Scheduling (Digital 2)

Setting your criteria

When scheduling in Digital (2), users can either select locations using the Auto Chart feature or they can manually select locations from the Reservations tab.

Setting Targeting Requirements

A user can identify any desired conditions (or location characteristics) that they may want to meet. Similarly, there may be certain conditions attributed to a location that a user may wish to avoid. Ad Manager allows you to store these criteria with the Subcontract for future reference, or to create/change them during the Assignment process. Note that criteria changed while assigning locations is not saved with the Subcontract.

If you are setting the targeting for a Subcontract, go to the Requirements page of the Subcontract window. If you are changing or creating criteria to run during the Chart process, go to the Requirements tab of the Chart window.

Location Properties

The Required Location Properties feature allows you to filter the locations to be selected based on certain properties. For example, you can use this feature to select only those locations that are in a specific market, have certain conditions, have a classification value or a specific neighbor.

The Excluded location Properties feature allows you to ignore locations to be selected based on certain properties. For example, you can use this feature to avoid those locations that are in a specific market, have certain conditions, have a classification value or a specific neighbor.

Manually Assigning Locations

There are multiple ways to assign locations to a showing in Ad Manager. Two manual methods are drag and drop assignment and assignment by location criteria.

Drag and Drop Assignment

With drag and drop assignment, you can open a view or create a Finder listing Locations that meet your criteria. In order to undertake a Drag and Drop Assignment, you must be able to see your list of Locations AND the Reservation Page of your Subcontract (this can usually be achieved by resizing both windows and placing them side by side).

Using CTRL+click and SHIFT+click, highlight the desired Locations as appropriate. After you select the last Location, hold the mouse button down and drag the cursor over to the Reservation Page. The cursor will change to a box with a (+) sign, indicating you can release the left mouse button.

If you are assigning a single location, Ad Manager will display the Reservation details screen, allowing you to review the location being scheduled, along with the requirements. Any conflicts can be found on the Conflicts page. To accept this location, close the window and click Yes when asked if you wish to save changes.

If you are scheduling more than 1 location, the Conflicts to Ignore screen will appear. You can choose which conflicts to ignore when scheduling these locations.

If there are any warnings generated by the assignments, Ad Manager will display the following window.

To view the list of Locations that have conflicts, click the <Yes> button.

To review the Conflicts generated by a particular Location, double click it in the list and choose the Conflicts page.

To "Accept" a Location, highlight it in the list and drag it to the Reservations page of the Subcontract and click the Save button in the toolbar. The Reservation Conflict(s) window will appear; click the <Ignore> button to add the Location to the list of Reservations.

NOTE: Each Location will need to added individually and the Reservation warnings ignored in order to them to be added to the Subcontract.

NOTE: Any Locations that are still listed in the Conflicts window when you click on Close will be rejected by Ad Manager and not assigned to the Subcontract.

Assignment by Location Criteria

To assign Locations by Criteria, go to the Reservation Page of the Subcontract and click on the New button (). A window will appear where you can select the criteria to use to find locations for this Subcontract. Enter your criteria and click OK when finished.

Once you click OK, the filter that will retrieve a list of candidate locations that meet your filtering criteria. Double click the desired location (or multi select locations) from this list.

Once you have selected a location, you can review and modify the associated information as necessary.

Auto Chart

One of Ad Manager's most powerful features is the ability to establish your criteria and provide the best possible showings for your clients.

First, find the appropriate Subcontract to schedule, and click on the Chart () button. From the Chart window, you can choose to override the duration of the reservation or the number of spots that will be taken by selected locations when scheduling.

You can specify the order of the locations to be displayed/considered for scheduling. From the View menu, select Order. You can identify the order you wish to use from this screen. If you wish to randomize the list within the parameters of your sort selection, click the Randomize button. You can also select which columns of information you wish to display by Customizing Your View.

If you wish to have Ad Manager create a listing of available locations to select from, use Interactive Scheduling. If you wish to have Ad Manager schedule the locations for you, use Automatic Scheduling.

Overriding the Default Settings

If you are tight for space during a particular time frame or want to find locations that may be acceptable that aren't currently considered available, you can use the Take Over features to generate a larger pool of locations to select from.

If you wish to refine or change the targeting criteria requirements or the distributions on the Subcontract, this information can also be modified. Changing these criteria allow you to fine tune a campaign showing.

If you make any changes to the original settings, the Chart window will display in the bottom right corner of the Status bar, indicating that an item has been changed.

Ignoring Conflicts

Ad Manager automatically checks for a variety of conflicts. However, if you wish to schedule Locations despite the fact that they generate certain types of conflicts, you can do so by going to the Tools menu and selecting Ignore Conflicts.

From this screen you can select which conflicts you wish to ignore. To select an item, simply click on it. Ad Manager will not warn you if a location has this scheduling conflict and will allow you to assign the location without the Conflicts screen appearing. The Automatic scheduling feature will treat locations with these conflicts as available and usable on the showing. Once you have made your changes, click OK to continue. Ad Manager will display in the bottom right corner of the status bar.

