"Takin' it step by step..."
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"Takin' it step by step..." |
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WELCOME Welcome to the ClubScheduler tutorial! We have made every effort to make ClubScheduler incredibly easy to use. If you scroll down, however, you may notice that there is quite a lot of information listed below. Please don't let that intimidate you. This tutorial is written with the most novice computer users in mind. If you're a novice computer user, we hope you appreciate the detail. If you are a more savvy computer user, it might be more appropriate to skim the contents of this page. Whatever your level of computer experience, we're confident that ClubScheduler is within your grasp. That said, if you have any suggestions on how we might improve this tutorial, this website, or the ClubScheduler software itself, please don't hesitate to contact us. We very much appreciate your feedback! |
From the Download page at ClubScheduler.com, click on the link near the bottom of the page that reads: "Click here to download ClubScheduler." For an update-to-the-minute description of the latest feature enhancements and bug-fixes, a link is provide there as well, or you can click here if you're curious. |
After downloading, you'll need to find and run CSInstall.exe before you can use ClubScheduler. CSInstall.exe is a self-extracting installation program. Its job is to decompress and install ClubScheduler on your computer. To run CSInstall.exe, select "Run..." from your Windows Start menu, and use the browse button to find the folder that contains the downloaded program. Select CSInstall.exe, click on the "Open" button, and then click "OK". The installer program asks you to read the End User License Agreement. If you agree to the terms of the license, simply click "Yes", and then follow the installation instructions. By default, and unless you decide to install the software elsewhere, the installer creates a folder on your Windows Desktop called "ClubScheduler", and places the ClubScheduler program, along with a few other helper files, in that folder. The installer also adds a shortcut to ClubScheduler in the Programs menu of the Windows Start menu. |
For easy access to the ClubScheduler website, the Welcome window offers a button that will launch your web browser and direct it to the appropriate address. Of course, you'll need to be online for your browser to work properly. Note: You'll find a similar button on the "About tab" on ClubScheduler's main window. After you've registered ClubScheduler, you'll receive your club's registration code via email. You may enter the code by clicking the button labeled "Registered users click here" on the Welcome window. After entering your club code, the Welcome window will no longer appear. Your registration code is also listed for your convenience and easy retrieval on the "About tab." You'll need it when it's time to hand the scheduling responsibilities over to your club's next VP of Education. |
Once you've completed providing your club information, you'll be prompted to enter information about your club's members. Membership information can be supplied in any of three different ways. It can be manually entered. It can be imported from a spreadsheet program such as Excel. Or it can be loaded automatically if the previous schedule manager for your club used ClubScheduler and supplied a Transfer File. For detailed information about importing data from spreadsheets and about Transfer Files, refer to the "readme.txt" file that comes with the program when you install it. If you plan to enter your membership information manually, ClubScheduler only requires that each member's name be provided. It's worth it, however, to enter each member's "Last Speech" date and their "Speech Count" (the approximate number of speeches they've given since joining Toastmasters) as well. Doing so will make the schedules that ClubScheduler generates seem more intelligent right away, since members who have just presented speeches will not be scheduled before more appropriate candidates. Ultimately, when you provide all of the requested information for each member, your schedules and rosters will become more useful and user-friendly. |
Most of the information that you can enter here is self-explanatory. Membership Status, however, is worthy of some explanation here. Membership Status offers four ways to think of members. One, members can be active, which is the default. Active members are generally considered available for scheduling unless they have specific time-off requests entered for them. (More can be found on time-off requests below.) Two, members can be marked as inactive. Inactive members remain on the primary member list, but are not (by default) considered available to fill roles in meetings. In other words, the auto-assignment engine will not choose inactive members to fill roles, but you may specifically assign inactive members to roles. Three, members can be marked as ex-members, in which case they are automatically transferred to the Ex-member List. The Ex-member List is maintained and accessed separately via the Member Information tab of ClubScheduler's main window. Ex-members are never available for scheduling, but are easily reinstated as active or inactive members simply by resetting the Ex-member checkbox. Finally, members can be marked as guests. The Guest List is also maintained and accessed separately via the Member Information tab. Guests, like inactive members, will never be selected by the auto-scheduler, but may be manually assigned to roles when you create schedules. You can always return to enter or edit member information at a later time. In order to begin using the scheduling features, however, you'll need to enter the names of at least eight to ten club members. If you've entered too few names, ClubScheduler will ask for more. A minimum number of members is needed for the software to find enough candidates to fill the various roles. |
The other four folders, named Schedules, Rosters, Agendas and Reports, are where ClubScheduler saves your nicely formatted files. These files are great for viewing, printing, sharing via email or publishing directly to your club's website. You may copy, paste, move and share those files at will. They are there for your use. |
After entering your club and membership information, you're ready to start using ClubScheduler. There's really no wrong way to proceed. It's perfectly OK simply to start exploring the program by clicking on various buttons and checking out what happens. If you ever need context-sensitive help, simply press the F1-key at the top of your keyboard. If you'd like some more guidance, however, here's what we recommend:
If you've not yet done so, bring up the Club Preferences window to tailor ClubScheduler to your club. Do this by selecting the "Club Info" tab from the Main Menu, and then "Specify Club Rules and Preferences." Here's an example of the introductory Rules & Preferences window with the default settings selected, followed by the non-introductory version, accessible via the "Club Info" tab of ClubScheduler's main window. |
Notice that, on the introductory version, you may specify how many speakers to schedule, which of the roles should be considered significant, and how often, at a minimum, roles may be repeated. You can even tell ClubScheduler how many speeches a member must have given before being considered eligible to serve as Toastmaster of the Day.
