ProppFrexx Advertising does not detect advert blocks inside scripts

[Maartenvn]

We recently switched from separate overlays, one after the other, to one overlay that contains a script with all entries. One of the script lines in this script is an advert block.

However, I am no longer able to schedule any adverts for these overlays. The ProppFrexx Advertising & News program does not detect these overlays as valid ad blocks and I have no way to schedule any advertisements using the Dynamic or Single Overlay assignment methods right now.

[radio42]

I am sorry, but I don’t understand what you exactly mean.

When you are using a script, this is a kind of manual use. Ie. The advert management doesn’t ‚see‘ this.

[Maartenvn]

We have overlay entries of the "Script" type. This script contains a script line of type "Advert".

I now want to schedule adverts using the dynamic assignment method, but this does not work as the timing of the advert is not present.

I understand it may not be possible to resolve the timings for all adverts when using a script in an overlay, but I need to use the dynamic assignment so I need some sort of way to define when each ad block is scheduled.

[Maartenvn]

Previously declared Dynamic adverts still work in our overlay-script setup, so it already works under the hood. I just cannot define new Dynamic adverts because the advertising program does not detect the scheduled overlay scripts.

[radio42]

This is definitely NOT a bug
The concept might not be clear enough…

A campaign is by default assined to an AdvertSlot, which is then used by the resprective Overlay.
In various cases it is however necessary to assign a campain directly to an occurrence of an Overlay entry, i.e. you are using the Single- or Dynamic assignment as you described above.
In this case, the campian is NOT assigned to the AdvertSlot, but to the overlay. As such, those direct overlay assignments will not be concidered by the 'Advert' script-line mode (as this only uses the AdvertSlot assignments)!

Instead you must 'play' the entire overlay occurrence. You do this within a script-line with the 'Container' mode, in which you can now select the overlay name to be used.
At script execution, this 'Container' mode will dynamically evaluate the related overlay occurrence and use ALL assigned campains. Just as any embedded overlay container will do.

[Maartenvn]

Hmm, I am not sure if I understand correctly. So I need to define an overlay of type "Advert" with the advert slot, and reference this overlay in the script that is used by another overlay? But this will cause the ad block to be played back twice every break?

I only want to use one overlay for each break and I am using a script because a break is more than just an advert, it also contains news and other things.





I don't want to define each line of the script as a separate overlay (which is what we previously did), is this is too much work to modify for changes, adds more than one embedded container each when using RVT (making it difficult to drag around breaks), and does not allow for additional items to the break when RVT playlists have already been generated. That is why we switched to a script and a single overlay, which can be edited with ease and allows last minute changes.

The "Advert" script line does work for Dynamic Assigned entries that are scheduled before we switched to a single overlay. The overlay that is running the script has the reference name that was previously used when the overlay was of the "Advert"-type. So those entries are still played back at the correct timings, like before. I just cannot dynamically assign new campaings, because ProppFrexx no longer detects the overlay as an advert overlay.

[radio42]

So I need to define an overlay of type "Advert" with the advert slot, and reference this overlay in the script that is used by another overlay?

This is NOT what I said.
I just described, how you can reference an overlay from within a script which also considers dynamic and single overlay assignments.
I.e. yes, for dynamic and single overlay assignments you need an overlay of type 'AdvertSlot'.
When you use an overlay of type 'Script', you can not use this for dynamic and single overlay assignments - try yourself.

I only want to use one overlay for each break

I am sorry, but this is not possible, if you want to combine News, Adverts etc. and also want to have the possibility to define dynamic and single overlay assignments.

I don't want to define each line of the script as a separate overlay ...

But this is the way to go. Flexibility comes with that price, which is not that much of overhead, I am sorry!

...and allows last minute changes.

Any dynamic embedded container (news or overlay) also allows last minute changes.

...because ProppFrexx no longer detects the overlay as an advert overlay.

See my description above. Dynamic overlay assignments need an overlay of type AdvertSlot; which you just removed... as such it is not working anymore - very logic any works as designed!
You can not assign single campaign dynamically without any AdvertSlot overlay. This can not and will not work. I am sorry.

[Maartenvn]

Hmm, I understand... I guess I will have to switch back our infrastructure from one overlay to multiple or find some other way to work around this. Perhaps by creating a dummy overlay scheduler that contains advert slots for generating the dynamic entries, than copying the "partners" directory to the actual overlay scheduler, but that seems kinda hacky

By the "last minute changes" I meant the ability to change the entire overlay chain without having the alter the already created RVT playlists. In a RVT playlist an overlay cannot be added later without manually adding it to every playlist. This may not happen often for some users but in our case this can happen a lot (news reader gets sick so the news related overlays must be changed to something else, ...). With a script it is easy to just define all possible breaks and switch without a lot of work or without having to alter each individual playlist.

But mostly the reason we switched to a single overlay as embedded container (instead of multiple entries) is because it is easier to work with and prevents users from accidentally changing the order of overlays or accidentally inserting a track between overlay entries. This is a matter of paying attention but better safe than sorry. And since we made the switch to a single overlay container our users have been very grateful for this change.

Thank you for taking the time to explain this! We greatly appreciate.

[radio42]

I will take a look... maybe I can add a kind of dummy overlay option, which never actually uses that overlay, but just the assignment of compaigns to it. You then would have 2 overlay entries in the scheduler (one dummy AdvertSlot type and one of type Script).
In the Script mode overlay you can then use the Container script-line mode to reference the dummy AdvertSlot one...

Would that be an option?

[Maartenvn]

Yes that would definitely be a great option and solve our use-case!