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00:00Welcome Beasley Broadcast Group. We're going to do a mini training today specific to order entry
00:06and we're going to cover introductions. I'm Tom Green with Be Creative. Welcome. We're going to
00:12go over the nav bar, the quick order link, entering details. Then we'll do a list view overview and
00:19we'll have a dedicated Q&A session. But that being said, you can certainly ask questions as we move
00:26along. We're going to change browsers here and go over to Google's Chrome. This is what an account
00:32executive's view would look like. For login, you go to vcreative.net. Again, vcreative.net. Probably
00:40want to memorize that in any of your browsers. Your email address typically is your login. Beasley
00:46also has a portal through their infrastructure inside of the company. When you are in vcreative,
00:54the inbox is the list view, content that's been submitted that's in the process. Once it's
00:59completed, it drops off of here. We're going to concentrate today on order entry, which is the
01:06quick order link in the upper left-hand corner of the nav bar. Again, this navigation bar on the left,
01:12quick order link in the upper left-hand corner. We'll also touch on the drafts folder here in a
01:17couple of minutes. If I click the quick order link, it will open up a brand new blank production order
01:23for
01:23me. This is the form that you need to fill out, and you have to fill it out completely before
01:29it can
01:30be submitted. Now, if you're a seller that has more than one market that you can sell for, you'll have
01:36an internal outsource option at the top. If you have more than one market that you sell for and you
01:43don't have this, you would want to reach out to our help desk. You would select the market where this
01:49spot
01:49will air and it will then match the proper radio stations to this production order when you're
01:55selecting stations. Your client name will auto-suggest other clients that have been used in the past. So
02:03as you start to type the name, it will alpha search and find those names for you. Ideally, you want
02:11to be
02:11able to try to select from this list to keep the client names consistent. If by chance this is a
02:18brand new
02:18client, you've never been on the air before in your market, then you're going to go ahead and type it
02:23completely through the client name and then tab to the next field. So we're going to go in here. Notice
02:31as I type house, quite a few names available, and as I type a little further into the name I'm
02:36looking for,
02:37the list became smaller. And again, you simply click on that name and it'll insert it into the field.
02:44Required fields will always be highlighted in a yellow background with a red asterisk. So you have
02:53to put information in those fields in order to submit this order. It won't let you submit an
02:58incomplete order. You're also reminded of any missing fields over here on the right-hand side
03:05in the missing fields box. And you'll see this box change as you fill out the reminder of the order.
03:11Your spot title is typically used as an identifier. If it's local direct, you want to somehow make that
03:18identifier unique to whatever this happens to be. We're going to do a December sale spot here.
03:26The ISCII code is the next field that's available, and I can tab right to that or I can use
03:32the mouse to
03:32click either or. For local direct clients, ISCII code, there's a formula that Beasley is using.
03:40Four characters for the client name, four characters for the title. Obviously, you're going to be using
03:46some sort of abbreviated format here. Six characters for the submit date, and then two characters for a
03:53version number. So in this case, I could probably do HOBM, house of beer mugs. So that's my client name,
04:03then some four characters for the title, and I'll just do DESCS, December sale. And then the date that
04:14I am submitting this particular order. So there's my six characters, 120424, and this will be version
04:24one, obviously. So that would be your homemade ISCII for a direct client. It's not agency business.
04:31So this is basically like a billing code, social security number type thing. If you have agency
04:38business that they've placed instructions with you, the agency more than likely has given you an
04:44ISCII code that you can copy paste from their instructions into this field. Keep in mind that
04:49those agency ISCII codes usually go to the billing invoice, and they need to be exact, or otherwise the
04:57agency will decline payment. The next section is the ability to add a seller if you need to have
05:04somebody else on the order. You're covering for somebody, or you're sharing a client for
05:08whatever reason, you simply use the add button. The menu bar below that is for sold and spec.
05:16The primary difference is the sold content is expected to really go on air, it may need to be
05:21approved, but it defaults to sold, which would be the vast majority of your production orders.
05:26If this is a speculative order, you don't have a broadcast contract, you don't know if it was going
05:32to go to air, but you're trying to get a piece of audio to entice the client, you can use
05:37the spec
05:38option, and we will cover that in detail in another video. But again, sold is the typical use here.
