Getting Started - Hardware Requirements

Theatre Manager is cross platform, you can have both Macintoshs and PCs access Theatre Manager's database on the same Network, without worrying about any data integrity issues. As a general rule, if your computer is less than 2 years old, it will work with Theatre Manager.

There is an example configuration and a friendly reminder ... always do your backups faithfully each day.


Apple Macintosh

  • 2 Gigs of ram
  • 300 MB free disk space for Theatre Manager
  • 1024x 768 resolution (wide screen LCD monitors are fantastic)
  • Macintosh compatible printer and an optional thermal
  • OS 10.5.x or later is required.
  • Any dual core intel mac, 2.0g GHz or better. Due to features in Lion (OSX 10.7) and planned features for Theatre Manager, PowerPC Macs may not be officially supported after Jan 31, 2012 or limited to using 9.12.xx of TM or earlier.


IBM PC and Compatibles

  • Any dual core machine at 2.0 Ghz or better. Some older Pentium Processor running at 3.2+ GHz or better will also work. Celerons should not be used because they have no floating point
  • Vista Pro or Windows 7 Pro. Note that as of July 2011, XP is not recommend as some recent Microsoft windows updates appear interfere with a number of applications - and XP is no longer supported by Microsoft.
  • 2 gigs of ram for Microsoft XP Pro. 3 or 4 gigs for Vista Pro or Windows 7 Pro
  • 300 MB free disk space for Theatre Manager
  • For Vista or Win 7: 1280x800.
    For XP: 1024x 768 resolution
    (wide screen LCD monitors are fantastic)
  • Windows compatible printer and an optional thermal ticket printer
  • Mouse or other Windows pointing device


Database Server

  • Theatre Manager uses Postgres SQL for the database. You can use it on windows, OSX, or Linux
  • we prefer gigabit network setup, but 100T switched Ethernet works fine
  • Recommended specs are:
    • Operating system: Any supported by postgres which includes OSX 10.5 and later (32 and 64 bit), XP, 2003 server (32 and 64 bit), win 7 (32 and 64 bit), 2008 server (32 and 64 bit), most linux distributions, solaris. You do not need to have a 'server' operating system to run postgres.
    • Memory: 4GB minimum, 8GB or more recommended
    • Disk: the faster the disk array, the better. It is the single most import factor in server performance. We recommend multiple disks, striping (raid 0 or 1+0), hardware raid, fast spindles 3GB sata or better -- anything that will make disk I/O fast
    • two processors if possible, quad core if economical


Backups

  • A backup script is provided during database setup that will allow you to create backups at any time (even when theatre manager is running). It is automated and dumps the data to a directory of your choice as well as using FTP (optional) to copy the database to another machine. This is typically configured to save a month of backups. We do recommend using some device (eg USB keys) to save offsite copies.

    Suggestions for a good backup strategy.

Getting Started - Example Setup

Theatre Manager will operate on virtually on any platform that is is installed on. From Theatre Manager's original conception, it has been designed on the Macintosh and the PC platforms (simultaneously), while still enabling a single version of the source code, resulting in a true cross platform box office solution.

When purchasing a new desktop system, budgeting $450-$700 for a box office workstation has been a standard price for the past 5 years. For that price, you will get a great price/performance value including the monitor and everything else you need.

Examples that fall in this price range (as of July 2011):

  • PC: Intel® Xeon® Quad or i3 core, up to 16 gigs ram, XP Pro, or Windows 7 Pro, gigabit ethernet, up to 2000 GB SATA or 256 GB solid state drive
  • iMac Mini, 2.4 Core 2 Duo, 2 gigs ram, 320 GB HD, OSX Snow Leopard
  • Theatre Manager is better at higher screen resolutions (>1024x768 pixels). 23" wide screen LCD's are about $150-$200 and are perfect for the box office, allowing larger seating maps to be displayed making it easier for your patrons and staff to view the available seats during the sales process

If you are going to buy, check the consumer ratings for phone and web based computer vendors. In many instances, you can get some good deals on machines purchased this way.

Workstations

Web Listeners

 In most cases, a web listener should have the same machine specifications as a workstation. Often organizations install it on the main server, some make the web listener a standalone machine.

Ethernet

 The best performance today is Gigabit switched Ethernet network using cat 5 or cat 6 cable

You can use 10/100T networks if that is what is available.

