With the Fall Ratings Period on our minds, we decided to tackle Advanced GSelector Scheduling Techniques as part of this week’s RCS Live series. We broke down the Category Changer, Optimizations, including MultiShot, Legacy and Floating, Consideration Window settings and more.
Starting with the Category Changer (Library | Category Changer), we reminded Music Directors a quick and efficient way to make their weekly music changes. Don’t forget about the F7 History Window that can be displayed or hidden and options to add or remove metadata columns. Each user can also have their own Category Changer Browse Format.
Moving on the Optimizations tab, by default the Optimizations tab is disabled. Users can enable it via Setup | Station | Features | Advanced | Enable Optimization Options. Once enabled, there are three GSelector Optimizations users can choose from: MultiShot, Legacy and Floating. Each are part of the Optimization scheduling process. Remember, there are three phases of the GSelector scheduling process: Plotting (Preemptive positioning based on dayparts), Scheduling (GSelector assigns the asset a score) and Optimizations (GSelector will juggle the asset with other assets to see if there’s a better scoring element that could fit in said position). By default, GSelector uses Legacy | Light for all scheduling.
Multishot is for smaller categories with higher turnovers, similar to Disabled | Slotted. The concept is that GSelector has slightly more flexibility in how it can schedule elements that are supposed to be in consecutive order using basic GSelector rules like Minimum Separation, Yesterday Song and Vocalist Separation. Obviously, there would need to be values in each of those rules for MultiShot to take effect. If a normal turnover category schedules as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc… then the MultiShot would allow for one position to move slightly: 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Notice that it will only move one position to make sure that GSelector maintains the desired consecutive order. These settings can be adjusted by Light, Medium, Heavy, Auto and Custom.
Next, we have Legacy and Floating optimizations. These are used for higher turnover categories with lots of elements and a turnover greater than eight hours. The concept is that GSelector will dig deeper to find a better scoring element. The main difference between Legacy and Floating is that Legacy will dig within the scheduled Category Group and Floating will search within a defined Floating Group of multiple Category Groups. For example, with Legacy enabled, if GSelector schedules a Primary Gold record, then it will dig within the Primary Gold Category Group to find a better scoring song. It will not look at any other Category Group. Compared to Floating, in which a user would define a Floating Group, like Floating Group 1, and then using the Assignment tab, they would choose multiple Category Groups and assign them the Floating Category Group 1. For example, one could combine the Category Groups: 1970s Primary, 1970s Secondary and 1970s Fill. So if a 1970s Primary element was scheduled, GSelector will look at the Floating Group to find a better scoring song. It would search through 1970s Primary, 1970s Secondary and 1970s Filler. The Optimizer strength will determine how far down GSelector will search. NOTE: There is no Goal or Rule that users have to add to the existing Priority Lists. These Optimizations are part of GSelector’s third scheduling process.
Did you know that there are Consideration Window specific settings that you can enable or disable? From the first row of Editor icons, on the far right you’ll find the finger with up down arrows dropdown Consideration Window Options. Settings range from hiding elements that have a score of 0 or displaying Packets and more. It’s good practice to play with these settings to make sure the Consideration Window is performing exactly how YOU want it to.
Finally, we went over some small tips like Airplay Starvation and taking backups. If you find your category spin separation is slightly too big – if 7 spins is the average, you have elements with 10 spins and others with 3 – then Airplay Starvation will tighten the gap so that you’ll see turnovers more like 8 and 5 respectively. With cryptoware attacks on the rise, don’t forget about Data Exchanges. They’re free and part of your GSelector contract. Think of Data Exchanges as a Cloud or Email backups and RCS will maintain the most recent backup as a security measure in case of emergencies. Best practices: take the time to send yourself a Data Exchange once a week.
With fall upon us, we’re working on some unique topics to cover for upcoming RCS Lives, including Zetta Site Replication vs. Z-Casting, Background Recorder, Zetta 5.20.1, GSelector 4.9.0 and its new unique Clock breakdowns. Make sure you follow us on Facebook.com/RCSSoundSoftware to RSVP for these free upcoming events and if you have questions you want answered, let us know and we’ll cover them every Thursday at 11am ET.