05:47The ad types will be specific to Beasley, and they're things like, is it a commercial, just a
05:53standard on-air commercial, or is it a sponsorship, or is it a commercial plus queue, or commercial plus
06:00streaming? So you would select the proper ad type that's going to match up to the workflow that you're
06:07asking for in this particular situation. Notice with the ad type, the order grows. I selected commercial,
06:15and there were more fields that showed up. If I select commercial plus on-air streaming, or commercial
06:23plus queue ad sync, again, more lines show up onto the form, because it's based on the information
06:31needed for this ad type. If you're filling out the order, and you accidentally select the wrong ad type,
06:37you can change that. You can just simply go, oh, I didn't really want that to be a commercial plus
06:42queue.
06:42I just wanted a commercial. And as soon as my screen reloads, it's back to the details specific to the
06:50commercial. The next section is going to be the status. And when you select this, this is what
06:58helps queue the production team specifically to know what needs to be done here. If you're turning
07:03in copy points and asking them to write a script, you're using the needs writing status, assuming the
07:09creative team does that in your location. If you've got a script and you know what needs to be produced,
07:15then needs production would be your status. That holds true for tagging national or regional spots.
07:22If they're adding a market tag to it, or if they're piggybacking a couple of McDonald's spots together,
07:28those are things that the final audio needs to be produced. We also have a section, a status called
07:35needs dub. And that is a pretty easy one in the sense you have a final piece of audio. You've
07:42got
07:43the final spot. It's a full 30 or a full 60 already to go to air as is. Nobody has
07:49to edit the message.
07:50So you would select that status in that case. The statuses also do dictate a little bit of the
07:56remainder of the order. For instance, if I've got a needs dub status, I don't have a place to park
08:01a
08:01script in here. Because the thought is, well, there's no reason you would have a script. If I do
08:07needs production, for instance, I will have a script field down below that I can use. And if I use
08:16needs writing, there will be a creative section where I can add copy points as well. The other
08:23details are pretty straightforward, pretty standard. It's asking for a length. It's asking for a rotation
08:28value. Here's the thing about rotation values. It is specific to the spot of this length.
08:34For instance, you could have 60 running at 100% and you could have a 30 running at 100%
08:41because it's
08:41specific to that length. But if I have two 60s running in the same flight dates, then I'm going to
08:48need to break that down in some sort of a rotation. They both can't be 100. They're either 50-50
08:54or 60-40,
08:55whatever that happens to be. So the rotation value here is going to be based on how many spots are
09:01running at this length within this flight. So we're going to enter this as a 50% rotation.
09:06Then our due date. Due dates are typically the business date prior to start, but there are some
09:12exceptions here. You'll notice that I can't make a due date on a weekend or a holiday because those dates,
09:19we assume your support staff is not in building and they're not going to be completing it on that
09:24date. So it's limited to business days. Your individual production teams may have some rules
09:31about how much lead time they require. So please keep that in mind. And then you may need a little
09:37extra time based on do you have to get the client to approve it. You want to work in a
09:41day or two or
09:43more to make sure that you've got the time to get it in front of the client and have them
09:47sign off on it
09:48if they're asking for client approval. So we're going to select a due date of this Friday,
09:54and then we're going to select a start date, which is the next field of next Tuesday. I'm giving myself
10:00a day to get this thing approved. Notice two things here. When I select a date from the calendar,
10:07it puts it into the field and advances to the next field. Also, this user's account has the three
10:13month calendar turned on. So it's very easy to look ahead and see which days and dates
10:19that I can select from. So we've got our start date and our end date. There's an optional day
10:26part field. And please note, no yellow line, no red asterisk. It is purely optional. I don't have to
10:33use it. But if I do, I could say six to 10 a comma three to six p. So there's
10:38an option to put a day
10:40part note in there helping traffic know that, hey, this is only running morning drive and afternoon
10:45drive. Or maybe it's only running at night. Again, if you don't need to specify that, it'll just
10:50go run of schedule wherever the contract is placed. Tag field, this is for those regional spots,
10:58national spots where there's a local market tag. Excuse me, when you use that tag checkbox,
11:06it adds a down below a text field for that regional tag. See your Rocky Mountain Toyota dealers
11:14today, whatever that local tag happens to be. So again, you would only use that in the case
11:20of tagging a pre-produced spot. You have a co-op checkbox. This is for the billing department.
