Scheduling Rules
The planner needs a suitable date, hour, block and material row for each placement. Restrictions apply together: allowing a block does not override a disabled daypart or a capacity conflict.
Choose The Campaign Restrictions
| Setting | Effect and practical check |
|---|---|
| Start date / End date | Define the campaign period, including both dates. Check that useful future, open schedule capacity exists. |
| Week restriction | All weeks, Only odd weeks or Only even weeks, using ISO week numbers. Check dates around the change of year carefully. |
| Dayparts | Allow or exclude each hour of each weekday. 08 means 08:00-08:59, not a specific minute. |
| Allowed blocks | With All blocks, any otherwise suitable definition is eligible. Select individual definitions to limit the campaign. |
| Position restriction | Anywhere, First in block or Last in block within the scheduled commercial material. |
| Repeat restriction | Minimum distance in minutes between this campaign's placements, measured using block positions. 0 disables this additional interval rule. |
| Branche | Prevent another campaign with the same non-empty branch classification from sharing the block. |
| Voice on material | Prevent material with a matching, assigned voice from sharing an already occupied block. |
Click a day heading in the Dayparts grid to toggle that day's hours together. Click an hour heading to toggle that hour across all days. Inspect the whole grid afterwards, especially when starting from the default where every hour is allowed.
Selecting All blocks clears individual block selections. Selecting a particular block clears All blocks. An empty individual selection represents unrestricted blocks; it does not mean that no blocks are allowed. Use Dayparts to exclude unwanted hours.
First in block and Last in block apply to campaign material. A configured opener can still precede it, and a closer can follow it. With a tag on, inspect which part occupies the final position.
Capacity And Conflicts
A candidate block is rejected when:
- adding the main spot and optional tag on would exceed Max. nr of commercials;
- their combined Start next item values would exceed Max. duration (secs);
- the same campaign is already present in that block;
- another campaign in the block has the same assigned branch;
- a voice on existing material matches an assigned voice on the proposed main spot or tag on;
- another campaign already claims the same required first or last position;
- the campaign's repeat interval would be violated.
A main spot with a tag on uses two item positions for capacity, while its campaign target counts the main placement once. Fixed presentation items need a separate time allowance, as explained in Static Items.
Read A Rule As One Complete Requirement
Suppose Harbour Cycles allows weekdays at 08:00-10:00, only the Half-hour block, a 60-minute repeat interval and Anywhere. Its sector is Cycles and its 30-second spot has voice Alex.
| Candidate | Eligible? | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Monday 08:30, Half-hour, sufficient capacity, no conflicting sector/voice and no nearby placement | Yes | All restrictions can be met. |
| Monday 08:15, Quarter-hour | No | The block definition is not allowed. |
| Monday 10:30, Half-hour | No | Allowing hour 09 does not also allow hour 10. |
| Saturday 08:30, Half-hour | No | Saturday is excluded. |
| Monday 09:30, Half-hour, another Cycles campaign already present | No | The branch conflicts, even though the time is allowed. |
| Monday 08:30, Half-hour, only 20 seconds of commercial capacity left | No | The spot does not fit. |
The fictional labels represent separate concepts: branch describes business sector; voice identifies a speaker. Do not use one as a substitute for the other.
Choose A Planning Strategy
Optimal fill of blocks considers available capacity when choosing suitable placements. Spread spots evenly over blocks uses a spread-oriented selection. Both still enforce the eligibility rules and can fail when there is insufficient suitable capacity. Neither setting guarantees exact wall-clock spacing or a daily quota.
A new campaign starts from the station's default strategy. Changing that default does not automatically replace the strategy saved on existing campaigns.
Resolve A Shortfall
- Open the scheduling warning and record the requested, placed and unplaced counts.
- Check the campaign dates, week restriction, Dayparts and allowed definitions.
- Check whether those definitions actually occur in the applicable hour/day/week templates.
- Check remaining duration and item capacity, including tag ons.
- Check branch, voice, first/last and repeat conflicts.
- Check whether relevant schedules have already been downloaded.
- Agree an appropriate change to restrictions, requested count or available capacity; do not loosen a customer's requirements without agreement.
- Save the Active campaign, allow background processing and inspect the result again.
If a particular case remains inconsistent, collect the campaign name, dates, warning details and affected block for your station Administrator or support contact. A saved campaign alone is not confirmation of full placement.