Reserved Product
Creating Reserved Digital Media Products
Reserved Digital Media Products are used in conjunction with the Reserved Product Scheduler, so that the sales team can sell digital media items that will run within a certain range of time, and the production team will determine the exact dates later. Follow the steps below to create a Reserved Product.
We recommend reviewing these items before using Reserved Products:
Ad Sizes
GL Classes
There are two items you need to have set up before you will be able to create Reserved Products: set up a publication to use digital media and set up a product category to use the Reserved Product inventory type. You will only need to set these up once, however you may wish to review them from time to time or add new publications for digital media or have multiple Reserved Product categories, depending on how you want your system configured.
You must have at least one Publication set up for Digital Media. When adding or editing a Publication, the field ‘Use for Digital Media,’ must be set to Yes. Once this is set up, you will need to add the Sizes, Placements, and Channels you want to be able to use for your Digital Media items sold on that Publication. Review your Publication settings by going to Settings > Products > Publication & Issue Setup.
There must be at least one Product Category set up to use the Reserved Product inventory type. Go to Settings > Products > Product Categories and add a new category. Name the category and set the inventory type to Reserved Product. The system will automatically allow the category on orders, but you can choose whether to display it in the client center, and whether it is only editable by admin.
Note
Once a Product Category is created, the inventory type cannot be edited.
Now that you have a Publication set up for Digital Media, and a Product Category set up to use the Reserved Product inventory type, you can begin creating your Reserved Products. Navigate to Settings > Products > Reserved Products.
To access this page, you must have the User Permission ‘Slot, Impression, Reserved & Targeted Display Products.’
Click ‘Add Reserved Product.’ On the add/edit product page, you can begin entering information for your product.
Add your product name and choose the category. The product name will be displayed on the contract to your customer and in reports.
Add your rate. For Reserved Products, this is a flat rate per unit sold. You can also choose whether to allow User Defined Pricing for the product or not.
The reminder offset days will affect when artwork reminders go out and how many days from the start date you want your customers to provide materials. For example, if you have a date on the product of 4/15 and an offset day of 5, the customer will need to get your materials by 4/10.
By default, the Group Tickets field will be set to No, so tickets created for the product will not get grouped automatically. Change this field to Yes if you wish the tickets created for your product to automatically be grouped.
The Assignment and Notification fields allow you to choose which users, if any, should be assigned to the ticket when the line item is created, and which users should be notified when the item is created or edited.
The Publication field is required for Reserved Products. The Publications that show up as options here are all the Publications in your system set up to use Digital Media. For each product, you must choose at least one Publication, but you can choose multiple. A user will have to select which Publications to use when putting the product on an order.
The placement field will load once you have selected your publication(s). If you are using multiple Publications, Placements will only show up if they are shared between publications. A User will not select a placement when placing an order; it is for internal production purposes.
The channel field works the same as the placements. You can only select a channel if it is shared between publications (when using more than one publication). A user can select a channel on the order page, but it is not a required field. Use the channel to better target your ad sales for your customers.
The ad size field is required but works the same way as the placement and channel field. A user cannot select the ad sizes on the order page. When the digital media ticket is created, it will list every ad size associated with the product. When assets are uploaded to the ticket, your production user can assign assets to the correct size and include the target URL or phone number.
Note
If you have the internal configuration ‘Add placements, channels, and sizes directly to digital media products’ enabled, you will be able to select any placement, channel, or size to add to your digital media product, regardless of the publications selected. In this case, these items would get automatically added to your publication, if added to a product that uses the publication. You need to contact support to turn this configuration on or off.
If you would like the product to use a Commission Group’s commission percentage rather than a user’s model and plan, select the Commission Group here. Once you save the product, it will be added to the Commission Group and use the group’s percentage.
You can specify any finance details for the product in the Finance Info field. The Finance Info and GL Class fields will update your General Ledger exports. You may see a Default GL Class if you have a Media GL Class enabled. When creating an order, the product will use this GL Class as the default, but it can be overridden.
The agency discount field determines if you can add an agency discount to the product and what type it will be: Gross or Net.
Finally, you can add a description to list all the details about the product to your customer. The description will show up on the contract for the customer.
Updated 11/04/2022
Reserved Product Inventory Groups
If you wish to have inventory management on Reserved Products, you will need to take advantage of the Inventory Grouping feature. When Reserved Products are put into Inventory Groups, users that don’t have overbooking permissions will only be able to schedule one product from the group each day om each publication on the Reserved Product Scheduler.
Inventory Group Setup Page
To set up these inventory groups, go to Settings > Products > Reserved Product Inventory Groups.
