Goal

After reading this article you'll:

  • be able to configure an exercise
  • be able to create Multiple Master Event lists to run in parallel

Summary

The Master Events List (MEL) is the primary way to create an exercise. It presents a familiar table of content organised in sequential time order.


 Name
Master Events List
 Benefit
Allows you to schedule content to be published automatically at a time relative to the start of the exercise
 Features
  • Quickly and easily import existing exercises from Excel or as CSV file
  • Import partial master events lists to add to existing exercise to build exercise by vignettes 
  • Create tab and section headings to better organise the exercise and increase productivity
  • Drag and drop to re-organise injects
  • Automatic re-timing of changed injects
  • Publish single content item or single inject sequence for more efficient testing and exercise development
  • Switch to Flowchart view to add additional player interactivity
  • Create concurrent multiple Event Lists  (MultiMEL)




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What the columns mean

 Column
 Purpose
Time
Time is expressed using 24Hr clock because of tradition but all times are actually relative to the start of the exercise.
From
This is the persona from whom the content will be automatically published at the Time. Note that even if a role-player is behind this persona, Conducttr can still publish the content automatically
Faction
Optional. See Factions
To
Which player(s) will receive this content? See About Message Destinations
Team
Optional. See Teams
Method
This is the channel to which the message will be published. The label "Method" has been used in preference to "Channel" purely for tradition
Subject
Subject is only present on channels that support it such as email, blog posts, news articles and such like.
Message 
Message is the actually content body. Note that the content is rendered according to the Method. For example, if the Method is "MicroBlog" then the message will look like a Tweet.
Expected action
This is both a note to the exercise control team and a reminder in the Event List

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Tab
This is used to better organise your content so that it's faster/easier to find and access.
Note that if you switch to Flowchart

Possible actions


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Add content 
Click "Add" to add content below the selected row
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Edit
Click a row to open the edit panel.
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Reorganise
Click the 3 dots at the end of a row and drag-and-drop to move it.
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Publish the exercise
Select Run>Publish to space to upload the exercise to your cloud space
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Publishing content during development
Publish single content item or specific serial
Right-click on the row and select "Publish to player" to publish only that specific content or "Publish to Moderator" to publish all the content attached to the same time period.

Import from Excel or CSV file




MEL template.csv
 Organise your content according to this template


The extended format provides greater power to import questions, data points, past comments and hacked website details.

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About those additional columns in the Extended MEL template


 Column
 Purpose
ImageURL
The URL of any rich media asset that should be attached to the content. Such as video, image, audio asset.
Subtitle
Used only for News article content
Question Type
Only Button and Choice are supported. See the help article on Questions
Text Button 1
Text Button 2
This is the button/choice label (i.e. the text that will appear on the button)
Data point
Enter the label for a data point and the button/choice event will be communicated in real time to the exercise control team. Please see data points.
 Persona_url
 Permanent link to the persona the content is coming from
 Message_url
 Permanent link to this inject
 Past
Comments
 Only for social media and news channels. Comments that will be published in response to the inject 
 PostType
If hacking a website or hiding details, this will be Action. All other injects are Posts. 
 HideWebsite
Details
 Hide website details from player view. 
 IsHacked
 Turns your website to 'hacked'. 


Multiple Master Events lists


With Multiple MEL, you will be able to design and control independent MELs in the same scenario, that will run in parallel in the exercise.


A. Creating Multi MEL in the Scenario Editor



 1. Select MEL view in Scenario
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 2. Create as many tabs as you need. We call them "days", but it's just a way for you to organize all your injects and serials. 
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 3. In each tab, you see a number. Click on it to see the MultiMEL menu. There is one MEL by default, but you can create as many as you like. 

Then, you can assign your desired tabs to each MEL. If you have more than one tab assigned to one MEL, they will play in that order (from left to right)
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 4. Publish your scenario to upload all MELs to your space
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B. Controlling MultiMEL in the Facilitator Dashboard


On your left column of your Facilitator Dashboard, the Exercise Control panel displays your exercise Event lists (MELs). There, you can see the progress of the exercise and click to publish or pause injects. See two parallel MELs in yellow below.


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In the Facilitator Dashboard, you will be able to control and reset the MultiMELs that you have uploaded to your space. Here's an overview of its functionality.

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What does reset mean?


Reset messages
Clears: 
- All messages from all channels (from Scenario Editor and user created)
- VideoConference rooms
- Social Watch words and filters
- Teamchat Plus channels
Reset data
Clears:
- Timeline
- Piecharts
- Pulse
- AAR observations
- Checklist data
Reset live exercise configuration
 Clears:
- Contact lists