Table of Contents
Overview
The tactical details of a campaign—like selecting which placements to buy from which vendors—are defined and managed on the Schedule Grid, located on the Schedule tab.
The Schedule Grid is a spreadsheet-like interface that combines user-entered data with pre-defined reference data records and formulas, making it easy to build out a media buy and quickly calculate costs. When an Agency is ready to move forward, lines on the Schedule Grid can be committed.
Schedule Terms and Concepts
This section contains information about terms and concepts related to schedules in OneStrata.
Types of Schedule Grid Lines
The Schedule grid is a table of media and non-media buys, for a particular schedule option. There are five types of Schedule grid lines:
Media Type | Schedule Grid Line Type | Description |
---|---|---|
Media | Placement | Represents an ad unit, with one format and one set of flight dates. |
Media | Media Package | A collection of Placements, grouped by Supplier, with the same rate or cost per unit. |
Media | Cost Package | A collection of Placements and Media Packages, grouped by Order Partner, with a fixed total cost. Each Placement or Media Package can have their own set of flight dates. |
Non-Media | Entered Fee | A fee that is completely manually added to a media schedule, and has no pre-defined values. All values in the resulting Entered Fee cost line are filled in by the user, within the schedule. |
Non-Media | Central Fee | A fee that is manually added to a media schedule, and has some pre-defined values. A pre-existing Central Fee record defines how some values in the resulting Central Fee cost line are calculated. Depending on additional settings, these values can or cannot be modified within the schedule. |
About Committing
In OneStrata, committing a schedule line is the process of indicating that a line on the media schedule is ready to move from a draft state to a "real" state with financial implications. Committing a schedule line makes it available throughout the rest of the OneStrata platform.
When schedule lines are committed on the Schedule grid, located on the Schedule tab, OneStrata automatically does the following:
- On the Schedule tab: Enables automatic flight period soft locking
- On the Orders tab: Groups committed lines with the same Order ID into orders on the Orders grid
- On the External Integrations tab: For Placement lines with a Technology Assignment value, creates one or more Ad Placement lines on the Ad Server grid
- On the Actualization tab: Creates one or more Order, Cost Package, Media Package, Placement, Fee, and Billing Period lines on the Actualization grid
About Schedule Options
A campaign can have multiple schedule drafts, in order to map out and consider different budgets and tactics during the planning process. These different options can be shared and reviewed with clients, and iterated on until a specific option is approved.
When one or more lines on a specific option are committed, that schedule option becomes Active and any other schedule options immediately become read-only Archived schedules. Moving forward, any changes to the campaign's media schedule can only be done on the Active schedule option, now just referred to as "the schedule". A campaign that has an active schedule cannot create new schedule draft options.
There are three schedule option types/statuses:
Schedule Option Status | Description |
---|---|
Draft | When a media campaign is first created, the campaign automatically has a single Draft schedule option. During the initial planning phase, draft schedule options can be freely created, deleted, and renamed within the media campaign. As soon as one or more lines on a specific draft are committed, any other Draft schedule options within the campaign become Archived schedules, and no new Draft schedule options can be created. See also: |
Active | An Active schedule has one or more committed lines, and any number of uncommitted lines. A media campaign has at most one Active schedule. |
Archived | During the initial planning phase, a media campaign may have multiple Draft schedule options. When a specific draft is chosen and moved forward, and one or more lines on that draft is committed, any other Draft schedule options become Archived schedules. Archived schedules are read-only and cannot be edited or deleted. |
About Flight Periods, Billing Periods, and Unit Calendar
Flight Periods
A media line on the Schedule Grid is divided into one or more flight periods, which defines how many units will be placed during the span of specified start and end dates. By default, flight period dates are bounded by calendar months, but individual flight period start dates and end dates can be changed as desired.
For example, a Placement line that runs from March 15th to May 5th is automatically divided into three flight periods:
- The first flight period runs from March 15th to March 31st
- The second flight period runs from April 1st to April 30th
- The third flight period runs from May 1st to May 22nd
That Placement line's budget is distributed among the flight periods in one of three ways:
- Pro Rata: Budget is distributed proportionately, according to the number of days in each flight period.
- Even: Budget is distributed evenly among flight periods, with each flight period receiving the same amount.
- Custom: The budget for each flight period is manually entered
The default cost distribution setting is defined at the campaign level. For more information, see Cost Distribution and Change a Campaign's Cost Distribution.
See also:
Billing Periods
Flight Periods are aggregated into monthly billing Periods. Billing periods are used for client/vendor billing and actualization, and each billing period has a corresponding Billing Period line on the Actualization Grid.
