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January 2026
New Features
Appearance
- We've made improvements to the corporate booking user interface, including making it easier to see the film name, party name and organisation name on bookings.
Functionality
- Programmers can now create draft schedules in Film Manager, allowing them to work on upcoming schedules or program special events where titles and price cards can't be disclosed until the sale date. Cinema managers without permission to see the draft schedules see blocked placeholder timeslots.
Fixes
Appearance
- In Showtime Manager, trailer, intermission and clean-up durations now display consistently on session tiles for draft sessions.
Functionality
- Film Manager Showtime Manager now successfully loads after upgrading Film Programming to version 5.0.17 or 5.0.18.
- In Showtime Manager, we fixed an issue where sessions added from holdover bookings wouldn't inherit the booking's Sneak Preview and Played Film properties.
- If two or more users run the America: Holdover Confirmation report at the same time, it now works as expected.
- We've fixed an issue which prevented the correct corresponding week loading for a new site when changing sites in time block view in Film Manager Showtime Manager.
- When using the bulk-copy feature in Film Manager's Showtime Manager, the Next button now correctly becomes available when you click either Map by screen or Map by capacity.
- In Film Manager's Showtime Manager, sessions are now auto-spaced correctly based on the Gap Between Sessions setting, without requiring the setting to be saved again.
- In Film Manager's Showtime Manager, after adjusting the session auto-space time setting, sessions are now correctly spaced according to the new time interval, without causing sessions to disappear.
- In Showtime Manager, sessions can now, correctly, be created from marathon film holdover bookings.
- Film Manager Showtime Manager now correctly routs API calls through the Cinema Proxy for Service Framework and Cinema-CDN when the Cinema Proxy service is enabled, fixing an issue which prevented some customers from upgrading their environment.
- In Head Office, multiple attributes assigned to a session are now correctly delimited by commas in the tblCinema_Session_HO.Session_strAttributes field, improving parsing in customer exports and reports.
- Assisted Scheduling in Film Manager now successfully generates sessions when screen configuration is mismatched between Head Office and Cinema Manager.
- In Film Manager Showtime Manager's time block view, copying and pasting sessions between Cinema columns now saves correctly, no longer triggering a screen layout error message.
Usability
- In Film Manager, the Settings window now closes after clicking the Save button, improving the user experience.
July 2025
New Features
Functionality
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We've introduced a Timeline (compact) view for film scheduling in Showtime Manager. This new view allows you to see more screens at once compared to our existing Timeline (default) view. Use Timeline (compact) for an improved visualisation of as many screens as possible, depending on your screen resolution and monitor size.
Note: The session cards are smaller to maximise your screen's real estate, and we've updated the information available when you hover over each session.
Fixes
Appearance
- We've improved how session cards display in compact view in Showtime Manager.
Data Integrity
- In Showtime Manager, when you process a session swap that includes broken and regular seats, the broken-seat count recorded in the database is now correct, preventing sessions from being incorrectly marked as sold out.
Functionality
- We've fixed an issue with some search fields that didn't respond to typing a value.
- The default button focus on a popup in Showtime Manager is now the OK button, rather than the close button.
- We've fixed an issue which prevented the correct corresponding week loading for a new site when changing sites in time block view in Film Manager Showtime Manager.
- In Showtime Manager, for marathon sessions, the grey bars indicating the trailer, intermission, and cleanup durations are now accurately shown on the session card.
Stability
- In Film Manager > Showtime Manager, we now use a queue to minimise the chances of an error when multiple users are saving session changes at the same time. You can customise the timeout for the queue by changing the value of the new Head Office setting SaveTimeoutForSessionChanges.
Usability
- For better readability, we've increased the font size for session cards and tool tips in the Timeline (compact) view in Showtime Manager.
May 2025
Fixes
Functionality
We've fixed an issue which prevented Showtime Manager from importing sessions generated by Assisted Scheduling if any of the sessions was for a screen not synced with Head Office. Now, sessions will import for synced screens, and users will be warned about any unsynced screens for which Assisted Scheduling couldn't import sessions.
