoever is expert in Excel VBA coding should be welcome to contact me). This said if you are running the program on a Surface Pro 3 it will process the data in one third of the time.
P.S.S.: the Showtime Scheduler (then becoming the Matchmaking Scheduler) has been slightly modified to accommodate schedule of appointments between U.S. companies and foreign delegates for inbound trade missions or trade shows or even foreign direct investment matchmaking projects.
For a matchmaking project, the countries are replaced respectively by the organizations that are known before starting scheduling meetings i.e. the foreign delegates for a reverse investment trade missions, the multipliers as opposed to the investors for a FDI project. This said there is a trick one can use to list under countries the organizations that are not known beforehand if there will be less than 114 organizations total (contact me and I will share with you). Location of the meeting is also key and could prevent from using the Matchmaking Scheduler.
Please contact me at christophe.joly@trade.gov should you ascertain that the Scheduler can be used for your matchmaking project.
Please contact me at christophe.joly@trade.gov should you ascertain that the Scheduler can be used for your matchmaking project.
Also, please note (see below) that the lay out of a "country" schedule is less sophisticated that the lay out of "company" schedules which could be a slight problem for matchmaking projects as all parties are then external. There is not much I can do about it, apart modifying the label of the columns is the schedule to match your need.
Please read carefully the below instructions before starting.
This version of the Showtime Scheduler was modified so that it could be installed and operated on any computers given that you have admin rights to extract it in a given location. I strongly recommand that you install it on a flash drive that you can use on various computers and laptops.
To test if the Showtime Scheduler will be working properly on your ITA desktop or laptop you need first to do the following:
01- Create the “Showtime Scheduler” folder at the root of the flash drive
02- Use the EXTRACT ALL FILES button unzip ALL files into the Showtime Scheduler folder (Do not use copy/paste as many files are hidden)
03- Open the “Showtime Scheduler - v2016-04-03.xlm” file (note that you can save it as or rename it under the name of your project e.g. “Showtime Scheduler – Name of your Project”. What is important that it is always saved as an Excel Macro- Enabled Workbook (.xlm))
04- At the Security Warning, you need to click “Enable Content” otherwise the macros won’t be usable.
05- Enter just the name of one country name e.g. CountryTest1 in “Country Data” sheet and one company name e.g. CompanyTest1 in the “Company Data” sheet. (do not forget to Sort)
06- Schedule one meeting in “Country Appointments”.
07- Generate the Country Schedule by clicking the “Generate Company Schedules” button.
08- Go to the EmailALLCompanySchedules and click on create mails and check if there is a pdf file attached or not.
If yes, perfect. If not, modify you may want to modify your excel settings by going to
File-Options-Save and replace the excel saving settings as in the below print screen (replace Jennifer Loffredo’s name by your name).
If any problem, please email me at christophe.joly@trade.gov
If it works, I would recommend that you read carefully the “Instructions” tab before starting (this will save you a lot of time).
In short you will need then to:
01- Edit the fax template
02- Enter the country data
03- Enter the company data or copy paste special – value from the Showtime Regsitration Form Data 2 Showtime & Matchmaking Scheduler Converter.xlm file
04- Edit the H3 and the I3 cells in both in the EmailALLCompanySchedules and in the EmailALLCountrySchedules
05- Change the Date and Time in your “Country Appointments” using the “CHANGE DATES & TIMES” button.
06- Schedule your meeting in “Country Appointments”
07- Generate the Company Schedules by clicking the “Generate Company Schedules” button
08- Create mails to companies in EmailALLCompanySchedules
09- Generate the Country Schedules by clicking the “Generate Country Schedules” button
10- Create mails to TS in EmailALLCountrySchedules
One thing than can happen is that the scheduler freezes. If it ever happens (and it will), there is a way around.
Press CTRL-ALT-DELETE, then click START TASK MANAGER, Then click on END TASK (Twice). Reopen the Showtime Scheduler. Do not go on the “Country Appointments” tab as the risk is that it will freeze again. Instead go to View-Macros-View Macros. Then Select ShowtimeCompanyScheduler or ShowtimeCountryScheduler and then click RUN depending if you prefer to generate the Company Schedules or the Country Schedules.
Now you should be back in business until next freeze.
A few hints.
1- Never unprotect any sheets in the Scheduler as there is no need to do it and the chance to delete formula are great.
2- Remember that you can use the Showtime Registration Form Data2 Showtime & Matchmaking Scheduler Converter tool (included into the zip file) if ever you want to rearrange the columns of the data sheet collected from your Showtime registration form in a manner that is compatible with the Showtime Scheduler. By default it is set to work with e-menu Showtime Registration form that one can easily built from in IFP/Showtime Admin in e-menu (Showtime Standard Project Type). If you cannot see the IFP/Showtime Admin link in e-menu you need to do an access request at http://www.uscsfrance.com/ifp/emenuaccess.htm
3- If you copy data into “company data” sheet use paste value not to remove format and never exceed column AH as column AI is protected and therefore you will be prohibited to paste in it. It is nice to include the USEAC TS email matching the company in column AH and enter the email of the project team member in column AI (separate multi emails by a semi-column;)You can drag down your first entry. All emails to be cc will then be automatically combined into AJ.
