Manager

xTATTEREDx  · +FINE+  · *SUPERIOR*  · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡  · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v50.14 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

Manager

Room requirements
Office	Meager Office
Quarters	None
Dining room	None
Tomb	None
Furniture requirements
Chests	None
Cabinets	None
Weapon racks	None
Armor stands	None
Other
Mandates	None
Demands	None
Arrival conditions
Appointed on the nobles screen.
Function
Allows large production orders. Allows workshop profiles to be set.

The manager is a noble that allows players to create multiple production orders. Players can rapidly dispatch any number of jobs from a single screen, without having to add tasks to individual workshops. The manager also lets a player set up profiles for workshops.

Relevant Skills

A certain set of skills are relevant for any manager. Furthermore, certain personality traits influence whether any experience is gained in the skill. There are soul attributes that affect the skills, and other skills that affect the same attribute’s cross training. The ones relevant for a manager are as follows:

Skill (relevant for manager)		Personality Trait (needed to gain social skill)		Attribute (affected by social skill)
				Body	Soul
Administrator	Organizer				Analytical ability
					Creativity
					Social awareness
Social - Other	Consoler	Straightforwardness (Honesty)	> 39		Linguistic ability
					Empathy
					Social awareness
	Pacifier	Cooperation (Compromising)	> 39		Linguistic ability
					Empathy
					Social awareness

The better match with the skills, traits and attributes in the table above, the better manager a dwarf will be. Try to avoid traits that halt experience gain for a relevant skill, otherwise time will be lost training a dwarf who will never get better at that skill.

Office

A manager only performs his duties in his office, so it is absolutely necessary to assign one. Since only a meager office is required, a single chair in the dining room will suffice.

To set up a dwarf to be the manager and give him an office:

1. Hit n to enter the Nobles screen
2. Select Manager and hit Enter. Assign a dwarf to be the manager. If nobody is particularly suited to the job, picking the Expedition Leader is a reasonable choice.
3. Build a chair somewhere or locate an existing chair.
4. Use the q command and place the cursor on the chair. Select the option to make the area into an Office and assign your manager as the owner of the office.

At this point the red [REQUIRE] under "Manager" should have disappeared from the nobles screen and you should be able to queue up work orders.

It is trivially easy for a manager to get experience in the Organizer skill. Just queue a lot of jobs to produce 30 of something, such as Collect Webs, which appears first on the list. The manager will gain experience when validating the order, not when the order is finished. You can cancel the order after it is validated if you wish.

Work orders

Creating a work order works like this:

1. Hit j-m or u-m to enter the Manager screen.
2. Press q to create a new work order
3. Start typing (part of) the name of the item you want to produce. This will cause menu options that don't match the string you type to disappear from the menu.
4. Use the directional keys to select the specific type item you want.
5. Enter the quantity of items you want to produce.
6. Your work order will appear in the list. You can remove it or raise its priority.

If there are at least 20 dwarves total then the manager will need to go to his office to "validate" each work order before it is acted on. If a manager is somehow occupied with other things then this might take a while, so in larger forts you might want to make sure your manager is not overly burdened with other labors. (For example, disabling hauling and cleaning for the manager might be a good idea.) The manager will also not perform his or her duties if on break, drinking, attending a party, asleep or otherwise incapacitated (perhaps due to wounds). Managers don't require writing materials such as paper or scrolls to validate production orders.

To see if an order is approved, check the manager screen — approved orders will have a green checkmark, while unapproved orders will have a red X. Job orders will remain enqueued until the manager is once again in his (or her) office.

After a production order is approved, corresponding tasks will be automatically added to applicable workshops until the production quota has been met. You can add conditions to an order to automatically restart the job without the need to have manager approve it again.

There are four kind of conditions: Item condition which refers to the amount an item. Order condition which refers to the status of another order. Conditions from reagents/materials which are about the availability of the items needed to make a job. Conditions on products, which refers to the product made by the job.

An announcement appears when each order is completed. For repeating orders, the manager then checks (at the selected time interval) for the conditions to become true again before restarting the order.

In repeating work orders, the quantity of items is treated as a batch size rather than a target number for total items to be produced. The quantity is set when creating the work order, and cannot be changed without redoing the entire order, conditions and all. A repeating work order will not abort mid-batch due to job cancellation or changed conditions. Be forewarned that perpetual (infinite) orders only check their conditions the first time they become true, since the (infinitely-sized) batch never completes. This can lead to confusion and frustration, as the order will never stop, regardless of failed conditions!

Here's a guide to setting up functional work orders: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=158287.0

Setting workshop profiles

The manager also allows players to change a workshop's "Profile". To edit a workshop's Profile, select a workshop with q and press P.

The workshop Profile enables players to restrict the dwarves that can use it and the minimum and maximum skill level required to use the workshop. They can choose who specifically can use the workshop by pressing enter on their name to permit/forbid their use of the workshop.

Additionally, using the Work Orders tab on the Profile screen will allow the manager to queue work orders specific to that workshop. Pressing Enter on the Work Orders tab will toggle whether or not the workshop will accept general work orders or only those set through the workshop's Profile.

Dwarves with strange moods seem to able to claim a workshop even if they do not meet the profile criteria.

A note of caution: workshop profiles persist^v0.31.12 even if the manager is killed, which can lead to workshops becoming unusable if the manager is killed and the dwarves permitted into the workshop die or are reassigned. Furthermore, workshop profiles seem to be slightly buggy. Adequate (rusty) weaponsmiths have been seen using a forge with the skill min/max both set to "Dabbling". This may be somewhat irritating if peasants are undergoing training.

Disadvantages

A disadvantage of overusing the manager menu is that the jobs requested will be fulfilled mostly in the order they were requested. This means that if you choose to make 30 barrels and 30 bins, the bins may not be produced until all of the barrels are done. Additionally, should another order be given at a carpenter's workshop, the existing tasks may need to be canceled or suspended. These problems are avoidable as long as the manager is not used too heavily, and if production orders are of relatively small amounts.

A useful trick to quickly clear the queue of a workshop is to slate the workshop for removal and then cancel this action.

A second disadvantage is that if there is more than one workshop which can fulfill a particular job set (such as several ordinary glass furnaces dedicated to sand collection, plus several magma glass furnaces for actual glass production) then the manager will distribute the jobs amongst all those workshops. While this can be an advantage (for example, if you want to speed up the work orders by having multiple workshops), this will make it difficult to dedicate different workshops to different tasks. To circumvent this, one solution is to fill a workshop with repeat or suspended tasks to prevent it from accepting manager orders. Currently however is possible to link a job order to particular sets of workshops, lessening this issue.

Raws
[POSITION:MANAGER] [NAME:manager:managers] [SITE] [REQUIRES_MARKET] [NUMBER:1] [RESPONSIBILITY:MANAGE_PRODUCTION] [APPOINTED_BY:EXPEDITION_LEADER] [APPOINTED_BY:MAYOR] [PRECEDENCE:160] [DO_NOT_CULL] [COLOR:5:0:0] [DUTY_BOUND] [REQUIRED_OFFICE:1]

V · T · E Nobles and Administrators
Appointed	Bookkeeper • Broker • Champion • Chief medical dwarf • Dungeon master • Hammerer • Manager • Messenger
Military Ranks	Militia captain • Militia commander • Sheriff • Captain of the guard
Elected	Expedition leader • Mayor
Aristocrats	Baron • Count • Duke • Monarch
Other	Consort • General • Outpost liaison
Unused	Captain • Diplomat • Lieutenant
Elven	Druid • Acolyte • Ranger captain