Server

 Database server specifications (in order of importance) are:
  • Raid 1+0 or Raid 5 fast SATA drives. This reduces drive latency.
  • 4GBs of ram at a minimum. 8 GBs are recommended for larger installations.
  • A server (Mac or PC) with at two core 2 duo processors or more.
  • OS-X 10.5.x or later, linux, Win 2000 server or later, XP, or Win 7. Note that Postgres is 10-15% faster on unix flavours of the OS than windows flavours.
  • capable of running Postgres 8.4.4 or later
  • gigabit ethernet port.

Printers

 If your are purchasing a laser printer for general report printing, Theatre Manager works with both Mac or Windows Compatible printers. It is recommended, the printer be Post Script or PCL capable.

You may also want a specialized thermal ticket printer to connect to the server. This allows you to print tickets at the time of sale. Thermal printers performance is around 3600 tickets per hour (1 a second). These can be configured as ethernet, serial or parallel devices. If you want to share ticket printers, we recommend only using ticket printers with an ethernet port.

For large volume box office operations, we suggest one ticket printer per Box Office wicket. More printers provide emergency backup. Depending on your requirements, subscription or group sales can elect to have their own printer or share with box office printers. Depending on print volume (and walkups), sharing a ticket printer between one or more box office wickets is supported through an ethernet capable printer interface.

Database Size

 The amount of disk space is 100% dependent on the operation of the organization. Factors that involve the database size:
  • Is the Theatre to be set up as festival seating or reserve seating
  • The number of plays per year
  • The number of performances each play has per year
  • The number of patrons who are involved with the Theatre
  • The seating capacity of the Theatre(s)
  • The amount of Patron Ticket Purchase History kept on-line

At most installations, the databases are about 3 GB for a reserved seating 700 seat house with 80 performances/year and 20,000 patrons. Some larger examples are:

  • 347 seat Theatre; Reserved Seating; 10 Shows/year; 40 Performances/Show; 50,000 Patrons; 3 years of Ticket history; has a database of approx. 650 MB.
  • 400 seat Theatre; Festival Seating; 6 Shows/year; 14 Performances/Show; 12,000 Patrons; 1.5 years of Ticket history; has a database of approx. 150 MB
  • 2600 seat + 600 seat venue with 300,000 + tickets per year and 400,000 patrons - about 25 GB.

To start, allocate 10 GB of disk space for the live database and 1 GB for each backup image you will maintain online. Remember the Theatre Manager application resides on each individual workstation, and the only file kept on the file server is the database.
Hardware Management Policies To manage hardware requirements, often an organization will purchase one or two new machines each year. We suggest you buy mid range computing power for best price/performance ratio and install them in the box office. You can then migrate the box office machines around the organization. Doing this annually, you will have an effective hardware management policy and users will be happy as the computers can keep up to the new features introduced to the software.

Backups, Data Verification and Data Integrity

This tip is about the general care of any database, be it Theatre Manager, your accounting information, word or excel documents, contracts, or any other data on your computers. There are three sub topics:

  • Backups
  • Data verification and integrity within the database
  • Computer checkups

Backups

American Express estimates that the average value of 100 megabytes of company data is about $1,000,000 if you count the cost to acquire it or damage to the company if you lost it all. They also state that the percentage of companies that do not recover their data within 10 business days which never fully recover financially: 50%. Backups are an important safeguard for a valuable corporate asset.

Media

Use a commercial grade media to store the information. Tape, disk and optical media are listed in order of preference due to longevity. Tape has a 3-5 year expected life, optical has a 10-25 year expected life

Floppy disks are an unreliable backup media because:

  • they have an expected life span of less than 2 years (industry average)
  • there is just too darn many of them that the sheer volume of floppies create a management and storage problem
Backup Data

Backup all data to one common place using one common process. If data is categorized and treated differently, it increases the possibility that data can slip through the cracks.

Backup Programs Too!

Simply backing up data is not sufficient. Programs that were used to create the data also change over time and there is no guarantee that data from a few years ago can be read by the current version of a program. The best backup strategy includes backing up an image of all data and programs to one source so that both can be restored without a synchronization issue. (i.e. now I've got the data, where is that program disk - they can be lost, the floppies go bad, or the serial number activation codes for some programs are lost - all of which mean that you would recover the data without the ability to use it).