To access this page, you need the user permission Digital Media Inventory Groups.
On the Reserved Product Inventory Groups page, you will be able to add and edit inventory groups and choose which products to include in those groups.
Click the + icon in the upper right corner to add a new inventory group. In the popup, enter a name for your group and choose the products you wish to include. All active reserved products will show up as an option,
The products that show up in the dropdown are all active Reserved products that are not scheduled in the future on the Reserved Product Scheduler. If a product has never been scheduled, or is only scheduled in the past, you will see the product as an option. However, if a product has been placed into the Scheduler for a future date, you will not be able to add that item to an inventory group.
Note
A reserved product can only be in one inventory group at a time.
Once you have chosen your inventory group name and products, click Save to create the group.
On the table, there are various actions you can perform.
Use the ellipsis icon to edit existing groups (change the name or products included), disable or delete a group.
You can view disabled groups by clicking the Show Disabled box, and once again use the ellipsis to re-enable the group.
Click on the Name column to sort your inventory groups alphabetically by name.
The search bar above the table can be used to find particular groups.
If you have a large amount of inventory groups, you can change how many results are displayed and scroll through the pages to view more results.
Adding Inventory Groups Directly to Reserved Products
The Reserved Product Inventory Groups page is the only place on the site to create new inventory groups. However, when adding or editing a Reserved Product, you do have the ability to set an existing inventory group onto the product, if certain conditions are met.
To do this, go to Settings > Products > Reserved Products.
You must have the user permission Slot, Impression, Reserved & Targeted Display Products to access this page.
On the Reserved Products page, you can edit existing Reserved Products and create new ones. When adding or editing a Reserved Product, you will see an Inventory Group field.
If the product is included in an inventory group, its name will show up in the field. If not, the field will be blank.
You can change the group by opening the dropdown and selecting from your existing Inventory Groups. Make sure to save your changes.
How Inventory Groups Affect Scheduling
On the Reserved Product Scheduler, you can filter the Scheduler by specific inventory groups. Inventory grouping also restricts where items can be placed, depending on where other items in the group have been placed.
Begin by going to Production > Reserved Product Scheduler.
To access this page, you need the user permission Reserved Product Scheduler. To make any changes on this page, and see the unscheduled products runsheet, you need the sub-permission to Edit Details.
Once you are on the Scheduler page, you can choose to filter the calendar view by inventory group. Click on the filter icon in the upper right corner of the calendar and choose which inventory groups you wish to see. Both the calendar and the runsheet will be updated to only include products that are a part of the chosen inventory groups.
The ability to schedule products within inventory groups is dependent on whether you have the user permission Allow System Inventory Overbooking or not.
With the permission:
Any product can be scheduled like normal. There are no inventory restrictions to placing items from the runsheet, or moving items within the runsheet. If you place an item on the same day as another item from the same inventory group and publication, you will see a confirmation popup, which lets you know you will be overbooking the inventory if placed.
Without the permission:
You will be unable to place an item onto the same day as another item from the same inventory group if it is from the same publication. This applies to placing items from the runsheet into the calendar and moving scheduled items within the calendar. You will be able to place items from the same inventory group onto the same day as long as they belong to different publications.
Tip
You have Reserved Products A, B, C, and D, all of which are from the same publication. Products A and B are in the same inventory group. Product C is in a different inventory group, and product D is not in an inventory group. You have placed product A in the scheduler, with a scheduled date of 3/20. You will not be able to place product B on 3/20, even if its run dates would otherwise let it be placed. Products C and D can both be placed on 3/20, since they are not part of the same inventory group as product A.
Updated 2/9/2023
Adding Reserved Digital Media Line Items to Orders
Once you have your Reserved Products set up, you can begin adding them to any proposal or order. Reserved Digital Media Products are used in conjunction with the Reserved Product Scheduler, so that the sales team can sell digital media items that will run within a certain range of time, and the production team will determine the exact dates later. Follow the steps below to add a Reserved Product line item to an order.
Tip
If you are a sales rep, what you need to know about Reserved Products is that you are selling a digital media item that will run within a certain amount of time. The Start and End Dates entered on the line item are the dates that you are telling the customer their item will run within. It is up to the production team to select the specific date to run the item (sometime within the range you entered), once the order is confirmed.
On the Products Step of the order, click on the + icon next to Reserved Sales to add the product to the order.
In the popup, select Publications to populate the product list, then choose the media product.
Note
For this type of digital media product, you can choose multiple Publications. The Media Product list will update to only show products that are shared between publications if multiple publications are selected.
