Using Alternate Messages |
  
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Using Alternate Messages |
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The use of Alternate Messages is optional and is enabled or disabled in the Preferences | Global Posting Options property group.
Alternate Message content is maintained within crWebBB in the Preferences | Cart Categories, Alternate Messages property group. The purpose of Alternate Messages is to provide a means to post information tied to non-music elements that are played on the air. For instance, you may wish to post something like "Join our morning crew at the auditorium this Thursday for the big giveaway" every time a station promo plays, rather than leaving the previous song title up on your web site.
To implement the use of alternate messaging, you must define cart "categories", cart numbers that will be included in the category, and one or more alternate messages for the category.
Each audio type (or "category") may have as many alternate messages as desired. Each may have a start date and end date. Messages in a given category are rotated equally among those valid for a given date, with items not valid for a given date being skipped. If more than one alternate message exists with valid dates, the oldest - the one least recently posted - is used. If desired, you could even define messages that are linked to one specific cart number only - a way to have a message that's specific to one advertiser, for instance.
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When using a cart number to find the correct category, the category list is searched alphabetically by category name. If you happen to have a cart number that fits into two categories, based on cart masks, it will always be associated with category found first alphabetically. If the category information comes from a Maestro unit with the SendAllInfoToRemote option enabled, this is not an issue, as Maestro provides the category name. |
The text of the messages is comprised of three lines of information that you enter. You may enter text on any one or all three of the lines, although the recommended practice would be to use the lines in order - 1, 2, and 3. How these lines of text are used varies between a message posted (or sent) to a web site and an RDS message:
| 1. | Web Site - All three lines of information are sent, exactly as entered, separated by a "PIPE" character ( | ) for Billboard 1. For the user-defined Billboard 2, you have complete control over which lines of information are sent. |
| 2. | RDS - The first two lines only of the alternate message are placed together separated by a space, then truncated to the maximum number of characters the selected RDS encoder allows. The number of allowed characters is typically 60-65. |
When crWebBB is installed and the database tables initially created, a category named "* Unknown *" is created. It is used as a "fall-through" category. If a cart category cannot be found or there are no messages valid for a given cart category, the application tries to find a valid message in the "* Unknown *" category. If you do not wish this fall-back action, create no messages for the category.
A cart category that must be created if you are not using Maestro's SendAllInfoToRemote option is named "Music". You must also make sure that you define cart masks that match your music cart numbering scheme. The Music category is special, in that if you don't have it, you will not be able to use the music database in crWebBB. Much of the decision-tree relating to what content to post is based on whether or not a given cart number is a music cart or not. When the database tables are initially created, the "Music" category is created for you, although no cart masks or messages are assigned. For additional information on how crWebBB decides what to post, see the topic Posting Decision Tree in the appendices.