All Computers

The need for data backup is obvious. Including operating systems, programs and machines is also important. The actual O/S for each machine (Mac or PC) is different and optimized for the particular machine during installation. (For example, SE/30's run better with system 7.1, new PowerMac's need 7.6.1, 486's with low memory run better with win 3.11 and new Pentium's may have Win95 or NT).

There are serialized components within the operating system for network oriented multi-user applications. (e.g. Theatre Manager, backups software, Quark Express, Word, Excel) that need to be restored at the same time as the program in order to work.

Rotation of Media

Optimal rotation for backups include a scheme that supports generations of backups going back a number of months or even years, depending on legislative requirements or corporate risk. A typical, suggested rotation is:

  • 2 weeks of daily backups that get rotated. This means there will be two Monday tapes which will get used each alternating week. These are the most critical tapes as files are usually lost or file corruption is noticed within this time period.
  • There should be 2 months of Friday backups. This allows files that slip through the first crack to be caught relatively easily.
  • There should be a one or two years of 'month end' backups that occur on a specific day of the month. This allows recovery of data to a specific point in time (e.g. what was the accounting data at the last Grant application, or what was the house counts in Theatre Manager, or recovery of an important graphic form last years brochure that should be used again).
  • Ultimately, a good scheme may include 7 years of yearly backups to satisfy the Government should they come looking for data (don't forget that you need the program at the same time as the data).

This represents 10+8+12+7 = 37 separate backup tapes or disks at a minimum. More will be required because repeated use of daily tapes will wear some out.

Offsite Storage

Backups need to be rotated off site - out of the office. Typically the most recent two daily backups are removed from the office the day after the backup is taken. This allows business recovery in the event of fire or theft from the principle site. Again, all data & programs on the same medium allows for faster recovery from the business outage.

Redundancy

In the case of physical backup device failure, it is important to own or have access to another similar device so that you can recover files or keep the backups proceeding until the primary device is repaired. Not everybody has this luxury and often take temporary measures.

Dos and Don'ts

The do's of backups:

The don'ts of backups:

  1. Do backups daily
  2. Do backups before an upgrade
  3. Do backups before doing a significant batch activity (like mass update of marketing fields, building season subscription favorite seats, adding a new database segment).  It is sometimes easier to back out a change by restoring an older database!
  4. If you leave something running over night (e.g. a big mail list rebuild or creation of subscription seats), backup the database first so your automatic tape backups will get at least one copy of the database.
  5. Keep two weeks worth of daily backups
  6. Keep 2 months worth of monthly backups
  7. Keep a yearly backup of the database.  At the same time, back up the specific copy of Theatre manager used to access the database.  If you upgrade later in the year, it means that you can still access your old database using the old program without having to upgrade that database too.
  8. Test your backups once a month by trying to restore from the backup to make sure they are reliable.
    • See if you can read the data.  If not, your hardware may have problems that need fixed.
  9. Do take a copy of your latest backup home with you.  If your machines are stolen or wiped out in a fire, the backup at home will be your only friend!
  1. Do not do backups to the same tape or zip drive over and over again.  All it takes is for a bad copy to be made and the computer die to realize that you have nothing.
  2. Do not skip a day
  3. Do not ignore messages from the computer that say backups didn't work, or a Theatre Manager file was in use!  Find out why and then get the hardware fixed if need be.
  4. Do not do backups to floppies.  They are unreliable.  Use tape, digital tape, CD-burners, Zip or Jaz devices.

Example Backup Strategy and Devices

Volume of Data

Assume there are 5 machines on a network that need backed up. Assume each of these machines has at least a 250 meg drive (or more) representing over 1 gigabyte of files that should be backed up on a daily basis. Assume that the Theatre Manager database is on one of those machines and it may have a 500 Meg or greater drive. (Most new machines come with 1 meg minimum).

Compression algorithms (about 35% effective) mean that this example needs at approximately 1 to 1.5 gigabytes of storage for each backup.

Performance

The data is usually backed up and verified overnight. It needs to be done in a 10 hour slot from 11pm to 7am to avoid impact on evening call-outs, performances and morning work. Faster media is better.

Alternatives

Tape Units
(recommended)

Examples are Sony 7000 DDS-2 format (highly recommended), Exabyte tape drives, Travan format drives.

