Advance Processing
The Advance Processing menu contains options for an “early” publishing run. For example, your newspaper may drop several sections for your Sunday paper, including “Entertainment” and “Comics”, with your carriers on Wednesday. When the rest of the paper arrives on Sunday, the carriers insert the early sections into the paper before delivering them.
The advanced publishing run works independently of the regular publishing run, but it accomplishes the same thing: it calculates the draw and produces documents (bundle tops, truck manifests) that allow the correct number of papers to be delivered to the right carriers.
A key difference between the two publishing runs is that the advanced publishing run only estimates the draw. During Start Advance Run, the system looks at the draw for the last publishing date, and subscriber transactions (starts, stops, payments, etc.) that have been entered up to the advance publishing date. Using this information, it estimates draw figures and creates distribution documents based on that estimate. The draw estimate is known as advance draw.
Of course, additional subscriber transactions will probably be entered after the advance draw is calculated and the early sections distributed. In the case where the actual draw for a route is less than the estimate, no further distribution is needed. When the actual draw is greater than the estimate, however, extra copies of the early sections need to be distributed with the rest of the paper (this is indicated on the bundle top).
Note:
If you have InsertPlus, you can use the advance processing run to distribute insert mixes. The mix name, a list of inserts, and other information will be printed on the truck manifest.
When bundle tops are printed during the regular publishing run, Business Rules determine whether additional advanced draw is printed on a separate bundle top or in a separate spool file, and how advance draw will be labeled on bundle tops. Business Rules also determine whether positive advance draw is printed on the truck manifest and Press Room Report during the regular publishing run (in cases where the advance draw is greater than the regular draw).
A single advance publishing run can be done for all sections, or for each advance section independently, depending on Business Rules. If each section has a separate advance run, then advance draw figures will calculated for each section independently. Otherwise, only one set of draw figures will be calculated and used for all sections.
Note: If you do advance publishing for each section independently, the sections must be linked to your editions (see the Setup Manual).
To illustrate how advance processing might work, let us take the example of the “Comics” and “Entertainment” sections given above for a single route, route 12.
On Monday, an advance processing is run is started for the following Sunday’s “Comics” section, and the draw for route 12 is estimated at 50. Bundle tops, truck manifests, and other documents are printed for distribution, and the section is delivered. On Tuesday, the “Entertainment” section for Sunday is delivered. In this example, we have Business Rules set to have one advance publishing run for all sections, so we do not need to start a new advance run, but different distribution information (bundle sizes, etc.) needs to be entered for “Entertainment”.
On Saturday, the regular Sunday publishing run is processed, and the actual draw for route 12 is calculated to be 54. On the bundle tops and truck manifests, an advance draw of 4 will appear for the “Comics” and “Entertainment” sections, and 4 extra copies will be distributed to route 12.
An advance processing run requires the following steps:
The run must be started, just as with a normal publishing run, using the Start Advance Run option. The draw for the advance run is calculated at this point.
Before documents can be printed, bundle information must be entered for the run. You must indicate the sections, truck sequence, and bundle sizes for the run, among other things. You enter bundle information for each section in the run separately. This is done using Enter Bundle Info.
If you round the draw for bulk routes (see Round Draw), at this point you would use Round Draw to perform the draw rounding.
Now you can print the documents that are needed to distribute the advanced sections. You can print a Press Room Report, Daily Draw Worksheet, bundle tops, and truck manifests. You can also interface data to stacker equipment using the Stacker Interface option.
You can delete a run in progress using Undo Advance Run. If you do not “undo” a run, Circulation assumes the advance run was distributed (there is no “end run” option). Undo Advance Run reverses the entire advance run for that date, product and section (if you do advance runs by section).
Check the status of the advanced publishing run at any time using Advance Run Status.
The individual options on the Advance Processing menu are discussed briefly below.
Enter Bundle Info
Use this option to establish bundle sizes and other information that should appear on bundle tops. This is similar to the regular publishing run option (see Enter Bundle Info) but the additional fields, Paper Section, Rounding Model, Combine With Final On, and Create One File Set? are active:
In Paper Section, enter the paper section for which you are defining distribution information (sections must be set up). You can then print bundle tops, truck manifests, and other documents for the particular section.
A rounding model should be specified in Rounding Model if you round draw (see Round Draw).
