Can we create a commercial free stream say for a holiday weekend?

Yes!  This really should be pretty easy to do too.  There are however a few tricks to it; first you have to set-up a new commercials trigger that will be active ONLY during this weekend, and at the same time you have to disable the current commercials trigger so the it is NOT active during the weekend.  Second, you need to create a specific Ad Family just for the content that will play this weekend.  You’ll also need a specific Template and then just upload the needed Fill content to the inventory.  So step-by-step the process would be like this:

All of this will be done through the Injector Manager.  So, follow these steps and you should be all set:

Creating the Ad Family

1.       From the station’s Inventory screen, click the Ad Families link in the nav bar in the middle of the screen

2.       Change the Custom Ad Family For box to the proper station

3.       Click the Add New Custom Ad Family button

4.       Type in the name of the new Family, something like Commercial Free

5.       Set the Family Cap (this will control how close together items from the same family can play – this should probably be a 0 since you’ll want items from this family to be able to play back-to-back)

6.       Set the Individual cap.  This will prevent the same item from repeating for x number of minutes after it initially plays

7.       Click Save

That’s it for the Ad Family, return to the Inventory screen to set-up the Template that will control how the on air commercial time is filled

Creating the Commercial Free Template:

1.       Click The Template Designer link

2.       From the Template drop down list choose a letter for an unassigned (non *’ed) letter; such as X

3.       Uncheck all the boxes for any category and column that SHOULD NOT be available to play content during the commercial free period
  Most stations will uncheck everything at this point, since they will be setting up a custom music oriented template

4.       Check the boxes for how you’d like the stop set to be filled, such as toggling between SONG and SWEEPER so that playback will go SONG > SWEEPER > SONG > SWEEPER > SONG > SWEEPER, etc

5.       Once all the correct boxes are set, scroll to the bottom of the page and click SAVE

That’s it for the Template.  Now return to the inventory screen so that we can create the proper triggers

Setting the Needed Trigger Configuration:
Essentially we’re going to duplicate the current cover trigger so you will need to know the Trigger Value to look for and what data element in which to have the Injector look for it. 

1.       Click the Cart Trigger Editor link

2.       Click the New Reg Trigger button in the lower-middle of the screen

3.       When the new trigger screen opens, set the start date and time to match the date, day and time that the commercial free period should start

4.       Set the End date and time to be the end date and time of the commercial free period

5.       Set the Data Element to match the data element form the current trigger

6.       Set the Trigger Value to be the same as the current cover trigger

7.       Change the Deliver Command from BreakSchedules to BE THE SPECIFIC LETTER OF THE TEMPLATE that was set-up above.

8.       Click the “Select Items in Specific Ad Families button, and then click the checkbox for the NEW AD FAMILY set-up above

9.       Click Save

The rest of the variables can stay as is for this specific type of trigger.  Now there is one tricky part to this step, you will either need to manually disable the current trigger and re-enable it after the commercial free period ends, or you can set the end date to correspond to the end start date of the New Commercial Free trigger.  If you elect to go this route YOU WILL HAVE TO create another new cover trigger that starts when the commercial free trigger ends – and it should call items the same way that the current trigger does (from the current template and from the enable family.  Whichever plan works best, just make sure that there is a plan to set the Injector back to regular Injection when the commercial free period ends.  If you need any help deciding, just reach out to our Support Desk and they can assist you.

Adding the Commercial Fee Content:

Return to the inventory screen and click the New Component button.  The process for adding special Fill is exactly the same with two notable exceptions:

1.       Make sure that the category each item is assigned to IS one of the categories that were assigned to the New Template

2.       Make sure that the item is NOT added to the Enable family BUT RATHER ADDED to the new special family created above.

Thanks it!  Let us know if you have any questions or need any assistance.