11:25It is just indicating it's a flag saying this is a co-op spot. It may require you to add
11:31a script to the
11:31order. And more specifically, it's a searchable item so that they can find out which spots were
11:39co-op that ran last month. The next field we're looking at is email to. Now Beasley policy allows
11:47you to enter your own email address in here. And by doing that, the production manager can click on a
11:54send email link. And that will then send you an email with the link to the audio. So it is,
12:03again, something that you can use with entering your email address here. In this production order,
12:09the next section are the stations. And if you have multiple markets, you would see the stations split
12:16up by market title. When you select a station, you'll be prompted more than likely to add a contract
12:24number. You can certainly just enter that or copy paste it from your missing copy report. If you have
12:30more than one contract number, you want to separate with a comma, and then enter the second number or
12:36the third number, fourth number, etc. So always comma, space separation makes it easier to read. It is
12:43possible to designate lines if necessary. If the same piece of audio, the exact same message is going to run
12:51on more than one station, you can select those other stations as well. So you can have, again, if it's
12:59the same piece of audio, multiple stations, you can go ahead and select those. As we get down to the
13:06bottom,
13:07there's a file section where you can add attachments. Part of the beauty of the system is we're trying to
13:12put all the messaging, all of the pieces, the parts, everything else together in a packet. Back in
13:19my early days of radio, we used to have paper production orders, and we'd staple the agency
13:25instructions or the flyer from the big event or whatever. We'd put all of this stuff together. We'd
13:31wrap it around a reel-to-reel tape box. Yes, that's how old I am, and put a rubber band
13:36around it. And we
13:37were trying to put the production order, all these details together. PPO was doing the same thing here,
13:42but it's just doing it digitally up on the cloud. If you're adding a file, you click the add button,
13:49and then you select a file type. Please understand these are simply labels. What are you adding to the
13:56order? Sometimes the labels are much easier to understand than the actual file name. In this case,
14:03I have maybe agency instructions. It's a traffic file. So I go ahead and pick my traffic file. It's
14:11looking on my computer saying, where did you save this? Your C drive, your downloads folder,
14:16where did you happen to put this traffic file? You may have a folder for client downloads,
14:23for instance, where you save everything. You could default to go see that file every time. You simply
14:28select your file and upload it. Your upload will be as fast as your internet connection. Generally,
14:35this is a pretty quick thing. So again, you can attach as many files of whatever file type that's
14:42existing for you, as many as you want to. The only rule we have in place right now is a
14:47maximum 250
14:48megabytes. So you should be able to attach most anything that applies to radio in that case.
14:55We do have the ability to attach a script via the ad files. So if you had a PDF or
15:02Word doc or whatever,
15:03you could. But better than that, we actually have a script window, a text field that allows you to
15:12type. So this will time your copy. So if you are writing your own copy, and hopefully you can type
15:22better than I do. Try that again. This will time your copy. If you're writing your own copy,
15:30note that there is a timer over here to the left. And it shows you that length. As you continue
15:36to
15:36type more information, it will keep counting up for you. And it's a pretty accurate timer. I think
15:44the production guys would certainly agree. The other thing you can do is you can copy paste from other
15:50documents. Plain paste works the best, which I think is a control shift P.
15:58You know, it's plain text, so you don't bring in all sorts of word formatting or whatever format it
16:04came in. It drops some of that formatting. It does have some basic word processing capabilities, bold,
16:13italicized, underlined. You can get in here and just use your delete and space bar key to space
16:20things around a little bit to make it look a little bit prettier. Notice we're up at 29.6 seconds.
16:26Also, be aware that this content right in here that's now highlighted, it is within parentheses.
16:35Anything you put within parentheses does not count towards the total length. So this is our script
16:43field and most talent prefer our script field. From their view on the other side, it is very,
16:50very easy to read. So it would be recommended to use this whenever possible. Below the script field,
16:58we have production, graphic, and creative note tabs. These are for special instructions or very specific
17:06instructions for each department. The production tab is going to talk about, it's a note for the producer.
17:13It's about the sound of the message, how it will be produced. So think of the person making that piece
17:18of audio and a special instruction or instructions for them. The traffic note, however, is more about
17:25the scheduling. It's for traffic continuity. It is about details, like there's something weird about the
17:31contract numbers, the day part, or the rotation percentage is really odd, or there's a cutoff on a
17:38particular day. So that would be a traffic note. Creative note is typically used in the writing of
17:44messages. If this were a commercial plus stream spot, it would also have a digital note where you
17:50could put a note about digital content, number of spins it needs on the stream, things like that.