When a user creates an overlapping session in Showtime Manager's Time Block view, the session now correctly includes a cinema and the correct price card.
If two or more users run this report at the same time, it now works as expected.
November 2024
New Features
Functionality
The Session Scheduler, Program Inquiry, and Future Planning Chart module has been discontinued for on-premises installations of Film Programming. This module will no longer receive any updates, bug fixes, or support. Note: You can still access this module if you have already installed it with a previous on-premises installation. Contact your Vista representative for further support.
You can now manage Holdover bookings in screen mode in Showtime Manager (rather than using booking slots), giving you access to the Film Palette and Showtime Builder, simplifying the process of allocating films on the Holdover to circuit screens.
To use this feature, update the following two system settings:
- In Head Office > Maintenance > System Settings set the Holdoversheetview system setting to Screen
- In Cinema Manger > Maintenance > System Settings set the Holdovermode system setting to Screen
Leverage the power of our showtime assistant to suggest a film schedule in Showtime Manager, based on your forecasts and past-week performances. Simply click on the assisted scheduling icon and select the relevant days of the week to generate a schedule.
If you want to enable this feature, reach out to your Vista representative to discuss.
Our enhanced session cards in the scheduling grid give you a quick visual overview of admits and booked screen time. We've added an admits bar for a snapshot of session sales, and we now visualise pre-show, intermission, and clean-up times to make operational decisions easier.
Security
We've updated Showtime Manager to use a proxy server for certain Cinema endpoints to ensure optimal security.
Usability
We've improved the user experience in Showtime Manager for moving or deleting open sessions. You'll now be prompted to confirm these actions, helping to avoid the unintended consequences of an accidental click.
Fixes
Appearance
We've updated the Twitter logo and name to reflect the name, logo and branding for X.
The Film Palette and Session Properties panels in Film Programming Future Planning now hide or show correctly when the hide button or icon are clicked.
Weeks for each month displayed in Release Schedule in Film Manager now wrap to a new row if they can't all be displayed in a single row.
Film titles in Release Schedule in Film Manager now wrap to a new row if they don't fit on a single row.
Sales figures on release cards in the Release Schedule no longer disappear when switching tabs or navigating to the film details page.
We've improved the experience of navigating the Release Schedule. Now when you return to the schedule after opening a film's details page, you'll return to the same scroll position on the page.
Date picker calendars in Bulk Add bookings now align with the site's start day of film week.
Functionality
When you select Showtime Manager from the menu in Film Manager, the menu item is highlighted correctly.
Sessions are now properly saved to Head Office when you change a session's film to a marathon.
We added the new system setting BookingChartSitePaginationLimit to set the number of sites loaded per page in Booking Chart.
Showtime Manager correctly saves sessions even when there is a session identification conflict with Head Office.
On the Booking Chart, when the DisplayCodeForCinemaAndSite system setting is set to "No", sites are now ordered alphabetically, rather than by site code.
Default start date set for new bookings created in Booking Chart is now consistent with other places in Film Manager.
Sessions scheduled in Film Programming, downloaded to sites, and opened in Cinema Manager now correctly show broken seats as such, and prevent patrons from buying them at POS or on Web.
The holdover-status indicator (coloured circle) in Circuit Planning is now correct when navigating between weeks.
The default start date for new bookings created using Bulk Add is now consistent with other places in Film Manager.
Selecting 'Open Sessions' in Showtime Manager no longer opens sessions that are cancelled, unavailable or inactive.
Modifying a booking for advanced screening on the Booking Chart no longer changes the dates for other advanced screenings on the Booking Chart for the same or future weeks.
Showtime Manager no longer fails to load when the installed version of the Cinema add-in is lower than 5.0.15.
When changing sites in Showtime Manager, the current day(s) and zoom level will now remain the same.