  • higher initial cost for device
  • lost cost of each media (tapes about $20)
  • store large quantities of data (4-8 gigs) which is very useful for sites with 3 to 15 computers.
  • Drives are available that will back up to 50 gigabytes or more.

Optical Cartridges

Examples are CD re-writable drives

  • moderate cost
  • low cost of media (about $10 each)
  • back up 650 megs per CD, useful for sites with one or two computers
  • media lasts as much as 25 years if properly cared for because it is optical storage vs magnetic tapes

Removable Cartridges
(least recommended)

Examples are Syquest or Zip Drives

  • lower initial cost
  • high cost of media (approx.. $150 for a 1 gig drive) times 27 for a good rotation.
  • more fragile that tape drives
  • need multiple disks if backups over 1 gigabyte. Useful for sites with 2 or three computers

Data Integrity

Just having backups is a very good start. We also recommend doing tests on any important data according to a schedule. For example, with your accounting data, printing a balance sheet or income statement monthly and then testing the receivables balance is a generally accepted accounting principle. What you are doing is really testing the data integrity.

Theatre Manager has some built in safeguards. We recommend:

  1. Running the data utilities check at the beginning of each day.
    2. This is very quick and will alert you if Theatre Manager noticed some problems with the network since the last time you ran the 'data utilities'. There is a setting in default data to the database. Please set it to 1 day.
  2. Turn on create transactions at time of sale in default data.
    3. This adds protection by creating transactions when tickets are sold or donations are taken. The tickets and the transaction data are in separate data files so that if you lose one or the other (perhaps somebody deletes it), you can still recover a days activities.
  3. Copying your database using the copy database feature once every month or so.
    4. This defragments the data inside the database and allows Theatre Manager to check all the data intensively. You can let it run overnight and then use the newly created database as from then on.

Ticket Printers

Working with Ticket Printers

Theatre Manager works with Boca, Boca Dual, Practical Automation, Datamax Allegro and Datamax S-Class printers by default. This section will deal with steps for setting up a printer to work within your network. Steps on connecting a user to a printer begin at 15 on this page.

Changing IP Address on Practical Automation Printers

Setup for a Practical Automation Printer

There are two methods for changing the ip address on a Practical Automation printer with an ethernet port. These are to:

  • Use a web browser to talk to the printer. This may not work with some browsers
  • Use a special application to access the printer and change a number of settings. This method always works and is the preferred method.

Arts Management recommends that you provide a static IP address to the thermal ticket printer. This ensures each time the ticket printer is turned off and back on again, the Theatre Manager's workstations will be able to communicate properly with it.

Arts Management recommends that you place the assigned IP address for the printer on a label and stick it directly onto the printer. This will ensure staff members can easily identify the IP address of the ticket printer to Arts Management in case there is a problem with ticket printing and some troubleshooting may need to happen.

Option #1 - Using the Practical Automation Tool

  1. Download the installer for the Practical Automation Tool from http://www2.artsman.com/Software/PANetworkUtilityVB-1.1.zip.
  2. When the download is complete, extract the ZIP file into a new folder anywhere that is easily accessible.
  3. Open the folder.

    There will be a number of files.

  4. Open the folder labeled Package and find the file labeled setup.exe.

  5. Double click on the setup file to run it, and complete the installation.
  6. After the installation is complete, return the previous level in the folder that the Practical Automation Tool was extracted to.

    Do this by pressing the Back button or the Up button.

  7. Setup the Practical Automation Printer, power it up, and connect it to the network via a hub, switch or router.

    If a hub, switch, or router is not available, a crossover cable between another computer and the printer will be needed.

    The default address of the printer is 192.168.1.1, (which is a commonly used IP address). Make sure that the printer will not conflict with something else on the network before powering it up. If another device is using the same IP address, it is recommended that you use a crossover cable to another computer rather than hooking the printer into the network.

  8. In the Practical Automation Tool folder, double click on the PANetwork program to start it.

  9. At the top of the screen, enter the IP address 192.168.1.1, and then click the Ping & Get Printer Info button.

    This will connect you to the printer.

  10. Near the bottom of the screen, click on the Change IP Address tab.
  11. Change the IP address and subnet mask as necessary.
  12. Click the Update IP Address using FGL Command button.

