I have no idea of others workflow, but for complicated shoots I have used software like (an old version) Filemaker Pro. I enter shot, actor, location etc, and then I can sort in various ways to set a shooting schedule.

I was wondering what others were using.

MS Excel seems to be popular with a lot of people. In addition to internal features it can read and write to several types of databases like Ms SQL server desktop edition, or Access.
There is also software specifically designed for handling production issues. I think Movie Magic and a couple of others fall into that category.

Being a software developer myself, I've been tempted to write something (freeware), but haven't found any takers who'll help in the design phase (database, screen, reports....). And I only write for Windows for the time being.

thanks Joe, I am a PC guy just to be clear. I am trying to make heads or tails of using Excel, (I do have that) but the sort function only goes 3 levels and at times I need more.

Bill, not sure what your budget is, here is a link to a company that makes dedicated production management software...

http://www.company-move.com/index.html

Price seems fair, but I don't know how good they are.

I would take a look at www.sunfrog-tech.com they have some nifty software such as "Sunfrog Film Scheduling" it takes care of scheduling as well as shots, location, & script.

This is similar to a thread I started:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=69073

I tried Company Move and it always gets hung up, so I didn't bother buying. This is when I used both a Mac (mine) and a PC (my wife's), both updated to the latest versions of OS.

One thing I'm digging is, for Mac:

www.neooffice.org

and for PC (and I think Mac):

http://www.openoffice.org/

or

http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/index.jsp (no longer free)

heath