Interactive Scheduling

When you click on the Find button () in the Chart window, a listing of Candidate (available) locations will appear in the bottom portion of the window.

Assign One Location

Right click the location you wish to assign to the flight and choose Accept or click the Accept button () . If a conflict exists,the Charting window will indicated the Location has been skipped.

Assign Multiple Locations

To select multiple locations, use the CTRL+click or the SHIFT+click, then right click and choose Accept or click the Accept button ().

Ad Manager will attempt to assign the locations up to the charting requirements that have been specified on the Requirements page. If a location is not available because it generates a conflict, Ad Manager will skip the location. After you have scheduled the locations to the dates, the following window will appear, providing you with the status of the locations you tried to assign. To close this window, click on the Close button. <Assign Multiple Locations>

To see a listing of locations that have been assigned, click on the Scheduled button (). If you wish to remove a location scheduled from the Scheduled window, highlight it and click the Delete button ().

To return to the list of candidate locations, click on the Candidates button (). If ??? appears in the status bar, click Find () to generate the list of available locations again. You can monitor your scheduling progress against your established criteria from the Summary Summary Tab.

To see a listing of locations that have been assigned, click on the Scheduled button (), then click on the Find () button. If you wish to remove a location scheduled from the Scheduled window, highlight it and click the Delete button (). You can monitor your scheduling progress against your established criteria from the Scheduling Summary Tab.

Modifying a Charted Reservation's Information

After a location is charted and becomes a reservation, there may be situations where you need to reschedule the dates, or change other information. To update information about a reservation, you can either modify the information from the Subcontract or from the location.

To update from the Subcontract, find the Subcontract where the reservation you wish to change is assigned. Go to the Reservations Page and highlight the Reservation(s) to change. Click on the Tools menu and select Update or right click on a selected item and choose Update. In the screen that opens, activate the appropriate checkbox by clicking in it and enter the new values as appropriate, then click OK.

If you wish to reschedule from the location, find the desired location and click on the Reservations Page. Highlight the item to reschedule from the list, right click and choose Update. Click on the Tools menu and select Update or right click on a selected item and choose Update.

Ad Manager will check for any potential conflicts. If there are any locations Ad Manager cannot reschedule, it will inform you there are locations that generate conflicts. If you wish to see the list, click Yes, and if you wish to continue without rescheduling these locations, click No.

Releasing Locations

Releasing Locations From a Subcontract

If you wish to release (remove) a Location, you must go to the Chart Window and click on the Reservations page. From this page you can select the Location(s) you wish to remove.

To release a Location, highlight it and click the Delete () button. This will release the Location from the showing.

You can select multiple locations by holding down the SHIFT or CTRL key while clicking the desired Location.

Releasing Scheduling From the Location

Ad Manager also allows you to release scheduling from the Location. This is particularly useful if you are retiring a Location and want to remove all future scheduling. Find the Location to remove scheduling for, and click on the Reservations Page. Using CTRL+click or SHIFT+click, highlight the Location's scheduling assignment(s) to remove . Right click and click Delete or click the Delete () button in the Reservations pane. This removes the scheduling, provided the Location has not started playing the campaign.

Review Information for an Assignment

If you want to find out more information about a particular scheduling assignment, you can do so by highlighting it on the Reservations Page of the desired Subcontract and clicking the Properties button (). Ad Manager will display a window from which you can review and, if necessary, change information.

If you wish to change information about this assignment, make the appropriate change(s) and click the Save button().

In addition to seeing the assignment information, you can also see if there are any conflicts involving this assignment by clicking on the Conflicts Page.

To see all Ads associated with this assignment, click on the Ads Page.

Viewing Affected Playlists

After you have finished scheduling locations to a Subcontract, you can review a list of all Playlists that have either been created or changed to include the new campaign based on the scheduling for this Subcontract.

To do this, go to the Playlists tab. From here you can see all the playlists that include this campaign. For additional information, click here.

Assigning Media (Ads)

After you have scheduled a Reservation, you can select the desired media (ad) to play. For instructions on how to do this, click here

Changing Media (Ads)

If you wish to change the media item that is playing at a location, you can do this without having to change the scheduling. Ad Manager allows you to simply select a new media item or media set and identify the date you wish this media to start playing.

To do this, highlight the Reservation(s) you wish to schedule with a new Ad. Right click and select either "Schedule a Media Item Ad..." (for a single media item) or "Schedule a Media Set Ad..." (for a group of ads). From here you will be prompted to enter search criteria in order to narrow down your choice of media items to select from. After you have entered your search criteria, click OK.

Select the Media item and click OK. Ad Manager will then prompt you to identify the start date. Change the selection from "The reservation start date" to "Let me specify", and then enter the desired start date in the adjacent date field. Click OK.