Automation systems

The rest of this help says "your automation system", because the job is the same wherever the log ends up. This page covers particular products.

Naming them here is descriptive. Cartwright is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of them, and all trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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StationPlaylist

Creator builds the playlists and imports the traffic log. Studio plays them and writes the as-run.

Where things are

Verify import reads that TrafficImport.log. It is the same text Creator's own Details tab shows.

Reading the import result

A good result:

Importing Traffic Log File "M:\Playlists\081026t1.log" No traffic data found for 06:07 4 items inserted out of 4 total items

• "No traffic data found for hh:mm" is not an error. It names a Commercial Break Note in the playlist with nothing scheduled into it. Expect one per unsold break per hour.
• "0 items inserted out of N total items" means the format was right, but there was no Commercial Break Note at that minute to merge into. Creator attaches each imported row to a break note; with no note there, nothing lands. Check the rotation has break notes at the times you are scheduling into.
• "The Traffic Log file structure is incorrect" is a column problem: Creator read one field where it expected another. Call us on (707) 505-8885 or email hello@cartwright.fm.

A file on the share is not a file Creator can see

Creator looks up a Track ID in its scanned library, not in the folder. Anything copied to the share after Creator started is invisible to it until the library is rescanned.

It is worth knowing because it looks nothing like what it is: the log is perfect, the row imports, and the audio still will not resolve.

Live reads and billboards

Live reads and billboards never go to Creator. They stay out of the traffic log, and the presenter marks each one read on Liners. See Live reads.

Creator saves its edits late

Rotations.dat and Schedules.dat can both be a version behind on disk while somebody is editing in Creator. If you are reading them to check something, check the timestamp first.

Never write to Creator's database

Cartwright drops a file into the watched folder and stops. Creator picks it up on its own schedule. That is the only safe boundary between Cartwright and your air signal.

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Streaming providers

If your stream carries network ads, the provider owns some of your break time, and it is not yours to sell. Cartwright subtracts it before scheduling — see Breaks, and why times move.

Set the reserved time in Settings.

Live365

Live365's With Ads package is owed two 120-second stop sets an hour, so 240 seconds per hour are reserved.

Reserve what it is owed, not what it usually takes. At one station, Live365 filled only 30 to 90 seconds of each break. Reserving that would have oversold every hour by half. It can use its full time whenever it likes.

Live365 also reads the tags on your audio, so staging writes them before the file lands, not after.

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Using something else

Nothing in the scheduler assumes a particular product. A new automation system needs:

• A folder it watches for incoming traffic logs.
• A row format it expects. Cartwright writes fixed-width columns, which most traffic importers take.
• A break structure its playlists actually contain, so imported rows have somewhere to merge into.
• An as-run file it writes afterward, for reconciliation.

If yours is not listed here, those four questions are the whole integration, and none of them requires Cartwright to write into its database. To talk it through, call (707) 505-8885 or email hello@cartwright.fm.