In the Showtime Manager Session Properties panel, the selectable items in the attributes dropdown are now sorted alphabetically.
We've fixed an issue in the time block view in Showtime Manager that caused the scheduler to appear empty after switching sites.
When using the Booking Approval option for the HoldoverBookingMode system setting, scheduled sessions no longer occasionally appear as invalid in Showtime Manager.
- When using Showtime Manager, you can now drag sessions around the grid without experiencing sporadic issues.
Localisation
Month names in the Release Schedule are now displayed in the language set on the user's account.
Session status tooltips in the Showtime Manager quick access bar are now translated.
Performance
We've improved how Film Manager loads bookings, improving performance when sending a holdover with a large volume of film bookings.
Security
Read-only users can now access Showtime manager without seeing a permission-related error.
Stability
Circuit Planning no longer becomes unresponsive after sending a holdover for a week that falls outside of the weeks visible in Circuit Planning.
Usability
We've enhanced session swap messaging to provide clear guidance to users on updates in session status and seat swap requirements.
September 2024
New Features
Security
We've updated Showtime Manager to use a proxy server for certain Cinema endpoints to ensure optimal security.
Fixes
Functionality
When changing sites in Showtime Manager, the current day(s) and zoom level will now remain the same.
The default start date for new bookings created using Bulk Add is now consistent with other places in Film Manager.
Selecting 'Open Sessions' in Showtime Manager no longer opens sessions that are cancelled, unavailable or inactive.
Modifying a booking for advanced screening on the Booking Chart no longer changes the dates for other advanced screenings on the Booking Chart for the same or future weeks.
May 2024
New Features
Functionality
We've improved the film programming experience for exhibitors operating in multiple countries or regions. If the countries or regions you're operating in start their film weeks on different days, you'll benefit from the following enhancements:
- The Circuit Planning page now displays the site-level week start day where appropriate
- Bulk actions now account for your various sites' film-week start days
- You can filter sites by film-week start day on the Booking Chart and Circuit Planning action pages
- When creating and updating holdovers, you can now view combined figures for the last film-week's start day and weekend
The Refresh price cards button now has two options: Suggest price cards and Refresh price cards. Use the suggest option to update session price cards to Vista's best suggestions.
Fixes
Circuit Planning continues to function as expected when you send a holdover for a week outside of the weeks visible in Circuit Planning.
Appearance
The quick access bar no longer overlaps the last cinema row in Showtime Manager when sessions are selected in quick succession.
The film poster now appears as expected on the Film overview page.
Circuit Planning is no longer highlighted on the navigation pane when viewing Holdover or Showtime Manager pages.
Data Integrity
Zeros variances now appear as expected in Film Hire Audit report when Show zero variances is selected.
Attributes are no longer duplicated in the Films Without Contract Assigned report.
Database validation issues no longer prevent you from importing a new film from the release schedule tab in Film Manager.
We've fixed an issue that meant films couldn't be imported from MovieXChange due to an unexpected field in the MovieXchange data.
Sessions with sold tickets are now correctly sent to the Head Office database after sessions are swapped and seats reallocated.
Functionality
Screen mappings now load correctly in the select screens step when using Remember these screen mappings in Bulk Copy in Showtime Manager.
Refresh price cards now updates price cards to the new version as expected, even when a price card has a future version that is effective from a previous showtime manager week.
Saving a session in Showtime Manager with no sales channels selected no longer results in an error, and the session can now be saved to Head Office as expected.
The Future Plan Bulk Copy wizard now respects site-specific and new-release period attributes when copying film bookings.
- The Film Hire Payment form no longer misses records when a contract adjustment had been done and the form is filtered by status.
Removing an attribute from multiple selected sessions in Showtime Manager no consistently works as expected. Previously, issues could occur when using the Session properties panel to remove an attribute defined on some, but not all, of the selected sessions.
The update button on the movieXchange mapping form on the release schedule page is now unavailable until all required fields are completed. This change prevents users from clicking update before all required fields had values, an action that caused the film import to fail.
