September 2015 vPPO Release Notes

New Features and Improvements

New WWW Site

Our public website (www.vcreativeinc.com) has received a total overhaul. The login pages for both PPO and PROMO haven't changed so all saved bookmarks and shortcuts will stay the same.

We invite all of our current users to take a look at our new site. You might learn something new about vCreative and what we can do.

Revision Highlights for Traffic & Production

Though every revision done in PPO requires a PO Blog post from the submitter, we wanted to make it even easier for staff to see what changes are needed. Now, the Status column will show in a yellow-highlighted box exactly what fields were adjusted or changed during the recent revision status. This box only shows for Traffic and Production users. The full history of what exactly was altered is still stated in the History and the PO Blog post is still required. At first, this featue will only work when Firm Settings are not copying to a new spot upon Revision. Soon, this tracking will show for all Revisions regardless of the Firm Settings that dictate this copy-spot behavior.

Improved Special Character Handling

There are times when certain special characters get used in production orders that aren't found on everyone's keyboards. We've added much-improved handling of these characters which might come from outside of the English language. While the keyboard in front of you most likely lacks a key for an inverted question mark (¿) or a U with an umlaut (Ü) they might get copied and pasted from emails or spot instructions. Though not used very often for most users, every PPO field (including scripts) can now handle these characters just fine. The Day Parts field is however restricted and will not accept special characters.

Music Bed in Special Instructions

Users who have the Produce ability enabled on their accounts will no see Music Bed info in the highlighted Special Instructions box. This was added to save the extra click of pulling down the full Prod Notes from the files column.

Failed Login Notification

To log into the PPO system, you must supply a valid username and password combination. Sometimes, even the best of us may forget one or both. Very rarely, something else might prevent you from logging in. We've added a visual cue to the login page to let you know for sure if the username or password entered is not valid. For the sake of security (preventing guessed usernames or passwords), we will not say which field was wrong. As always, you can reset your password with the link provided on the login page just in case.

Default to only Voice Pool

The Voice Pool features in PPO allow stations and companies to share voice talent regardless of physical location. However, many markets only use a local (single location) voice pool. For any producer requesting a voice request when they only have one Talent Pool to choose from, the drop down now defaults to that single option. Anyone linked to more than one Talent Pool will be required to select from the available pools.

Improved Revisions/Extends Report

The existing List Report for showing spots that have been Revised was modified. We added an option to select which type of change was made, including Extend Dates as an option. Now, this report can list out all spots in a time frame that were revised, had their end date extended or both.

Bug Fixes

Voice requests can only be canceled (red x) by users with Delegation ability
Send email tool properly uses default body text in successive uses
Voice Pool search audio players improved for more reliable playback with large search results
Restored proper placement of the File Notes icon on the QO form when attaching files