The non-introductory version omits some of the options of the introductory version because, once you're well-established using ClubScheduler, those options are modified via other means. Once you've entered all of your club and membership information, click on the "Save Changes" button on the Main Menu so that your changes are saved to your computer's hard drive. Note: Here's a helpful thing to keep in mind. In general, whenever you click the "Cancel" button on any window, your changes will be discarded. And only when you click the "Save Changes" or the "Save and Quit" buttons on the Main Menu are your changes actually saved to your computer's hard drive. Therefore, you can play around with ClubScheduler as much as you like, for example, by creating, editing and deleting test schedules to see how the software performs. When you're finished messing around, simply click on the "Cancel" button on the Main Menu, and everything that you've done will be discarded.
Click here for an example of a club roster created by ClubScheduler in .HTML format. This format is perfect for printing, sharing via email, or posting directly to the web. Note: Roster contents are completely customizable. |
From the "Member Availability" tab, you can
specify time-off requests for individual members. Simply click on the
button labeled "Add New Time-Off Request" to display this window.
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Time-off requests provide a powerful method for ensuring that member's are scheduled according to their individual availability and preferences. Requests can be on-going, for example, if one of your members cannot ever attend a meeting on the first Monday of the month. Requests can also specify a single date or a range of dates. You can even specify dates when a member cannot fill any major role (e.g., Toastmaster of the Day, or Speaker) or prefers not to fill a specific role (e.g., Videographer.) |
With all your member's requests entered, it's time to start scheduling. All the scheduling functions are available on the "Meeting Assignments" tab of the main window. If you're curious, it might be helpful to see the end product before diving into the process too deeply...
If your club has been operating for a while, you may wish to enter
some historical assignment data before generating new schedules. Doing so will improve the "fairness"
of ClubScheduler's auto-assignment selections. To enter past meeting assignments, click on the
button labeled "Review History...", use the "Next", "Previous",
or "Jump to Date" buttons to select the meeting dates for which you wish to enter past assignments, and
use the "Assigned Member" drop-down list to select the members who filled each assignment. |
If your club maintains a sign-up sheet, you can enter those requested assignments into ClubScheduler by clicking on the button labeled "Prepare Sign-Up Sheets". Again, use the "Next" and "Previous" buttons to display the sign-up sheet corresponding to the correct date, and select the appropriate member(s) for the requested role(s). |
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Next, select "Generate
New Assignments" from the "Meeting Assignments" tab. You'll be prompted for the
date, which defaults to the date of your club's next meeting. Select
"OK", and ClubScheduler will display a proposed schedule of assignments
for that meeting. Let's take a closer look at the Proposed Assignments window, since
this is really where ClubScheduler does its heavy lifting. |
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The proposed assignments are generated automatically by ClubScheduler. For each role, a candidate is chosen based upon scheduling fairness, member availability & requests, and the specific preferences of your club. As shown above, preferences include the number of speakers to schedule, how often members should be scheduled, which members are relatively new to the club, etc. NOTE: Meeting themes are not automatically proposed. The box to enter each meeting's theme is provided for those clubs whose VPE likes to suggest themes, or likes to keep a record of past meeting themes. If no themes are suggested, then the row for displaying meeting themes on the printed schedule is entirely omitted. You'll notice a check-box, positioned directly under the "Assigned Member" drop-down list labeled, "List only eligible members (smart lists)". When Smart Lists are displayed, only those members who are available for assignment and eligible for the currently selected role are included in the "Assigned Member" drop-down list. Furthermore, the candidates are listed with the most eligible members at the top of the list. This is how ClubScheduler makes scheduling so easy. It assists you in making sure that assignments are made fairly and by the rules. The other option is to un-check this box, displaying Complete Lists. When Complete Lists are displayed, all the members are listed. If you ever decide to assign an in-eligible member to fill a role, ClubScheduler will alert you to the rule conflict, but will nonetheless allow you to make the assignment. In this way, ClubScheduler is designed to help with the scheduling process without standing in the way.