The Future Planning button no longer appears on the Holdover page in Screen Mode because the Future Planning page is not supported in Screen Mode.
Showtime Manager users can now select or edit the cinema operator in a session's properties, even when the system setting LockCinemaOnSession is set to No.
- Showtime Manager shortcut keys are now ignored while users are typing in the search bar of the price cards dropdown in the quick access bar.
- The Showtime Manager film palette is no longer open by default.
- Daylight saving time no longer prevents the vertical bar in Showtime Manager from indicating the correct time.
- The occupancy tab in the Historic Insights panel in Showtime Manager now shows total admits vs total seats, and average percentage data is calculated correctly.
When doing a Fill or Copy Last Week on the Film Manager Holdover page using legacy bookings, and when there are no bookings in the Playing section, users no longer need to click save twice before the page saved.
Navigating to the Dashboard from Circuit Planning, Holdover or Future Planning no longer resets the date to All Sites. Instead the system respects any previous Planning Group option selection.
We've fixed an issue that sometimes resulted in an error message when users changed the planning group in Holdover in Film Manager.
To let users know about legacy booking data for a planning week in Holdover, notifications now appear in Playing, Advanced Screening, Other Content, and Unassigned.
Users can no longer change data in Future Planning when another user has already opened a week with legacy booking data.
Users can now create new distribution terms when using Adjust Contract in Film Hire Payment.
The Holdover page now loads correctly and does not cause console errors.
When creating a new booking in Corporate Bookings, search results for the Film field now include only films with an active status.
Where available, generated film forecasts are now displayed on the booking chart.
Film Manager's Booking Chart now loads sites correctly, loading three sites per page.
Showtime Manager now retains existing information in the External Code field when a session is saved.
When you select Showtime Manager from the menu, the menu item is highlighted correctly.
Default start date set for new bookings created in Booking Chart will now be consistent with other places in Film Manager.
Sessions for the week are correctly saved in the Head Office database when changing a regular film to a marathon film.
We added the new system setting BookingChartSitePaginationLimit to set the number of sites loaded per page in Booking Chart.
We've fixed a Showtime Manager issue that prevented sessions from being added or edited when a site's Service Framework service was older than version 5.0.12.
Showtime Manager correctly saves sessions even when there is a session identification conflict with Head Office.
On the Booking Chart, when the DisplayCodeForCinemaAndSite system setting is set to "No", sites are now ordered alphabetically, rather than by site code.
Localisation
- Translations are now correct throughout the seat swap flow in Showtime Manager.
Security
Read-only users can now access Showtime manager without seeing a permission-related error.
Stability
We fixed an issue that could result in a database connection issue while starting the MasterData service.
Usability
We've enhanced session swap messaging to provide clear guidance to users on updates in session status and seat swap requirements.
When switching planning groups on the Film Manager Dashboard, the 'Alternate Start Day' column now appears correctly in the Top Engagements and Top Performing Sites dashboards.
October 2023
Fixes
Appearance
The film poster now appears correctly on the Film overview page.
Circuit Planning is no longer highlighted on the navigation pane when viewing Holdover or Showtime Manager pages.
Data Integrity
We've fixed an issue that prevented films being imported from MovieXChange.
Sessions with sold tickets are now correctly sent to the Head Office database after sessions are swapped and seats reallocated.
Functionality
Sessions are now properly saved to Head Office when you change a session's film to a marathon.
We added the new system setting BookingChartSitePaginationLimit to set the number of sites loaded per page in Booking Chart.
When scrolling through the Booking Chart site list, reaching the end of the list now loads the next page.
Showtime Manager's vertical time bar now updates immediately to reflect daylight savings time changes.
It's now possible to create new distribution terms when using Adjust Contract in Film Hire Payment.
Inactive films are no longer offered in film search results when creating corporate bookings.
The Holdover page now loads with the correct site info when a user changes the site on the Future Planning page.