Although billing periods correspond to calendar months, their exact start or end dates depend on the Flight Period(s) that occur within the billing period. For example, imagine a Placement line that has the following flight periods:
- Flight period 1: March 15th to March 31st
- Flight period 2: April 1st to April 30th
- Flight period 3: May 2nd to May 10th
- Flight period 4: May 15th to May 20th
- Flight period 5: May 20th to May 22nd
This Placement line has three billing periods, one for each month:
- Billing period 1 (March): March 15th to March 31st
- Billing period 2 (April): April 1st to April 30th
- Billing period 3 (May): May 2nd to May 22nd
Unit Calendar
Flight periods and billing periods can be viewed and managed on the Unit Calendar. The Unit Calendar has two parts:
- The Unit Calendar column on the Schedule Grid: A visual representation of how many units are scheduled to run per flight period, grouped by calendar month.
- The Unit Calendar editor: Where flight-level adjustments are made, like changing the start or end date of a flight period or adding a new flight period.
To open the Unit Calendar editor, double click the Unit Calendar column on the Schedule Grid.
Media Campaigns > (Specific Campaign) > Schedule Tab UI Reference
The Schedule tab displays information about a campaign's media and non-media buys.
Schedule Tab UI Elements
The Schedule tab contains the following elements:
Item | Description | |
---|---|---|
1 | Campaign Header | |
2 | Schedule Option List | A list of the campaign's schedule options, if multiple options exist. Also displays the status of the selected schedule option:
Click to select which schedule option is displayed in the Schedule Grid. |
3 | Grouping Options | Click to select how Schedule Grid lines are grouped:
|
4 | Filters icon | Click the Filters icon to open the filter pane and filter through the selected schedule option's Schedule grid lines. |
5 | Columns icon | Click the Columns icon to customize the columns displayed within the Schedule grid. |
6 | Schedule Summary icon | Click the Schedule Summary icon to view any required approvals and spend information.
|
7 | Undo / Redo buttons | Click to undo or redo any changes to the Schedule grid that have not been saved yet. |
8 | Search & Scroll bar | Select the name of a column in the Schedule grid, and the Schedule grid will automatically scroll to and highlight the column. |
9 | Advertiser View button | Click to access the Advertiser View version of the schedule. The Advertiser View page is a read-only, customizable view of the schedule that can be downloaded. |
10 | Import / Export button | Click to import or export the schedule, using the OneStrata Excel template. This button is only available if the Import/Export Allowed setting has been enabled. To view this setting, go to:
|
11 | Save Changes button | Click the Save Changes button to save any changes made to the Schedule grid. |
12 | Applied Filters bar | Displays any filters that have been applied to the Schedule grid. By default, the (Schedule Grid Line) Status filter is applied, and canceled lines—Schedule Grid lines with the Cancelled status—are filtered out and not included on the Schedule Grid. |
13 | Schedule grid | A list of the selected schedule option's media and non-media buys. By default, Cancelled Schedule Grid lines are filtered out. For more information, see Schedule Grid Reference. |
14 | Add Row icon | Click the Add Row icon to add a new Schedule grid line:
|
15 | Discard Draft button | If no Draft - X Schedule grid lines are selected, the Discard Draft button is inactive. If one or more Draft - X Schedule grid lines are selected, the Discard Draft button is active. Click the Discard Draft button to discard changes to the selected Schedule Grid line(s):
|
16 | Cancel button | If no Committed Schedule grid lines are selected, the Cancel button is inactive. If one or more Committed Schedule grid lines are selected, the Cancel button is active. Click the Cancel button to flag the selected line(s) for cancellation, by changing the line's status from Committed to Draft - Cancelled. |
17 | Duplicate button | Click the Duplicate button to duplicate the selected Schedule grid line(s). Duplicated lines are created at the top of the Schedule Grid, and have the status Draft - New. |
18 | Commit button | If no Schedule grid lines are selected, the Commit button is inactive. If one or more Schedule grid lines are selected, the Commit button is active. Click the Commit button to commit the selected Schedule Grid line(s). |
Schedule Grid Reference
A table of the selected schedule option's media and non-media buys. By default, canceled Schedule grid lines are filtered out.
Note: Data and functionality available in Schedule will vary based on Agency user access/permissions, Agency Administration settings, and OneStrata environment configuration.
