AskOPAS - Personnel
The new AskOPAS - Personnel utility allows you to see - for any set of upcoming Projects
- The instrumentation required for each section
- The number of staff musicians hired (for each section)
- The number of substitutes hired (for each section)
- The number of slots that remain 'open' for each section
This will aid in the two most common needs and requests that we hear from Personnel Managers:
- Seeing holes in a roster for a specific Project or Time Period - helping solve the"who do I need to hire for the upcoming subscription set" problem
- Seeing requirements for a specific instrument - for example, should a trumpet player go on leave for a month, you need to see which trumpet subs you have already hired, and where the trumpet needs are.
AskOPAS - Personnel is a separate small utility that sits only on the computer(s) you wish. It requires only a connection to the OPAS database. No special installation or setup isrequired. It outputs information to your screen, and to Microsoft Excel.
Documentation / Instructions
AskOPAS - Personnel instructions are available here in PDF format
Installation Files
NOTE: Always check with your IT department before downloading or installing any application or files from the Internet.
AskOPAS - Personnel is not "installed" as is a typical computer program; files are simply copied to your computer - no changes are made to your Windows System directory nor your Registry. The files required for the Personnel Assignment Utility are contained in a self extracting archive:
- FoxPro users (standard OPAS database) click here
- SQL Server database users click here
Installation instructions are here in PDF format
How It Works
AskOPAS - Personnel opens to this screen, used to define the activities for which you need personnel information.
You will input the date range for which you wish to see personnel assignments, and can also input any other details to narrow the search. You may, for instance, wish to see only Pops or Subscription concerts, see assignments only for concerts conducted by your Music Director, etc.

Once you define the criteria, you'll click the Done button. The utility will find the activities and open this small screen on which pick the criteria you wish to see. This example asks for only the brass section:

You will click OK and the utility will present the data you requested in a grid (shown below). At this point you can:
- As in OPAS, sort, reorder, auto-size and move columns
- Select certain rows by CTL+click or SHIFT+click
- Select certain columns through the use of a special"omit" column
- Export this data to Excel
This example shows the Maximum number of players required, the total Staff Hired and their Names, the total Subs/Extras Hired and their Names, and the number of slots Open.

You can get the information you need from the screen above, or click the Export to Excel button to automateically dump this information into Excel (the uitlity will launch Excel for you) so it can be printed, sorted, etc:

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