New Appointment

In this section, you will quickly be able to add a new appointment. Select the customer you would like to set the appointment for and then complete the appointment form as you normally would. This appointment will go directly into your calendar.

influence FM Tasks Management System

"Tasks" are only for duties that are NOT related to a customer

Uses: The task system is intended for things such as internal meetings with management, radio station events/functions or picking up donuts for the office.

DO NOT use the task system for things that are related to a customer.

Creating a New Task

 Click on the green "+ New" button on the top left of the screen. Choose "+ New Task" from the drop down menu.

Adding A New Contact

To add a new customer:

1. Click on the big green button in the top left hand corner of the screen that says “New”
2. Then click “New Customer” from the drop down menu.
3. Then a window will pop-up and the first option is to decide if this account is associated to an agency. If it’s not, please skip this step. If it is, click the button to turn to yes. This will then bring up a drop down menu that will let you select an agency. IMPORTANT: Your manager must have the agencies entered into the system before you will be able to select an agency. You can always edit this later.
4. Fill out the customer’s company name and then select the product category type, i.e., if it is a landscaper select “landscaping”, if it is a baker select “baker” and so on. This is very important as influence FM integrates with 3rd party apps like Google maps and Google Calendar.
5. Click on the blue toggle button below the customer name that says “Customer Info” . In this toggle, the only thing that is required is the first and last name. If you do not have this, simply put “N/A” in the first and last name field and you can come back and add the name at a later date. All other fields are optional.

Last: At the bottom – click the blue button that says “Save Changes”

Creating a New Contract: 

Creating Cash/Trade/Bonus Contracts:

1. Click on the big green “New” button on the upper left corner of the page then select the second option “New Contract”
2. Now select your customer
3. Name your contract: it is important that you name your contract something very specific because you may want to find that contract later to either edit, cancel or duplicate it
4.  Next click on “Select Contract Type…” and choose your contract type from the drop down menu. The Contract Type choices are: Cash/Trade/Bonus, Package, One Sheet or Incremental.
   1. Incremental orders are for up-buys and a few other options why you would want to use it.  This allows you to put a contact and schedule in the system without having to create an appointment so you can get your numbers and get credit for those dollar amounts with out having to create an appointment in the calendar. (we will go over the other package types in additional training modules)

For this example we will select “Cash/Trade/Bonus”.

1. Click on the green “Add Contract Line Item” You will be able to add multiple lines
2. Title the line (an example: “Lead Up To Summer Blitz Campaign”)
3. Select the length of the ad in the drop down (examples: 30, 60, 120 etc…) next to the line name.
4. In the drop down below select either Cash, Trade or Bonus. You may not have all 3 of these options. Ask your manager about these options. 
5. Select the contract begin and end dates.
6. You will have to choose either Daypart, Show or Custom/Remotes. Once again, all of these options may not be available to you. 
7. Select which daypart/time slot that you would like the ads to run in from the drop down. These are different for every company. 
8. Enter the amount of ads you want to run on each day of the week.
9. Then you will select the stations in which the ads will run on.

• Optional: Under the green toggle that says “Advanced Options” you can set what is called a Run/Skip schedule.
• This means that you can have the ad run a certain amount of weeks and skip a certain amount of weeks before it plays again. For example, if in the first box you put the number 2 the ad would run for 2 weeks and in the second box you put the number 1, it would skip playing that add for 1 week. (see image below)

(watch the video below for an additional tutorial on Run/Skip Options)

Optional: If you would like to run multiple lines, click the “Add Contract Line Item” and then repeat steps 4-11

Additional Options:

Everything in additional options applies to the entire contract

Broadcast Billing: Enabling this triggers the calendar to start on a Monday instead of a Sunday (Ask your manager why you may want to use this)

Net vs Gross:

Customer Multiplier: This allows you to give a discount to your customer. This is helpful for charities and non-profits that you want to give a discount to. Do note that this is a global setting, meaning this discount is locked in on all new contracts for this customer until changed.

Co-op: This is when more than one customer is paying the bill for this contract

Uploading File(s) to a Contract:

This is useful for uploading signed contracts or schedules from agencies for example. Do note that any time you open a contract in smart rate you can upload files. You can upload before, during or after creating a contract.

Printing Contracts:

There are three options to print your contract. When you click one of these options and nothing happens, it is because your pop-ups are being blocked by your browser. Look at the top right corner of your browser and allow pop-ups for influence FM

Weekly: This breaks the customers schedule down per week to what they are paying per week. This is handy if you are competing against the local newspaper because newspaper rates are charged per week.

Monthly: This breaks down the customer schedule and payment by month.

Summary: This is a very generalized view of the contract. Included is total, number of ads and stations the ads are running on.

