Integrate Movie Magic Scheduling with Google Calendar


So I receive a couple of messages asking how I created this integration between Movie Magic Scheduling and Google Calendar. Instead of answering one by one, I decided to create this tutorial that teaches how to do the integration.

The process is pretty simple. We have to create a CSV file using Movie Magic Schedule. To do that we need to run a REPORT that will transfer all the database info into a pdf file and save this pdf to a CSV file.

In order to do that you need the following software:

  • EXCEL
  • WORD
  • ACROBAT READER
  • MOVIE MAGIC SCHEDULING

PART 1 – CREATING THE PDF FILE

Download and import the following report that I created.

CALENDAR EXPORT – BY MARIO AMADEU.

To import a calendar you have to open a Movie Magic Schedule, click on DESIGN, a list of Report Layouts will appear, click on the IMPORT ICON, select the downloaded file and voilà.

A report called Calendar Export by Mario Amadeu will show up. Run the report by double clicking on it and then click on Print Preview. The content generated will be barely readable, don’t worry about that because I did this way so the whole information stays in one page for exporting purposes. Print the file as PDF so you can transfer to excel. The first part is done.

PART 2 – CREATING THE CSV FILE

Open the generated PDF file, rotate 90 degrees clockwise, and save. Select all, copy and paste to a word Document.

Every line should have a set of information. For some reason the line breaks messes up sometimes when copying and pasting to word. Because of that, I created one more step on word just to make sure everything will be smooth. With the text copied to word, go to EDIT->REPLACE. In the field “Find what:” type “}”, and in the field “Replace with:” type “^p”. Hit REPLACE ALL button.

Note: if the line breaks are fine, then replace “}” with a “blank space”

Save the file as txt. Open Excel and click on DATA->GET EXTERNAL DATA->IMPORT TEXT FILE. Open the text file created on word and a Text Import Wizard will open.

On step one choose Delimited;
On step two select Semicolon;
On step three select the second column and change the data format to DATE MDY
Hit finish.

The excel file will be created. Select the column B, START DATE, and format the column as a DATE with format MM/DD/YYYY. Save the file as CSV. DONE.

PART 3 – IMPORTING TO GOOGLE CALENDAR

This is the last step. To import to Google calendar, you have to open Google Calendar and under OTHER CALENDARS click on ADD->IMPORT CALENDAR. Browse for the csv file you just created, select the calendar to export to, and hit IMPORT.

If for some reason you get an error message, open the CSV file on Excel and break the table down in less records. Save 2 or 3 CSV files, each one containing 30 lines maximum. Repeat the first line with the header and save it for each one. Import the files into Google Calendar. DONE.

CONCLUSION

The good part of this integration is the fact that you can add cast and crew to the calendar, they can see details like maps, description, synopses, page count, estimated time and comments. I am pretty sure that more features will be created in the future, and maybe in a next version of Movie Magic Scheduling we will have this integration built in.

What I am working now is creating fields for call time and more detailed information like inserting day breaks and so on.If anyone figures new things, please comment here and share with the world. Thanks.


12 responses to “Integrate Movie Magic Scheduling with Google Calendar”

  1. Awesome info! I am presently 2nd ADing a feature and hope to have
    some down time where i can look into this further. Def have some cool
    tricks in there that i didn’t know about!

    Again, thanks a ton!

    And hey, the film world is small so maybe i might meet you one day!

    I am sure all will go well for you!

    – Steve

    • If you learn more tricks, please let me know. thanks
      I might be shooting a film at the end of the year in NY. If anything we might get together. I ll let you know.
      take care.

  2. […] dedico ao meu website, minhas pesquisas, meus projetos. Um dos meus projetos é a integração do Movie Magic Scheduling com o Google Calendar. Durante esse processo eu tive que conectar uma serie de computadores em rede para poder acessar […]

  3. This is great!
    I am an assistant editor and have used this to get MM into a database for our scene cards thanks to this workflow.
    FYI
    I have downloaded your template in the past but the link is broken now.
    thanks again

    • Thanks for your message.
      I transfer this site to a different server and I lost some files.
      I will have to create this template again.

      can’t find it here anywhere also.

      thanks again

  4. Hey Mario,

    Can you please send me the link for this – it’s down here.

    I’d love to try this out! I’ve been making a calendar in excel and it takes hours.

    Thanks

  5. Mario,

    Has there been any more movement on this topic? Is your template still compatible with the latest versions of MMS? We spend a LOT of time building and updating calendars in our department that the AD’s have already spent a LOT of time building and updating. Seems a bit silly to double work. Please email me any updated templates or new info you may have. Thanks for doing this for everyone!

    • I think that 2 years for a reply is a good, right?!
      well as you can see, I don’t access too much my website. This must change now. I will see if this works with the latest MMS also will see if there is other improvements and let everyone know.

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