Combine with Final On allows you to print advance section information, including inserts, on the final truck manifest and bundle tops for the publication on a different publishing day. For example, Saturday insert prepacks could be delivered at the same time as the Friday newspaper. This value must be a valid publishing date, and it cannot be later than the run date. The advance detail can also print on the final truck manifest for the advance publishing date, based on the Business Rule— Should the advance section detail reprint on the publishing manifest if it was combined with a final on an earlier date? In order to use Combine with Final On, a mix must be entered in Mix Name.
Create One File Set allows you to override the Business Rule settings that create separate bundle top and truck manifest files by publication and edition. When this checkbox is selected, one combined export file for all multi-pack editions is created (i.e., instead of separate files), and the remaining editions are exported as before (based on File Map setup). A Business Rule— Should the export file set for multi-pack products default to 'One File Set' in 'Enter Bundle Info'? (Route Processing section), was added to set the default value for this checkbox.
Start Advance Run
This option is similar to Start Publ Run (see Start Publishing Run), but you do not select a delivery method (advance runs are always for route delivery). Another difference is that you can start the run for any future publishing date. When the run is started, the advance draw is calculated based on the last publishing date of the same weekday, plus processed and unprocessed transactions for any date prior to the advance run date.
As mentioned earlier, Business Rules determine whether you will have separate publishing runs for each section, or a single advance run covering all sections. If doing separate advance runs, you will need to enter the section for the run in the Section field. If only one run is used, Section will be set to “*”.
Round Draw
To make it easier for distribution personnel to handle advance sections, some newspapers use only standard bundles for bulked routes; key bundles are either rounded up to become an additional standard, or rounded down (skipped).
In order to do draw rounding, you must:
Set Business Rules to allow a draw rounding for the publication (the Business Rule is in the Route Processing section).
Set up draw rounding models, which determine what trucks or route groups within a truck have their bulk draw rounded (see Rounding Model in the Setup Manual).
Enter the rounding model in Enter Bundle Info (see Enter Bundle Info), and enter bundle sizes based on either truck or insert mix. Rounding cannot be done if bundle sizes are based on edition, AAM zone, or delivery method.
Use Round Draw to do the actual draw rounding.
Once rounding takes place, the rounded draw will appear on the advance bundle tops, truck manifest and Press Room Report. The truck manifest and Press Room Report will also display unrounded advance draw for reconciliation purposes.
In the live run, rounded figures will be used when determining the number of extra advance sections needed on bundle tops, the truck manifest and the Press Room Report. There is also a rounded draw export option (see Adv Reconciliation).
To do draw rounding, select Round Draw from the Advance Processing menu. Choose the advance publishing run for which to do rounding, and click Continue. The advance draw will be rounded based on the rounding scheme entered in Enter Bundle Info.
Distribution Documents
All of the distribution documents that can be printed for the advanced run (Press Room Report, Daily Draw Worksheet, stacker interface, bundle tops and truck manifest) work similarly to the equivalent options in the regular publishing run.
The Press Room Report, bundle tops, and truck manifest produced in the regular publishing run will show the difference between the actual and advanced draw (if the actual draw is greater). If the advanced draw is greater than the actual draw for a route, a negative number will appear on the truck manifest. The driver may choose to collect the extra advanced sections from this route.
Note: Advance bundle tops will print only the messages entered in Enter Bundle Info (no transaction messages are printed).
Select an advance run and click Continue.
Undo Advance Run
If you start an advance run and later decide not to distribute the advance sections, use the Undo Advance Run option. The bundle information records (specified using Enter Bundle Info) will be deleted, and the draw for the advance run will be set at zero. The normal publishing run for that day will ignore the advance run.
To undo an advance publishing run:
Select Undo Advance Run from the Advance Processing menu to display the Undo Advance Run window.
Select the advance run to undo by selecting the appropriate Process checkbox.
Click Continue to undo the advance run.
Advance Run Status
You can display the status of all advance runs using the Advance Run Status option, which is similar to Publ Run Status (see Publishing Run Status).
There are only two statuses: “Run Started” and “No Bundle Info Entered”. “No Bundle Info Entered” is displayed until bundle information is entered for the advance run (using Enter Bundle Info). “Run Started” is displayed from that point on.
An advanced run will no longer appear in this window when the regular publishing run for that product and date has ended.
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