4- If you copy data into the “country data” sheet use paste value not to remove format and never exceed column I as column J is protected and therefore you will be prohibited to paste in it. The USEAC TS email need to be added in column G (H is only for matchmaking project). Also enter the email of the project team member in column I (separate multi emails by a semi-column;). All emails to be cc will then be automatically combined into J.
5- It is preferable not to use company or country names that have more than 31 characters including blanks. If not, make sure that the 31 first characters are unique as otherwise the scheduler will make an error as Excel automatically truncates sheet name to 31 chararacetrs and you cannot have 2 sheets with the same name.
6- It is also preferable not to edit the name of a company in the “company data” sheet after you have started scheduling meeting for this given company as otherwise you get will get a runtype error unless you reschedule all the meetings of this company using the drop down menu. In all cases if you edit a company name "SORT" company data otherwise you may generate wrong schedules.
7- You cannot print a master schedule directly from the scheduler. The process is the following:
* Select the appropriate range in the Country Appointments sheet starting in B1 e.g. Range B1: AL115
* Copy and Paste in a new sheet outside the scheduler.
* Select the whole sheet and adjust the width of all columns at once.
* Click on the cell under were you want to have an horizontal page break. Go to Page Layout – Breaks and Insert Page break. Repeat the process.
* Go to Page Layout – Print Titles
* Print Area select range starting in A1 e.g A1:AK115
* Row to repeat at top: Select $1:$1
* Column to Repeat at left: Select $A:$A
* Then you can preview printing.
* Make sure that you have selected landscape
* It should print 18 pages (letter format) with row and column heading repeated that you need to assemble with tape. (hope my formatting will be kept)
* If you are not satisfied with the result you can scale it to whatever size: I have selected 80% and or change the margins etc. Make sure that With and height are on Automatic.
8. The Salesforce ID/Case # can be added as a company data and will show in the “Country Schedule” for each company so that it will be possible for the trade specialists to include the notes right after or during the meetings. Having the ID/Case # included will allow them to put the information in the right place in Salesforce. We will see how this is used as we go.
9- Showtime Counseling Sheet Database Builder: You will find included into the zip file a small app that process your showtime scheduler data (company data and country data) to prepare the database to be used to prefill Showtime Counseling Session Sheets for TS. One needs to follow the instructions written in the “INSTRUCTIONS” sheet of the Showtime Counseling Database Builder SF Excel file and then merge it with the Showtime Counseling Session Sheets PF Word document that you would have first customize with your project information.
Please email me a copy of your scheduler at christophe.joly@trade.gov if you have any problems or if you just want me to check.
There will be a lot more to say but it is probably a good start. Just drop me an email at Christophe.Joly@trade.gov should you intend to use the Showtime Scheduler so that I can assist you early in the process.
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To Download the "SHOWTIME SCHEDULER" for Excel 2007-2010 (version February 26, 2017),
Please click here (zip file)
Please click here (zip file)
The zip file include the Showtime Scheduler (Excel file) but also the "Showtime Registration Form Data 2 Showtime&Matchmaking Scheduler Converter v2" to arrange your registration data in a manner that is compatible with the "Showtime Scheduler" (Excel file) and the "Showtime Counseling Sheet Database Builder" (Word and Excel files)
To Download the "MATCHMAKING SCHEDULER" for Excel 2007-2010 (version February 26, 2017),
Please click here (zip file)
Remember that this is a twisted version of the Showtime Scheduler. It is not perfect but well used it does the job.
Please click here (zip file)
Remember that this is a twisted version of the Showtime Scheduler. It is not perfect but well used it does the job.
The zip file include the Matchmaking Scheduler (Excel file) but also the "Showtime Registration Form Data 2 Showtime&Matchmaking Scheduler Converter v2" to arrange your registration data in a manner that is compatible with the "Matchmaking Scheduler" (Excel file) and the "Converter Country Data for Matchmaking Scheduler" (Excel file) - Do not to hesiate to contact me at christophe.joly@trade.gov before you start using it.
If you intend to propose Showtime at your trade event, you may want to consider combining it with the IFP TRADE LEAD PROGRAM to promote US companies to foreign buyers.
To know more about it download the New IFP Reference Document, Please click here (pdf file)
To know more about it download the New IFP Reference Document, Please click here (pdf file)
For any questions, please contact Christophe Joly - CS Paris / email: christophe.joly@trade.gov