ad tracking software [OT]

[Mike Matis]

Angela,

Ad tracking software is great.  but pick the right software.  We use ALS 
from MEI and I am not happy with them.  They are not holding up their end of 
our agreement.

Mike Matis
Ogden Newspapers Inc.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Denesha" <chris-list at denesha.org>
To: <creator at wacondatrader.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: ad tracking software [OT]


angela deangelo wrote:
> I work for a weekly shopper who prints 11 editions each week and we are in 
> the process of updating all their copies of Creator from 4.0.5 to 8.0.
>
> We are also looking at buying Ad Tracking software. We need ad tracking 
> software to streamline our workflow, to have the repetitive things done in 
> the background, to tie our Vision Data Total Ads database to our 
> page-layout program.
>
> We have visited print shops recently that run SCS and DPS Ad Tracking 
> software. We also visited a Roundhouse print shop a few years back.
>
> Does anyone use any of these ad tracking solutions, and if you do, would 
> you suggest a fellow Creator user to go the same route as you and buy it??
>
> Thanks,
> Ang
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> Angela DeAngelo
> Macintosh Specialist
>
> 
>
> Kapp Advertising Services, Inc.
> 100 E. Cumberland Street
> Lebanon, PA 17042

Angela,

Our newspaper produces a daily and 15 weeklies.  We use Roundhouse for
Ad Tracking and like it - 14 designers.  I haven't seen any other
solutions in quite awhile so I don't know if it is the best for your
needs or not.  It requires a Microsoft SQL Server database and an
application server to run IIS web server for system management and
proofing (for a smaller shop can be the same server if enough
horsepower).  I think the interface is MAC-only right now (version 3.5)
although there will be a web interface on version 4 (rebranded IPS
Adtrac - requires SQL Server 2005).

Please note that your designers will need to change database statuses
every time they touch the ad, and it will help to have someone dedicated
to assigning incoming ads to a 'received/gatekeeper' status so you'll
know when the ad has been received from the sales rep.  However being
able to find where an ad is in the workflow and determine what has not
yet been submitted is Very Nice.

I can tell you though that we had Vision Data Total Ad up until February
of this year, so there is a proven export mechanism with it (they call
it an 'MEI export interface').  Roundhouse imports tab delimited text
files, which the Total Ad interface exports.

Roundhouse has an automated set of scripts that drive applications on a
standalone MAC workstation called 'DocServer'.  When the job is placed
into a certain user-definable database status, DocServer kicks in and
finalizes it (EPS or PDF).  We actually do not have DocServer running
and are manually finalizing each ad, since there was a bug with C2 and
our Windows file server where it kept prompting for 'missing' parts that
were actually there.  I just haven't had time to test it out since we
upgraded to C7...

You didn't mention what you are using for page-layout software..

Hope this helps,

-- 

chris denesha
Advertising & Telephone Systems Support, IT
The Day Publishing Company
(860)701-4485; OR (800)542-3354, X4485
c.denesha at theday dot com - Work email
chris-list at denesha dot org - List email
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