Where available, generated film forecasts are now displayed on the booking chart.
Film Manager's Booking Chart now loads sites correctly, loading 3 sites per page.
Showtime Manager now retains existing information in the External Code field when a session is saved.
When you select Showtime Manager from the menu in Film Manager, the menu item is highlighted correctly.
Security
Read-only users can now access Showtime manager without seeing a permission-related error.
February 2023
Features
- It's now easier to make the same bookings for multiple sites, such as for major blockbuster films. In Future Planning, you can use the Bulk Copy button to copy bookings made on one site to multiple other sites, making it easier to plan bookings across your circuit.
- Cinema managers can be prevented from editing specified restricted session properties In Showtime Manager with the RestrictFilmBookingProperties system setting; these restrictions are applicable to sessions that are either Open or Approved.
The Weekly Film Hire report can now be filtered by circuit, allowing you to view the report for a specific circuit.
- We've updated Film Manager's appearance. You'll notice its look and feel is now more in-line with your other Vista products.
- We’ve made several improvements to Film Manager that make it easier to plan and manage the opening period for bookings across your sites
- The Group Sales Financial Summary report has a new filter for Status Reason. Now, you can not only filter the report according to events' current status, but also the reason for that status. The status reason is also appended to the event's status on the report itself, for extra visibility.
Corrections
- In Showtime Manager the quick access bar no longer obscures the last cinema row
- Errors importing new film from the release schedule tab in Film Manager have been fixed
- In Showtime Manager it's now possible to edit a session's cinema operator when the setting LockCinemaOnSession is set to No
- Shortcut key actions in Showtime Manager (for example CTRL-C to copy the selected sessions) no longer take effect when performed inside the price cards search box
- Attributes are no longer duplicated when running the Films Without Contract Assigned report
- The list of Film Hire Payment records filtered by status no longer omits records when a contract adjustment had been done
- In Showtime Manager's Session properties panel, attributes can now be removed from multiple selected sessions
- The movieXchange mapping form now requires all fields to be completed before clicking Update, preventing import failures.
- The Future Planning button is no longer available in the Holdover page in Screen Mode
- Zero variances now appear correctly in the Film Hire Audit report.
- Screen mappings now load correctly when using Remember these screen mappings in Bulk Copy in Showtime Manager
- Refresh Price Cards now correctly updates price card versions if a price card had a future version that was effective from a previous showtime manager week
- The Refresh price cards button now also offers the option to choose suggested price cards
- Saving a session in Showtime Manager with no sales channels selected no longer results in an error
- The Future Plan Bulk Copy wizard now correctly handles site-specific and new-release period attributes when copying film bookings
- In Booking Chart, updating a print number for a film with an existing advance screening booking no longer creates a duplicate advance screening booking
- In Booking Chart, adding bookings for an alternate content film now assigns the booking to the correct booking slot
- Times for sessions now display correctly when their attributes include Cyrillic characters
- In the film mapping modal in movieXchange, the Create button for the Distributor field is now displayed correctly
- Incremental film hire accruals now post correct figures following contract changes that update the film hire code (for example, if film hire was calculated per screen but is now calculated per cinema)
- It's no longer possible to delete sessions that were previously associated with bookings
- Companion seats marked broken are no longer available for patrons to select in any sales channel
- Broken seats can no longer be sold in moved sessions
- The CSV export of the Weekly Session Listing report in Showtime Manager now includes missing session information
- The Weekly Session Listing report can now be filtered to include sessions with one or more attributes
- Film hire calculations no longer display an error if there are more than 1,000 sales in a day.
- The warning can no longer be ignored when attempting to navigate away from either the Film details tab or the Booking Chart while you have unsaved changes
- The Box office category is now visible when viewing alternate (ALT) content bookings in the holdover
Comments
3 comments
Film Manager release notes have been updated for May 2025.
Film Manager release notes have been updated for July 2025.
Film Manager release notes have been updated for January 2026.
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