    Once the settings are saved, the IP address at the top of the program will need to be changed to reflect the new IP address, and to re-connect to the printer.

  13. To verify the settings, turn off the printer. Hold down the F0 button and turn the printer on.

    A ticket will print containing the IP address of the printer.

  14. Once everything is set, each user will need to be adjusted in Theatre Manager to connect to the new printer.

    Click here for more information on changing a user's ticket printer settings.

Option #2 - Using a Web Browser

  1. Change the IP address of the computer temporarily to 192.168.1.xx where xx is anything you want except 1 (for the ticket printer is using 192.168.1.1). You may want to take a screenshot or write down your existing settings so you can reset them after you are finished.
    a) On a Macintosh go to Apple >> System Prefs >> Network,
    b) On a PC go to Network Places >> Properties >> Local Area Connection >> Properties >> TCP/IP >> Properties
    c) Set your Built-In Ethernet to become Manually set at 192.168.1.2 (anything but 192.168.1.1) and subnet of 255.255.255.0

  2. Setup the Practical Automation Printer, power it up, and connect it to the network via a hub, switch or router.

    If a hub, switch, or router is not available, a crossover cable between another computer and the printer will be needed.

    The default address of the printer is 192.168.1.1, (which is a commonly used IP address). Make sure that the printer will not conflict with something else on the network before powering it up. If another device is using the same IP address, it is recommended that you use a crossover cable to another computer rather than hooking the printer into the network.

  3. Open the computer's web browser, typically either Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. Do not use Safari as it will not be effective.
  4. In the address bar of the web browser enter the following IP address: http://192.168.1.1 and press the Enter key.

    A prompt for user name and password should appear. Leave these fields blank and press the Enter key.

    A new page will open showing the Printer Configuration.

  5. Click on the link labeled 'Network' to adjust the IP configuration.
  6. Change the IP to the new static address, and adjust the subnet if necessary.
  7. Click the OK button at the bottom of the screen.

    The word 'Done' should appear to the right of the button confirming the settings are saved.

  8. Click the Apply Settings button to update the printer.

    The printer should reset once the settings have been updated.

  9. Turn the printer off and back on one time to ensure that the settings have correctly updated.
  10. To verify the settings, turn off the printer. Hold down the F0 button and turn the printer on.

    A ticket will print containing the IP address of the printer.

  11. Once everything is set, each user will need to be adjusted in Theatre Manager to connect to the new printer.

    Click here for more information on changing a user's ticket printer settings.

  12. Reset the IP settings for your computer to what they were before you started.

Disable SNMP on Practical Automation Ticket Printer

Disabling any unused service from the network, as per PCI DSS standard 2.2.2, may require you to disable the SNMP service from the ticket printer. This would only apply to 'Ethernet' ticket printers as parallel, serial, and USB cabled ticket printers do not offer the SNMP service.

If you are required to disable the SNMP service, there is an application/utility called the "Device Installer" that will allow you to make these changes. You can find this utility at http://www.lantronix.com under Support/Downloads. Download this application/utility to update the software within the ticket printer.

Please contact your local IT department for assistance making this change.

Ticket Printers - Boca Printers

Setup for a Boca Printer

  1. Setup the Boca Printer, power it up, and connect it to the network via a hub, switch or router.

    If a hub, switch, or router is not available, a crossover cable between another computer and the printer will be needed.

  2. Open the computer's web browser, typically either Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, or Apple Safari.
  3. In the address bar of the web browser enter the following IP address: http://10.0.0.192 and press the Enter key.

    This should open the Boca Systems' Printer Configuration Page.

  4. Near the bottom of the first column of settings, use the drop down menu to change Ethernet from DHCP Enabled to Yes

  5. At the bottom of the second column of settings, set the IP address for the printer.

    Typically leading zeros are not necessary in an IP address, but they are for this setting.

  6. At the bottom of the third column of settings, adjust the Subnet Mask if necessary.
  7. At the bottom of the fourth column of settings, set the Default Gateway for the network.

    Again, it is necessary to include the leading zeros.

  8. Click the Save Changes button to finish the process.

    The printer should now be able to be pinged at the new IP address. Also, the new IP address will print on a test ticket if the information is needed to be stored somewhere.

    For information on connecting a user to the printer via Theatre Manager, click here.