17:56So the notes, again, are department specific, and you want to pay attention to that. The production tab
18:04has the remainder of the order, and a couple things that are probably most important here.
18:10If the spot requires approval, remember this is a sold spot, so it will go to air, but you want
18:16to
18:16approve it or the client wants to approve it beforehand, spot requires approval is what you need to check.
18:23The other thing that's kind of important here is spot arriving from. If you know like the agency
18:29sending a pre-recorded spot, you can indicate which service that's coming from, if you know that
18:34information. And then finally down towards the very bottom of the form is voice recommendation.
18:40You've got a generic female or male, or you can do a specific person by simply clicking the checkbox
18:49and then entering their name. Now, please be aware, by putting the name of the talent in here,
18:56they don't necessarily see this once it's submitted. We're waiting for the production team to utilize
19:04that voice. These are the details for one single spot on this order. It takes typically less than two
19:13minutes to fill this out, assuming you have the details, the contract information, the scripting,
19:18you know your run dates. It is a fairly quick order entry. You can scroll back up and change things
19:24if you
19:24need to. Now, we talked about the fact that this is a spot that is going to rotate with another.
19:32What do we do for the second spot? We use the plus sign over here on the right hand side
19:38of the screen.
19:38So when I hit the plus sign, it will add a second spot to the order. So notice as the
19:45screen loads,
19:47we have this untitled spot with missing fields. The details are over here on the left. Just above that,
19:54we have the December sale, which happens to be the spot that we just entered. So those are the two
20:00spots on the order. And you can use this to toggle back and forth between those details for each
20:06individual spot. In the case of adding the spot with the plus sign, it copies over the majority of the
20:13information, but not everything. So it's not going to copy the script because we assume it's going to be different
20:20because it's the second spot, and it's not going to copy the title or the ISCII. So that information
20:27needs to be updated. So for instance, if you had an agency buy for Menards or somebody like that,
20:35and they wanted to run three or four or five spots, you fill out all the details for spot number
20:41one,
20:41you hit the plus sign. On the second spot, you change the title, the ISCII, maybe the rotation
20:47percentage. You hit the plus sign for the third spot, change the title, IFSCII, and the rotation
20:52percentage again. So you can do a multi-spot order super fast as long as you have all the detail
20:59information. Now, here's the flip side of that coin. Yes, details fill, and that's great. It saves time.
21:07But if the details are different on the second spot, then you do need to make some changes. Let's say,
21:12for the example, on the second spot, I don't need this particular voice talent, and I don't need
21:18approval, then I want to uncheck those those notes, those those requests rather. If I had notes or
21:25traffic notes that don't match up to this spot, I should remove those because again, we don't know
21:31which detail is correct or not. We assume that the ISCII and the title of the script have to be
21:37different. So I've removed the fact that I need approval. And maybe in this case, this is a spot
21:42I already have on hand. I don't need it produced, but I need it to be dubbed into the automation
21:47system.
21:48So I've changed the primary details in the order. And now I'm going to go ahead and add my title.
21:56We're going to do a now hiring spot in this case.
22:04And then we'll go ahead and put in your
22:13And maybe this spot was recorded six months ago or whatever it happened to be.
22:19So we've got that specific ISCII from that time.
22:27So those are the details. If I don't submit this order, it will end up in my drafts folder. If
22:33I do
22:34submit this order, it will show in a quick view, this is the production order. Two different messages,
22:44two rows of information, one row for each commercial.
22:49Traffic Continuity will give each one of these their individual cart number.
22:54Production team will produce this and attach it. Production team will dub this one into the
22:58automation system. This needs dubbed. I should have either attached the audio if I had it,
23:04or given them a note saying spot is on hand from last June or whatever the deal happens to be.
23:11When I'm in this view, I'm looking specifically at this order.
23:15A couple of quick things. You can go back to your inbox, which will now show you all of the
23:20content
23:21you have in the system that's in the process of being worked on. So that gives you that quick idea
23:28of,
23:28hey, what's going on here? What's happening with this content? And I can see, hey, I've got one in
23:35spot review. I've got several in needs production. And you're waiting for those things to happen.