Save as Draft/Submitting Contracts:

Simply scroll to the bottom of the contract you are working on and select either “Save as Draft” to save for later or “Submit” if it’s ready to be sent to your manager.

SmartRate: Natural Log Integration

This feature saves your traffic director a ton of time by automatically integrating cash, trade and bonus contracts into Natural Log. The contracts that are able to automatically integrate into Natural Log MUST only be a contract including cash, trade and/or bonus contracts. Natural Log will not automatically integrate with any contract that includes a custom, flat rate, NTR, package or One Sheet contract.

Here at our 7 stations in Arizona, this feature saves our traffic director at least 30 – 40 minutes a day from having to log the contract information into Natural Log manually. That’s about 3 weeks of time out of the year that can be used for other tasks. 

(see images below)

(watch an additional contract training tutorial below)

New Production Order

Making a Standard PO

There is one ad per Production Order:

Tip: If there is ever an issue that you want to fix or adjust while the ad is getting produced, you MUST click on the orange “Actions” button and choose “Report Problem”. This is the ONLY way to edit a PO!

1. On the left side of you screen, click on the green “New” button and then select the third option “New PO”
2. In the right drop-down box at the top of the pop-up screen, choose which customer the production order is for
3. You can either choose a “Standard PO” or a “Pre-produced PO”. For this example we are going to choose “Standard PO”. A Standard PO means that you need an ad produced while a Pre-produced PO means that you already have an ad produced that MAY OR MAY NOT need more editing.
4. Create a specific title for your ad so you are able to find it in the future (adding a date including a month and a year may help make it easier to find your ad at a later date)
5. Select the length, voice style and number of voices you need for this production order
6. Choose the dates that you would like it written and produced by (If you don’t have the “write by” date field, it means your company does not have this turned on)
7. Check the “Co-op” button if that applies to this ad. If there is confusion on whether this option needs to be selected, ask your manager or traffic
8. You can leave the “Cart” option empty, traffic will take care of that if this is not your job
9. Under “Talent” you can request who you would like to have voice your ad
10. “Needs” has four check boxes to choose from; Jingle, Tag, Music Bed and other. Check all that apply to this ad.
11. Anything that may help the talent or production in making this ad should be put in the “Instructions” box and, if applicable, the “Pronunciations” box
12. Under “Copy Points”, enter as much as you can to help the copy writer create the ad you need (If you do not have a copy box field, it means your company has this turned off)
13. Next is the “Copy” box (If your company uses copywriters, you may skip this step. However, if you are the one writing the copy, go ahead and enter it in the copy box)
14. If there are any “Additional Instructions”, you may enter that in the last text box on the form
15. Once your Production Order form is complete, select “Apply” if you are ready to move on or “Save Changes” to come back to it later
16. If your company uses copywriters, your Production Order will now move to the “Copy Writer” stage. If your company does not use copywriters, then it will go to the production status. (If you open the “Copy Writer” tab at the top of the screen, you will see your production order. On the bottom is a blue line showing what status the production order is in and what is next in the process.)
17. Once the copy writer is done writing the ad, it will move to the “Approval” status where you can read the script and make sure your customer likes the copy. Tip: You can click on the orange “Actions” button and email the copy to your customer.
18. You will not need to do anything until it gets to the “Complete” stage. At this stage, you can listen to the ad and send it off to the customer for their approval.
19. Once you have received approval, select “Traffic” on the blue timeline at the bottom of the PO.
20. A pop-up will appear, here you will create your Traffic Order.
21. Under the “Percent” box is where you will choose the variation between the ads running. (For example if you had two adds you would do 50% or if you had one ad it would be 100%)
22. Select the date range that these ads will be running for and the stations that the ads will be running on. (If this has not already been selected, it is because your company has the feature turned off to set run dates and stations before the PO is completed)
23. Select the Daypart that these ads will be in and select what days of the week you would like them to play
24. If you would like to add any other Production Orders to this Traffic Order, then click on the “Select a PO to add” from the drop down bar. Select which PO you would like to add, then click “Add to Rotation”
25. Now you can “Save Draft” to save for later or “Send to Traffic”
26. Once sent to traffic, they will handle the next step and move it to “On Air”

Pre-Produced PO Example Below:

New Traffic Order Example Below:

(watch an additional video tutorial below)

Making a Preproduced PO

Preproduced means that the ad is done and ready to go on the air

There is one ad per Production Order:
On the left side of you screen, click on the green “New” button and then select the option “New PO”.
In the right drop-down box at the top of the pop-up screen, choose which customer the production order is for.

You can either choose a “Standard PO” or a “Preproduced PO”.

A Preproduced PO means that you already have an ad produced that needs NO editing what so ever. It is 100% ready to go on the air!
Create a specific title for your ad so you are able to find it in the future (a general date including a month and a year may help you)