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There are only a few significant differences between the Edit Assignments and the Proposed Assignments windows (besides the background color displayed in the their Assignment Lists.) When editing schedules:
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Simply accept the schedule as is, or make whatever last-minute changes may have transpired. When you accept the schedule, and if you've elected to track each member's speech progress in your club's rules & preferences, the speech progress window will appear for each assigned speaker. The Speech Progress window looks like this: |
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Next, if you've elected to track attendance in your club's rules & preferences, the Attendance Record window will appear. The Attendance Record window looks like this: |
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ClubScheduler makes it easy to transfer scheduling responsibilities
when it's time for a new VP of Education to take the helm. This is accomplished
by using ClubScheduler's ability to create Transfer Files. |
As you might suspect, there are numerous other features and nuances available in this powerful scheduling program, but this concludes our tutorial. For a more exhaustive listing of ClubScheduler's features and how to use them, install the program (if you've not already done so), and press the F1-key at the top of your keyboard to view ClubScheduler's context-sensitive help. And Happy Scheduling!!! |
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If you're using Internet Explorer, a
window may pop up that looks like this. We recommend that you choose
to download the installer program (CSInstall.exe) to your computer's
hard drive. Doing so will require you to pick a location where the
program file should be saved.
When you run ClubScheduler for the first
time, a Welcome window prompts you for your club's name, and offers the
option to "Continue Evaluating." Most likely, that's what you'll
want to do. Until you register, this Welcome window will reappear
each time you run ClubScheduler, showing the number of days left of your
evaluation period.
After dismissing the Welcome window,
ClubScheduler will ask you for some basic information about your
club.
The first window asks for your club's meeting day and time, and the second
asks about your club's rules and preferences. If you wish, you may simply
accept the pre-defined rules and preferences at this time... You can always return
to modify them later.
ClubScheduler automatically creates five
sub-folders in the ClubScheduler folder on your Windows desktop.
They are labeled "Data", "Rosters", "Schedules",
"Agendas" & "Reports". The Data
sub-folder is where ClubScheduler saves information about your club and
its members. Files in the Data sub-folder should not be moved or
tampered with directly. Doing so could cause ClubScheduler to stop
functioning properly. 
At this point, you could try creating a
Club Roster to see how one looks. To do so, select the "Output Files" tab,
and then "View, Save & Print Club Rosters". Follow the
instructions, and within seconds, you'll have a beautifully formatted,
up-to-date roster to print out or distribute to your membership via
email.
Another powerful feature of ClubScheduler is its ability to create
entirely new roles. New roles are created simply by clicking on the <add new> item
in the Assignment List. (There is a similar <add new> entry in the drop-down list
of roles labeled "Selected Role". When a new role is created, the Role Properties
window is display, where you can specify the name and unique scheduling requirements for that role.
In the example here, an "Ah Counter" is being defined with scheduling preference given to
the newer members. User-defined roles offer a powerful means by which to customize ClubScheduler to
meet your club's unique scheduling requirements. When you're finished defining your new role, be
it JokeMaster, Ah Counter, or anything else, you simply click on the button labeled
"Activate", and ClubScheduler makes sure it gets added to the assignment list and scheduled fairly.
To track progress, simply click in the checkbox next to the name of the prepared speech (if any)
that the member delivered. 
Attendance records are a versatile means by which to track member attendance,
ribbons won, officer training, and membership dues paid. The list is automatically initialized to reflect
the members who were confirmed to participate in the scheduled roles. You can select and move one or more
of the remaining members from the Not Attending list to the Attending list, and for each attendee, specify
whether they participated in Table Topics and/or won any ribbons.