GSelector is equipped with countless scheduling features that cater to every programmer’s philosophy. In this video, we discussed GSelector’s No Repeat and Drive Protection scheduling techniques. No Repeat allows the programmer to make sure a song is only played once during a group of dayparts, whereas Drive Protection will prevent a listener from hearing the same song driving to and from work. Each of these techniques add an additional level of control.
Starting with No Repeat, this feature can be defined via Setup | Dayparts | No Repeat. The concept is that users would select all the dayparts they care about (From Setup | Dayparts | Definition) in which a song can only play once. The classic example is “No Repeat Workdays” or “No Repeat Weekends.” The No Repeat subtab is broken down into Grids on the left and Dayparts on the right. Simply check off the dayparts you care about. If we’re building a “No Repeat Workday,” we want to isolate Monday and then check off Monday’s AM Drive, Midday, PM Drive and any other dayparts you want GSelector to care about. Notice how we isolate each day of the week, otherwise, if “Happy Birthday” plays Monday at 9am, if Tuesday through Friday’s AM Drive through PM Drive is selected, then you’re telling GSelector to ban “Happy Birthday” from scheduling for the rest of the week because Tuesday’s Midday or Friday’s PM Drive are included in the “Monday” Grid profile. If you want to achieve a “No Repeat Workday,” create 5 No Repeat Grids for each day of the week and select your desired 9am-5pm dayparts. If you wanted a “No Repeat Weekend,” then repeat the process with both Saturday and Sunday’s dayparts selected.
Continuing onto Drive Protection, you can define your Drive Protection settings via Setup | Hours | Drive Protection. This workspace is outlined by a Yesterday and Today grid above and lists below. The concept behind Drive Protection is that if you are listening to “Happy Birthday” at 5pm on Friday afternoon, leaving work and preparing for the weekend off, if you drive into work Monday morning and hear the same song, “Happy Birthday,” at 8am, it may be a slight mood killer or at least the listener will think, “I just heard this song.” Programmers will outline Drive Protection hours to prevent these types of listening behaviors. Simply define Hour Today, the Previous Hour, which includes Yesterday hours, and the Day. For example, if a programmer wanted to implement that Monday 8am versus Friday at 5pm, then they would use Hour Today: 8am, Previous Hour: 5pm Yesterday, and select Monday. Obviously, if you wanted to repeat Drive Protection Tuesday at 5pm and Wednesday at 8am, then select multiple days. The only thing to note, these Yesterdays will respect GSelector’s Yesterdays as specified within Setup | Station | Days of the Week. Be careful because some programmers have Monday’s Yesterday as Sunday. If you wanted to achieve the Monday / Friday relationship, then you’ll have to adjust your Days of the Week. There’s a previous RCS Live video reviewing the Days of the Week here. Finally, many programmers prefer a Drive Protection for 5pm / 8am, as well as 4pm / 7am, in which case, just create a second Drive Protection and note how GSelector will display each list with a corresponding letter, like “A” and “B.”
As with all GSelector goals and rules, after you define a setting, programmers must include that goal or rule within a Priority List. Head to Goals | Priorities and add the “No Repeat” or “Drive Protection” rules and don’t forget to make them either Unbreakable or Breakable, depending on how you want to schedule the songs. As a reminder, you can isolate category’s Priority Lists, so if you want to include Drive Protection for only recurrents and golds, then create a new Priority List, assign your recurrents and golds, and then include Drive Protection as Unbreakable. Versus your currents Priority List, which features a different Priority List that doesn’t include Drive Protection or lists it as Breakable.
Don’t forget that there are various amounts of resources to help you and your team. Programmers can always reference our past videos via our RCS Live Archive. If you’re looking for a deeper, better foundational education on RCS products, RCS Academy is here to help! Find out more information here. We’ll be hosting more RCS Lives throughout 2024, as well as hitting the road with RCS Academy. For a full list of events, don’t forget to follow us on our social networks.