When selecting screens to book a proposal in the Digital Inventory Page, screen availability is crucial information to have.
The key pieces of screen availability are:
- Avail % Column
- Avail Slots Column
- Fill Rate Column
Let's see how they work.
Avail% Column
The Avail % column indicates the percentage of time that you can have to create a proposal. The percentage depends on the Ad Length and Flight specified, as well as the Type of Buy that you are using.
Tip: See How is the Avail % Calculated? for more details on how Broadsign Direct calculates that value.
The Avail % uses the following color scheme:
| Avail % | Color Description |
|---|---|
|
Red – The screen or screen group is unavailable to book (between 0% and 9.99%). It is possible for a screen to exist in your inventory, but be down for repair, for example. |
|
Amber – The screen or screen group is partially available to book (between 10% and 89.99%). |
|
Green – The screen or screen group is between 90% and 100% available to book. Screens with availability between 90% and 99.99% will be shown as green even if they might be partially bookable when performing the availability check. |
If a screen has a fixed slot duration value, the value is taken into account in the availability. For example, if the specified slot duration is 20s, but the screen has a 10s fixed slot duration, then the availability check is calculated based on the 10s fixed slot duration. For more information, see Screens and Fixed Slot Duration.
Tip: When Broadsign Direct calculates the time used by a campaign that is dynamically paced in Broadsign Control, it uses the campaign's maximum saturation, and not the dynamically-adjusted value. In this sense, it takes a pessimistic but safe view of the campaign's inventory pressure. When using Broadsign Direct, dynamically-paced campaigns in Broadsign Control should be avoided in favor of the Play Goal Type of Buy.
Avail Slots Column
The Avail Slots column displays the average number of integer ‘slots’ available for booking. This number depends on the Ad Length and Flight specified.
- Slots are based on the ad length specified during the search process.
- Slots take into account day parts and partial availability.
- Slots do not contain decimals and are rounded down to the nearest integer.
Tip: See How is the Avail Slots Calculated? for more details on how Broadsign Direct calculates that value.
Understanding fill rate is critical when booking proposals.
Fill Rate Column
The Fill Rate column indicates, in percentage, the used capacity of the screen or face for the Ad Length and Flight specified. If you click the fill rate percentage, a dialogue box opens with a list of the proposals that include the screen.
Tip: See How is the Fill Rate Calculated? for more details on how Broadsign Direct calculates that value.
For instance, if the fill rate is 25%, it means that the screen is filled with content to a quarter of its capacity. There is still room for proposals up to 75% of the screen capacity. The fill rate is always an integer, so there are no decimals. Decimal values are rounded.
If a screen has a fixed slot duration value, the fill rate is calculated based on that value. For more information, see Screens and Fixed Slot Duration.
Note: Broadsign Direct does not take into account the Number of monitors setting in the Broadsign Control Player configuration, which specifies the number of monitors connected to the player. For more information, see the Number of Monitors Tab section in the Broadsign Control documentation.
Note: Screen fill rate details will not show any preemptible proposal items. See About Preemptible Proposal Items for more details.
Clicking the fill rate percentage of a specific screen displays a window with a list of the proposal items that include that screen for the selected time period. The maximum display period in this window is six months.
Note: The fill rate proposal list window is not available when the Fill Rate is 0%.
The fill rate window allows Sales Operators or Salespersons to understand why a screen or face has the current fill rate percentage. It is thus possible to determine which proposal items are exercising pressure on that particular screen or face.
The fill rate percentage is broken down per proposal item to easily identify where the screen pressure is coming from. The following information is available:
| Column | Description |
| Name | Name of the proposal item that contributes to the fill rate. If you click this name, the Proposal Builder is displayed. If you do not own a proposal item, you can review it and contact its owner. If, for example, you have a better deal to propose, you can negotiate with the current owner. |
| Fill % | Percentage of fill for each proposal item. The total percentage of fill for all items equals the Fill Rate displayed in the inventory page. |
| Priority | Rebalancing priority of the proposal item. See Use the Rebalancing Feature for more details. |
| Status | Status of the proposal item. See The Proposal Status Menu for a description of the status available. |
| Start date | Start date of the proposal item. |
| End date | End date of the proposal item. |
| Screens | Number of screens in the proposal item. |
| Price | Price of the proposal item. See Proposal Price for more details. |
| Owner | Name of the sales owner of the proposal item. |
| Company Name | Company name of the proposal to which the proposal item belongs. |
| Contract ID |
Contract ID of the proposal to which the proposal line item belongs, if it is enforced in Broadsign Direct. Your Administrator may have defined the Contract ID as mandatory. For more information, see Make the contract ID field mandatory. |
| Ad Duration | Ad duration of the proposal item. |
You can sort information by each column.
You can customize which columns that you want displayed by clicking the Configure Columns button and selecting columns in the drop-down menu that is displayed:
The fill rate break down takes the fix slot duration into account, if applicable.
It is thus possible to use this information to make strategic proposal changes to better respond to customer requests and, ultimately, generate revenue.