The next step is to choose a run date for the line item. The run date is the time frame that the item can run within. It will be up to the production team later to schedule the product and set a specific day for the item to run within the range you enter here.
You will also need to enter a value in the units field. The units set in the popup will be the quantity set for each publication chosen on the line item. For example, if you create a line item for two publications with 4 units each, you will see two line items on your order – one for each publication, with a quantity of 4 for each.
Important
Upon order finance approval, the line items will get split up based on the quantity set on the item. For example, if you create a Reserved Product line item with 4 units, when the order is fully approved, the original line item will get split into 4 individual line items.
When adding a new Reserved Product line item, you will also be required to select a GL Class. Each of your products can have a default GL Class, but a user can override it on the order level. GL Classes are needed if you want to track deferred revenue.
The above fields are all you need to add a Reserved Product to an order, but you can further edit the product for targeting and billing purposes.
You can use the grouping field to show the line items differently on the order and have the line items all invoiced together. Grouping can be useful if you want to show the customer less details and sum the price.
You can discount the item by changing the unit price, updating the net, or adding a % or amount discount.
If you have ticket dynamic attributes configured, you can use those to track custom fields on the line item entry process.
The Channel field is useful for up selling your digital media items. You can set channels for different areas of your site or targeted demographics. Channels will usually have an up-tick in price.
There is also the option to enter Placement or Ad Notes. Placement Notes are used for your team internally, whereas Ad Notes can be seen by the customer.
If you are adding an item that is set up to sync with Broadstreet, there will be an additional checkmark labeled ‘Ready for Ad Server’. By default, this option will be checked, which means once the reserved item is placed in the Scheduler, it will be pushed to Broadstreet. If you uncheck this option, the item will not be brought into Broadstreet until the option is checked later on, even if it is scheduled.
Reserved Products are handled differently than other digital media products within the system. Here are some important items to note:
When you add a Reserved Product to your order, the system will break up the order into multiple line items for every publication selected.
Unlike Targeted Display and Impression items, Reserved Products will not get broken up by month. If the item spans more than one month, it will still be a single line item.
When editing a Reserved Product line item, you will be unable to change the Product Category, Publication, and Media Product fields.
Reserved Products do not get tickets created until the order is fully finance approved, even if your system configuration ‘Create Tickets Upon Initial Approval’ is set to yes.
Upon order finance approval, the line items will get split up based on the quantity set on the item. For example, if you create a Reserved Product line item with 5 units, when the order is fully approved, the original line item will get split into 5 individual line items each with a quantity of 1.
To see Reserved Products, show up on the contract, the contract template must have a Digital Media element. To review your contract templates, go to Settings > Templates > Contracts, and either add a new, or edit an existing template. To make sure you can see Reserved Products, the Digital Media Items element either must be set to ‘All’ for the Type or set to ‘Reserved.’
Note
You should also review your invoice templates. The process for invoice templates is the same as contract templates; you need to make sure there is a Digital Media Item element present, that is either set to ‘All’ or ‘Reserved’ Types.
Updated 7/11/2023
The Reserved Product Scheduler is the tool that allows your production team to schedule all sold Reserved digital media products. Reserved Products allow the sales team to sell digital media items that will run within a certain range of time, and the production team later uses the Reserved Product Scheduler to determine the exact date the item will run (within the date range set on the line item). This document walks through the production team’s role in scheduling these items.
To begin, navigate to the Production > Reserved Product Scheduler page. To access this page, you need the user permission ‘Reserved Product Scheduler’. This permission grants you the ability to view the schedule. To make changes on this page and schedule items, you need the sub-permission ‘Edit Details.'
If your system configuration Populate Reserved Product Scheduler on Page Load is set to 'Yes', your Scheduler will automatically load when you navigate to the page. If that configuration is set to 'No', you can choose to filter the results first, or load all of the results.
Tip
If the Populate Reserved Product Scheduler on Page Load configuration is set to 'No', we generally recommend filtering your results rather than loading all of the data when you navigate to the page, as the page will load much faster with filters applied.
The Scheduler has a runsheet on the left side with all unreserved items for the month you are currently viewing, as well as a calendar view that displays all reserved/placed items. If you do not have the ‘Edit Details’ permission, you will not see the runsheet.
How to Use the Runsheet
The Scheduler Runsheet shows all sold Reserved Products that have not been placed in the Scheduler (aka Unscheduled Products), and only includes items that can run in the current month you are viewing.
For example, if there is an item in the runsheet that has a run date range of 1/1 through 2/15, you will see the item in the runsheet when you are viewing January or February in the calendar. The same item will not show up in the runsheet when you are viewing the month of March.