23:40You can see if tasks have been assigned or completed in the POC column by knowing who's done
23:49this or who's been assigned this so you know who's working on the order. Also in the PO column,
23:54a couple of things. First, there's a number at the top of the PO column that tells you how many
24:00spots
24:00happen to be on that order. A cool thing you can do, click the number to isolate the order. So
24:07in this
24:07case, I've got four spots on this particular order. And when I click it, it reloads the page and shows
24:14me this one production order and the four commercials. The reason I'm only seeing two of
24:19them is two are done and put away. So they're not in the inbox view. And the other two are
24:25in the
24:25process, one being in spot review, one being in needs production. If I go back to the inbox one more
24:33time, a couple of other things you should note, there's a way to communicate within the system.
24:38And that's called the blog. It's that little cartoon thought bubble. And if I click on that,
24:43I can see messages that have been done in the past. If it's a multi spot order, there are messages
24:49for
24:50all spots. Or you can have a single spot message if it only applies to one of the spots. This
24:56is the best
24:57way to communicate. You can type in a question answer response here and post it. Anybody who's
25:03associated with the order gets an email and then they can respond. By the way, for sellers, if you're
25:10out on the streets all day, obviously you are. If you have emails coming for your phone, you can reply
25:17to the blog message via your email and it'll post it in here and keep everybody informed. That is the
25:24best way to communicate because there's a record of it here with the commercial. The next thing is we do
25:30have the history. If you click on the history, it shows you a date and time stamp, everything that's
25:36happened with this production order. There's no way to change the history. It holds everybody accountable
25:42and it keeps the workflow transparent. The other quick thing is we do have a drafts folder over here on
25:48the
25:48left-hand side. The drafts folder will hold any orders that you have started but not completed,
25:55just like your email account. If you start to fill out a production order and you don't get it finished,
26:02you realize you're late for a client appointment or something just came up, you got to deal with it.
26:08The order will be sitting here waiting for you as a draft. If you want to fill out this particular
26:14order, excuse me, you simply come in here and click on the client's name to open up the order and
26:20finish
26:21out the details. Not a problem. As soon as my screen loads, I can go ahead and finish out all
26:27of the
26:27missing information. If you have a whole bunch of graphs, you can use the selection box on the left
26:34and then you can come over here and use the delete button and it will change the status and get
26:40rid of that
26:41that stuff that you don't need anymore. Last thing to know, if you're ever running into a problem with how
26:48your VPPO account is working, you have access to the vCreative Help Desk Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to
26:558 p.m.
26:56Eastern Time. Again, 8 to 8 Eastern, 800 number or a live chat mechanism.
27:02I would say that was very informative and very helpful. I highly recommend that anybody who has a bunch of
27:11POs use that draft folder to your advantage. The best way to just sit there and hold on to things
27:17that might be coming down the pike or say you have a contract for a whole year and you like
27:23to just get
27:23organized, save them there so you have them ready in your draft folder so that when the month comes
27:28for your stuff to start airing, you can go and make changes to them without having to do revisions or
27:33anything like that to the main POs that have already been through.
27:36So excellent point, Tom. You can also have a template in here. If you have a client, TV sweeps
27:43would be a great example. You know, you've got your local Channel 7 station plus Oprah by where they run
27:49a new spot many days each week. You could have the the skeleton here with the client name, the length,
27:57the contract numbers, the basic information that's always the same and then you can come in and you
28:03can make a copy of that that skeleton and then fill out the specific date information and attach that
28:10specific spot. So it does become a time savings mechanism. You just have to have, you know,
28:17the wherewithal to create the draft and have it there and just go in and copy it each time.
28:24And to your point, too, if you know you've got a spot, you know something's going to happen three
28:29months from now and you want to get your order together, you could fill it out but not submit it.
28:36Just simply go back to your inbox or any other folder. It will save as the draft and it'll be
28:42sitting there waiting for you that you can turn it in at a later date and time. Maybe you know
28:47that
28:47this event's happening and you've got the basic information and they're going to supply the audio,
28:51for example, but you don't have it yet. You don't want to leave it sitting out there for everybody.
28:57You can keep it personal to your drafts folder. Tom, thank you very much for this and we really
29:03appreciate it.
29:04you