Inventory Controls

Capacities

Stations

Select the station to be used. Station selection defaults to last station selected.

Inventory Capacities

Capacities in the application must match those in traffic. It is imperative that the capacities match at all times. The application should be verified against a printed traffic report, and each time a change is made in traffic, that same change should be made in the application. The application will not read capacities out of traffic. If Advanced Revenue Management System has different capacities than traffic is reporting, then the units available will not be reflective of station inventory. If capacities change by week, please call your Maxagrid Representative for the best way to handle the situation.

Booked Update

Stations

Select the station to be used. Station selection defaults to last station selected.

Traffic Load

This is where settings are stored determining the defaults that will be used when loading traffic. When the application arrives, everything should be setup except for the path to the traffic file, which will be station specific. To load live traffic into the application, click on Browse and point to the traffic file.  If assistance is needed in determining the path, please call Maxagrid Technical Support.  When this is done click on Process Traffic Data Import.   A message with ‘Import: Successful’ will pop up at this time. The Last Results section may be used to determine what path was used last, when that file was created, last successful load, and how many weeks of live traffic has been loaded. The Launch Interface button is used when making changes in traffic definitions. Please contact Maxagrid Technical Support before accessing this information.

Booked Update

In this window, it is possible to validate a traffic load only looking at live traffic that has been loaded.  On other windows we may be looking at other factors that may give a false impression of the inventory load, such as pending or class capacity limits.

Chart View

A breakdown by daypart in a graph view is available on this screen. Click on Values Pop Up to see the specific values that are represented in the chart view. Different dayparts are available by clicking on the dropdown menu at the bottom left of the screen.

Bulk Pendings

Stations

Select the station to be used. Station selection defaults to last station selected.

Rate Classes

Select the rate class to be used when entering pending business. This will typically be a rate class labeled Pending, and will come installed with the application.

Bulk Pendings

On this screen is where pending business can be entered.  Use the two forecast combinations: Prime and Fringe. To check what dayparts are contributing to these definitions, go to the Rate Class tab, choose the Standard Rate Class and view the contributing dayparts on the Forecast Combination tab. These two combinations are displayed at the bottom.

There are Two Kinds of Pending Business:

1. Monthly business that is closed, but not booked in traffic yet. This is typically long term contract business or seasonal buys.
2. Business that has been pitched and is expected to close. Usually there is a 7-14 day expiration window on proposals therefore, this is relatively fresh information.
3. Pending business is typically entered into the application for the next 30, 60 and 90 days only. It is deleted once a week as new information becomes available from sales and the new information is then entered.

Enter Pending Business

Highlight the weeks for pending distribution. This can be entered by week, by month, or any combination of weeks needed.  To select weeks to be used click on the week desired, click and drag to get a month, or click while holding the Control key to skip between weeks. The numbers in brackets are a reflection of the broadcast week definition.

At this time pending business may be entered by spot or dollar amount on the right side of the screen by double clicking in the appropriate area.

If the pending spots have been sold at a different rate than the one displayed, that rate can be adjusted to reflect a more appropriate rate by double clicking on the rate and entering a new value.

After the dollar amount or number of spots has been entered for all dayparts, click on Distribute Spots.

After entering all pending, click on the Save button.

Additional Features, Tips, and Shortcuts… Before entering new pending business at the first of each week, first highlight weeks used for previous pending business on the left side of the screen and click on Remove Spots. This will ensure that none of the pendings added in previously remain.

To add additional spots or dollars on top of existing pending business then place a check in the Incremental Spots Update.

Clearing the pending business after distribution may be accomplished by putting a check in the Clear Entries on Distribute. This is just for the display on this screen so that when entering several weeks or months, the value on the screen will be reset to zero each time a new distribution takes place.

If more combinations are needed they can be entered from the Forecast Combinations tab within Rate Classes.