Note
An exception to this rule is if you have the User Permission ‘Schedule Products Out of Range’. With this permission, you can place items up to six months before their start run date, and up to six months after their end run dates. To account for this ability, you may see items in your runsheet even if they are technically outside of their run date ranges.
Each item in the runsheet will show the company name, primary company category, product name, channel, run date range, and ticket status and order campaign name when applicable.
The runsheet can be filtered to help you find the specific items you are looking to place in the schedule. Click on the filter icon in the upper right corner of the runsheet to add a new filter criteria.
You can filter the runsheet by Company, Primary Company Category, and/or Ticket Status.
Multiple companies can be added to the Company filter.
The Primary Company Category and Ticket Status filters are both multi-selects, so you can pick and choose which categories and statuses you want to see.
Click Apply to add these filters to your runsheet.
When filters are being applied to the runsheet, you will see the filter names show up at the top of the runsheet, making it easy to know how the runsheet is being filtered. For example, if you are filtering by a specific company, you will see the field ‘Company’ at the top of your runsheet.
To remove a filter, simply click on the x icon for a specific filter. Or, if you want to remove all your applied filters, click on the ‘Clear’ button.
The ellipsis icon on each item can be used to perform a few actions including viewing the ticket page for the item and opening the edit line item popup. If you make any changes to the item in the line item edit popup, the runsheet will be refreshed to reflect any changes made.
To place an item from the runsheet into the Scheduler, simply click and drag the item from the runsheet, and drop it into an available spot in the calendar. Read the section below to learn more about placing items and how to use the calendar part of the Scheduler.
How to Use the Calendar
The Scheduler Calendar shows all sold Reserved Products that have been placed/scheduled and will only show one month at a time. By default, the calendar will start at the current date.
When viewing a month, you can scroll to the left and right within the calendar to view all the dates within the month but cannot use the scroll to view a different month. There are a few ways to change which month you are viewing.
The arrow icons next to the month name can be used to go backwards or forwards a month at a time.
You can also use the calendar icon to quickly jump to a specific date.
If you are viewing a future or past date, you can use the ‘Today’ button to immediately jump back to today’s date.
The left side of the calendar displays all the potential publications, products, and channels a Reserved Product can be placed into. For example, if you have a publication with two Reserved Products, and one of those products has three channels it can be sold into, you will see four rows underneath that publication: one for the product without channels, and one for each of the channels of the second product. The channel will display after the Reserved Product name, separated by a /.
You can click the arrow icons to collapse or open a publication.
This list of publications, products, and channels can be reordered if needed. To do this, click on the ellipsis icon in the upper right corner of the calendar, and click Reorder Product/Channels. This will open a popup where you can drag and drop items into the desired display order.
By default, the calendar is sorted alphabetically, first based on product then channel.
In the popup, you will see any unsorted (using the alphabetical default) items on the right side. To move them into a specific sort order, drag and drop the item from the right side to the left.
Use the x icons to remove an ordered item and put it back to the default sort order.
The sort order chosen will apply to every publication shown in your scheduler.
Any items that are left un-ordered will display in the calendar after the ordered items, using the default sort order.
The calendar can be filtered to help you reduce clutter in the scheduler and only find certain available spots. Click on the ellipsis icon in the upper right corner of the calendar and click Filter Calendar to add a new filter criteria.
You can filter the scheduler by Publisher, Publication, Product Category, Product, Inventory Group, and/or Channel.
All of the filters are multi-selects, so you can pick and choose which publishers, publications, categories, products, groups, and channels you want to view.
Click Apply to add these filters to your scheduler.
When filters are being applied to the scheduler, you will see the filter names show up at the top of the calendar, making it easy to know how the scheduler is being filtered. For example, if you are filtering by a specific publication, you will see the field ‘Publication’ at the top of your calendar.
To remove a filter, simply click on the x icon for a specific filter. Or, if you want to remove all your applied filters, click on the ‘Clear’ button.
Important
Any filters applied here will also apply to the runsheet of unscheduled products, whereas the unscheduled products runsheet filter only applies to the runsheet.
Note
The calendar displays a square for each date and publication/product/channel that an item can be reserved into. This means only a single item can be placed in a particular publication, product, and channel for that day. For example, if you place an item on 1/11 for your ‘The Shire Monthly’ publication, in the ‘Elevensies’ Reserved Product ‘Main Page’ channel, no other item can be reserved in that exact spot.
To place an item from the runsheet into the Scheduler, simply click and drag the item from the runsheet, and drop it into an available spot in the calendar.