List of Schedule Column Types
Columns in the Schedule Grid are one of the following types:
Column Type | Description |
---|---|
Calculated | OneStrata calculates and populates several fields with a variety of formulas and rules to increase efficiency, reduce errors, and handle complex pricing scenarios. These include:
|
Triangulated | Editable fields with triangulation rules such as rate, unit cost, and cost where changing one value updates the others. |
Concatenated | Concatenated fields auto-populate with data from other fields according in the format defined by a formula. Often used to apply naming conventions quickly and easily, these fields auto-populate based on other field values according to a formula. The formula and ability to manually edit or reapply the formula depends on Agency configurations. |
Generated | Automatically generated by OneStrata. |
Text | Text fields can be typed in manually with a few variations:
|
Selected | Data is entered by selecting from a pre-defined list, typically in a drop-down menu. |
List of Schedule Grid Columns
A non-exhaustive list of the most common Schedule Grid columns. Depending on how an Agency or Enterprise has been configured, the Schedule Grid may contain additional columns, in a different order.
Required? | Column Type | Column Name | Description |
---|---|---|---|
N/A | Checkbox | Checkbox | Click to select one or more Schedule Grid lines. |
N/A | Selected | Line Type | The type of Schedule Grid line:
|
N/A | Generated | Status (Schedule Grid Line Status) | The status of the Schedule Grid line:
|
N/A | Generated | ID | The unique, OneStrata identification number of the Schedule Grid line. |
Yes | Selected | Start Date | The start date of the Schedule Grid line. By default, the Start Date value of a newly created Schedule Grid Line is the start date of the campaign. |
Yes | Selected | End Date | The end date of the Schedule Grid line. By default, the End Date value of a newly created Schedule Grid Line is the end date of the campaign. |
Yes | Selected | Supplier | The Supplier assigned to the Schedule Grid line. |
Yes | Selected | Order Partner | The Order Partner assigned to the Schedule Grid line. |
Yes | Selected | Payee | The Payee assigned to the Schedule Grid line. |
Yes | Selected | Estimate ID | The unique, OneStrata identification number of the Estimate associated with the Schedule Grid line. |
No | Text, Concatenated | Name | The user-given name of the Schedule Grid line. |
Yes | Selected | Format | The Format assigned to the Schedule Grid line. |
No | Selected | Format Dimension | The Format Dimensions assigned to the Schedule Grid line. Automatically fills out, based on the Format value, but can be customized. |
Yes | Selected | Cost Category | The Cost Category assigned to the Schedule Grid line. |
No | Selected | Cost Method | The Cost Method assigned to the Schedule Grid line:
|
Yes | Selected | Rate Type | Pricing model by which the Schedule Grid line is being purchased, such as CPM (Impressions), CPC (Clicks), Fixed, etc. The Rate Type value determines the type of Unit represented in the Units value. Rate Type is required before entering rate/units/cost information in a line. |
No | Triangulated | Units | Three fields with number of units, unit cost or rate, and cost are linked by a triangulation rule. When two values are entered, OneStrata automatically calculates the third. The default rules for Units/Rate/Cost are:
However, the rules and relationships between Units/Rate/Cost may vary depending on Agency or Enterprise settings. Calculated and displayed in Vendor Currency (VC). |
No | Triangulated | Vendor Net Rate (VC) | |
No | Triangulated | Vendor Net Cost (VC) | |
Yes | Selected | Unit Calendar | A visual representation of how many units are scheduled to run per Flight Period, grouped by calendar month. For more information, see About Flight Periods, Billing Periods, and Unit Calendar. |
No | Selected | Fee Assignments | The Fees assigned to the Schedule Grid line. For more information, see Assign a Fee to a Placement. |
No | Selected | Technology Assignments | The ad server assigned to the Schedule Grid line. For more information, see Assign an Ad Server to a Placement. |
No | Calculated | Client Commission Rule | The default Commission rule is automatically applied. Additional Commission rules may be available, based on the configured Commission records and selections made within the Campaign and Schedule Grid line |
No | Calculated | Client Commission Cost (CC) | Calculated and displayed in Client Currency (CC). |
No | Calculated | Client Total Cost (CC) | The amount that the client is charged, after any discounts are applied and commission is added, but before any taxes are added. |
No | Calculated | Client Net Cost (CC) | The amount that the client is charged for the media purchases, after any discounts are applied but before any commission or taxes are added. |
No | Calculated | Margin Percentage | The difference between the cost of a media purchase (Vendor Net Cost) and the price at which it is sold (Client Net Cost), as a percentage of the price at which it is sold (Client Net Cost). Margin Percentage = (Client Net Cost - Vendor Net Cost) / Client Net Cost |
No | Calculated | Other Income Cost (VC) | The difference between Vendor Net Cost (VC) and Client Net Cost (VC) for margin lines. |
No | Calculated | Allocated Amount (CC) | Client budget allocated to a cost line in the schedule which includes both the media cost and the fee costs. |
No | Calculated | Allocated Fee Cost (CC) | Client net cost of any fees applied to the media line which are based on the Allocated amount. If the fee is applied to more than one line, this is the portion of the fee in relation to this media line. |