What is Global Elements?
What we are calling "Global Elements", which you might refer to as an "Element Well" or "Element Manager", is a powerful product inside of Shoflo allowing you to seamlessly create linked elements that you can re-use across multiple rundowns and events. Inside our Global Element Manager, you'll create items & elements similar to how you currently build them inside of Cue, complete with all the formatting features you're used to. What separates Global Elements from regular elements or rows is that you can re-use these rows across rundowns, and any changes you make to items inside the Global Elements Manager can be published to their respective instances throughout your events.
Activating Global Elements
Global Elements is linked to your team's account inside of Shoflo and can only be used once activated by a Shoflo Account Executive. If you're interested in using Global Elements, reach out to your account executive via email, or ping us via the blue chat icon at the bottom right of your screen to learn more.
Global Elements Jargon
We use some industry-standard language, as well as our own terms when describing Global Elements. Here are some of the terms we use and what they mean!
Element Manager - This is a special tab accessed via your team dashboard where you will manage all of your team's global elements. From there, you can create or edit Element Sets & Tags.
Global Element - A Global Element is a special type of row or element that was created inside of the Global Elements Manager. Global Elements inside of your rundowns are denoted by having a special globe icon when you hover over the row.
Tags - Global Element Tags are an easy way to identify different global elements. They're fairly flexible, so you can use them largely to your liking. Including customs colors and names as well as the ability to apply more than one to each element. Tags can be used to denote an element's time frame (e.g. Pre-game, In-game,...) or to denote what type of element it is (e.g. Sponsorship, Operations, Team Promo,...)
Publishing Changes - Whenever you make changes to global elements, these changes aren't propagated immediately upon saving. Rather, changes to global elements need to be published to the rundowns they're in. Otherwise, the change remains with the global elements and will only be reflected in any future rundowns that global elements is added to.
Retrieving Changes - If you're not sure a global element in your rundown is referencing the latest version, you can elect to retrieve any changes for that row. When performed, if there are any updates they will be retrieved from the element manager.
Global Elements Insert Modal - Accessed via a globe icon in the upper right of your rundowns, the Global Elements Insert Modal is a unique modal that allows you to drag and drop global elements into the running order of your rundowns.
Element Metrics - When inside the Global Element Manager with a row selected, you can view metrics for each element via a pane at the bottom of your screen. This pane will show metrics for each element such as each rundown the element is in, and when those elements have been performed via our time stamping feature.
Building out your global elements via the Global Elements Manager
Global Elements "Need to knows"
It's important to know that creating and editing rows functions largely the same way as it does in your regular rundown view, with a few caveats explained below.
There is no concept of personal column orders in the Global Element Manager. Any column order changes you make inside the element manager will also be applied to anyone else working inside of the element manager.
There are no start times or preset times inside of the element manager. Since these are more localized on a per-rundown basis, they'll be calculated there based on the element's duration.
There is no tracking inside of the element manager.
All Global Element creation and management is exclusive to the team admins on the team account. Regular Admins & Show Callers can still edit instances of global elements inside of rundowns, but they cannot publish or retrieve updates to global elements.
Navigating to the element manager
Click on "Teams" in your side nav, then on your team that has Global Elements activated. This will route you to your team dashboard.
Click on the tab that says Element Manager in your team dashboard. Note: if you're presented with a splash describing global elements, it hasn't yet been activated for your team!
Click on the name of your Element Set to bring you to an unfiltered view of all of your global elements.
After successfully completing step 3, you should now be at the Global Element Manager. If you see a purple bar at the top, you're golden.
Building out your first global elements
We preload your element manager with a few default global elements, so you can either start editing those or delete them and create your own.
To create new global elements, you can click on the Add Item element below the last row. You can also select any cell and use the keyboard shortcut Shift + CMD/CTRL + DownArrow to add a row below.
Next, you can fill out your content for that row much like you would for a regular row inside of a rundown. We recommend not getting too specific for content. For example, instead of saying "Tonight's National Anthem will be performed by Nancy Delgado!", instead say "Tonight's National Anthem will be performed by <PERFORMER NAME>." This helps avoid specificity that might be confusing down the line.
Building out global elements really is that easy. In the next steps, we'll go over assigning tags, as well as how to get those global elements inside of your rundowns.
Creating new tags
Navigate to the element manager tab on your team dashboard.
Click on the blue "Create Element Tag" button.
In the modal that appears, you can type in the name you'd like the Tag to have, as well as give it your own custom color.
Once you have the information filled out, click on "Create Tag" and your tag will be created.
Assigning Tags
Navigate o your global element manager.
Hovering over an element will reveal the tag icon on the far left, click that to open the tag picker.
Click on their respective boxes to assign that element the respective tags.
Filtering by tags
Navigate to your global element manager.
Below the purple header is a dropdown under "Filter by tags". Click on it to reveal your tags.
To filter, just select the tags from the dropdown and we'll only display elements in your element manager that are assigned all the selected tags.
To clear a filter, reopen the dropdown and click on "Clear Filters"
Inserting global elements into your rundowns
Inserting your freshly built global elements can be done in one of two ways: from inside the Global Element Manager, or from within your rundowns.
Inserting global elements while in the element manager
In the purple navigation header, click on the leftmost white globe icon located at the right side of the header. This will open up the Global Elements Insert Modal. Note: The modal is split into two halves. The left half displays the list of items for a particular rundown, and the right half displays your global elements.
In the left pane, below where it says "Insert Global Elements" is a dropdown that allows you to select a rundown from your list of active events in which you want to place global elements. Select one of these.
To insert elements from the right pane, click and hold on the element you wish to insert, and then drag it over to the left pane. The list will adjust to show you where you intend to place your global element. Release your mouse to drop and insert the element.
Note: You can also re-order elements in your rundown in the left pane by dragging them around to their new order.
Inserting global elements from within the rundowns
The insertion of global elements from within a rundown functions largely the same way as outlined above. Just navigate to your rundown, and click on the white globe icon near the upper right-hand corner of your rundown. This will open the same insert modal as described above with the left side pane pre-populated with the content of the rundown you're on.
Note: The globe icon will not appear in the rundown for an event crew who is not a team admin as only team admins have the access to global elements.
Saving your existing rows as global elements
If you're like most of our customers, you already have dozens of pre-built out elements that you're already using, but would like for these to be global elements. Luckily, you can convert any regular row in your rundown into a global element.
Hover over the row you want to be a global element and click on the cog wheel icon.
Click on Save as new global element from the dropdown menu.
In the modal that appears, assign your new global element to an element set, and choose the tags you wish to apply to it. This step is required before your new global element can be used!
Click on Publish to send your new element to the global element manager. It is now ready to be used as a global element throughout your events.
Navigational tips & tricks
We've tried to make it as easy as possible to navigate throughout the world of global elements. Here are some handy ways we've made navigation easy.
When in the Global Elements Manager, you can click on the table icon in the upper right-hand corner of your screen (to the right of the globe) to bring up a quick rundown switcher. This loads up all of your active events & rundowns, and each one can be clicked to route you to that location.
When the global element insert modal is open, in the left pane the dropdown allows you to switch out different item lists that you can then insert global elements into. For example, if you're working in the pre-game rundown and have the modal open, you can click on the dropdown and then load up the in-game rundown to quickly insert global elements into that rundown, without having to directly navigate to it first.
In the right pane of the insert modal, you can click on "Go to element manager" to take you directly to the global element manager.
In the left pane, you can click on "Go to show" to take you directly to that rundown that is selected in the dropdown.
In the metrics pane at the bottom, you can click on the rundown & event names to be routed to those locations.