The spots an item can be placed into will show up in white, whereas spots the item cannot be placed into will be grayed out. Additionally, when an item is hovering over a spot it can be placed into, you will see a + icon show up.
If you attempt to drag and drop an item into a spot it cannot be placed, the item will simply go back into the runsheet.
Items can be moved within the scheduler in a similar fashion to placing items. Simply click and drag an item in the calendar, and you can move it to any white space.
There are some restrictions on placing and moving items.
If you do not have the ‘Edit Details’ permission for the Scheduler, you can view placed items, but you cannot place or move any items within the calendar.
A new item cannot be placed more than 7 days into the past. We provide a 7-day buffer in case there was an error where an item ran but was not placed. However, this should be a rare case. You should not need to place items into the past.
Similarly, a placed item whose scheduled date is 7 or more days in the past can no longer be moved within the calendar.
An item can only be placed or moved within the month you are currently viewing. For example, if you are viewing the month of January, and you have an item that can be placed in January or February, you cannot drag and drop the item into February.
If you are utilizing Reserved Product Inventory Groups, only one item from an inventory group can be placed on a single day, unless you have the User Permission ‘Allow System Inventory Overbooking’.
EXAMPLE: You have Reserved Products A, B, C, and D. Products A and B are in the same inventory group. Product C is in a different inventory group, and product D is not in an inventory group. You've placed product A in the scheduler, with a scheduled date of 3/20. You will not be able to place product B on 3/20, even if its run dates would otherwise let it be placed. Products C and D can both be placed on 3/20, since they are not part of the same inventory group as product A.
Note
If you need to move a placed item into a different month, you first need to remove the item from the scheduler by clicking on the item and selecting the ‘Delete’ button in the popup. This will place the item back into the runsheet, where you can change the month and re-schedule the item into the correct month.
Like the items in the runsheet, scheduled items show certain details. In the calendar, each placed item will show the company name, primary company category, ticket status, and order campaign name if set.
Hovering over a placed item will show additional details, including the publication, ticket status, and Reserved product name. The hover state will also show order, company, or ticket dynamic attributes that have been set up to display on the Scheduler.
Clicking on a placed item will open a popup with additional details and actions you can take.
From the popup, you can change the channel that the item is placed in, as well as its Reserved Date. The calendar will update to reflect these changes once you hit the Save button. You will receive notice if the item cannot be moved into the channel or date you selected.
The company name in the popup will be a quicklink that redirects you to the company’s overview page. If you do not have access to the company, the name will show up as text instead of a link.
Note
If the ticket is marked as ‘Done’, you will be unable to edit the status from the scheduler. You will need to navigate to the ticket to re-open it.
The Ticket Status field allows you to change the status of the ticket. If the ticket is grouped, it will also change the status of all grouped tickets. There is also a ticket icon which opens the ticket details page.
There is also a ‘Remove’ button in the popup. Use the Remove button to remove the item from the calendar. This will un-schedule the item and put it back into the runsheet.
You are required to remove the item from the runsheet if you need to move a placed item into a different month.
If you do not have the ‘Edit Details’ permission, this popup will show additional details about the item, but you cannot edit or remove the item.
Note
If the item is in the past, even with the ‘Edit Details’ permission, you will not be able to perform actions from the popup, you will just see the additional details.
How the Scheduler Affects Line Items on Orders
The channel, start run date, and end-run date on line items that have been placed in the Scheduler cannot be manually edited. This is regardless of user permissions as far as editing items go. To edit these fields on a Reserved Product line item, it first needs to be removed from the calendar.
If you have the User Permission to ‘Schedule Products Out of Range’, and you schedule a product outside of its original run date range, the start or end run date of the line item will get updated to reflect the change. For instance, if you have an item with a start run date of 3/1, and an end run date of 5/1, and you place the item on 7/1, the item’s run dates will be updated to have a start run date of 3/1 and an end run date of 7/1 to account for the change.
If a line item that is Reserved gets deleted, the user deleting the item will receive a warning message that the item will be removed from the Scheduler.
Important
It is up to this user to communicate with the production team that the item was deleted.
When an item is placed into the Scheduler, the ‘Reserved Date’ on the line item gets updated to reflect the date it is Reserved for. Items that are unscheduled will not have any value in the ‘Reserved Date’ field.
Important
Manual artwork reminders can be sent for reserved products at any time, but if you utilize automated artwork reminders, these will not be sent until the item is reserved. Once the item has been scheduled, the system can send automated artwork reminders for the item.
Updated 10/17/2024