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Community Display ad Services™ (CDS) provides web-based services for display ad production and management. It is a module plugged into the Community Advertising Services (CAS)™ framework.

It is deployed within newspaper organizations ranging in size from a collection of mid-sized weeklies to an entire nationwide newspaper group. CAS/CDS includes all the data and ad management functions of SCS/Track™ while adding in secure and capable browser-based self-service for web access.

With CDS, a newspaper group with multiple sites can consolidate ad production at a single site. Instead of supporting multiple server pairs at multiple sites, the group can support a single pair plus a disaster recovery pair. This and labor savings from consolidation make using CDS an effective competitor to overseas outsourcing.

Users of CAS/CDS include all those with a stake in the progress of ad production in a newspaper organization. Sales staff can check ad statuses; creative services staff can build, revise and preflight ads; service representatives can provide customer support; and advertisers can submit, monitor, mark up, proof and approve their ads. Read the article Save Money With Consolidation - Not Overseas Outsourcing to see how the Dow Jones Local Media Group has used CAS/CDS to consolidate ad production at its own centralized ad production facility.

Overall edition progress is presented for senior management, newsroom staff and production department access as both graphical thumbnails (using SCS’s EditionAdBoss™), site-customizable screen lists of tabular data and numerous reports. Managers can observe and measure the performance of individuals and teams for periods of time ranging from fractions of days to years. Tabular data is easily exported for further processing using spreadsheets. Reports are site definable and customizable (using SCS’s SpiceRAQ™).

Newspaper staff and advertisers can access detailed ad and production information at a glance.

Through standard web browsers, production staff and advertising managers can track ads at any stage in the production process. You can search by date range, publication, site codes (for multi-site systems), advertiser name, account number, assignments, proofs or by exact ad number. The table of found ads can be sorted by any column. Columns can be hidden and/or reordered. Columns can be filtered by your own criteria. The results of an inquiry can also be shown as a grid containing thumbnail images.

Click on one of the ads in the list (or just enter the ad number) and you can see detailed information about the ad including the run date and a preview of the ad if it is available.

Query facilities support access to ads in production as well as an archive of all ads. Both relational database (by ad metadata) and information retrieval (by full text) queries are supported concurrently and seamlessly. With CAS/CDS you will find the ad you are looking for!

If the ad has been “sent to CAS” for proofing, options to “Proof” or “Approve” the ad will appear. Now a sales rep, or the advertiser, or anyone with the user security to do so, can approve the ad for publication or proof it and mark it up for changes.

The area to be changed is marked with a red box and the instructions to the artist are clearly superimposed. When these changes are saved, the ad is made available to the artist for modification. Of course the status of the ad is kept up-to-date for other users of the system.

This interactive proofing is just one example of why we call it Community Advertising Services.

Another way the advertiser can interact directly with the CAS/CDS system is by submitting ad materials or the fully complete ad.

If the ad has been ordered already, the materials can immediately be linked to an ad number. If not, they can still be monitored until the ad is ordered.

High-availability server management is crucial in a live production environment. It is especially critical in a multi-site consolidated system with mirrored servers. We offer a server management module with all of our installations when the servers are provided by SCS. It is not integrated into CDS, but it is a useful adjunct.

Five9sAdBoss™ provides Simple management of mirroring in a complex server environment Automatic updating of databases and files on both a hot standby server at the primary production site and optional servers at a disaster recovery site Browser-based monitoring and display of the health of the servers including their many disk drives

CDS scales globally. Anyone with web access and proper permissions anywhere can use CDS to simplify and expedite their work. CDS supports individual creatives working from home or rooms full of employee artists. It is used for US-based near-sourcing and overseas outsourcing.

CDS is engineered for easy integration with any advertising front-end, any ad production tool and any pagination back-end. SCS works with numerous third-party newspaper vendors to provide reliable, safe and efficient real-time network and data integration.

SCS provides complete, turnkey solutions for CDS. Web-services, security, high-availability, database management and archiving are all part of the basic package. Should you choose, SCS will supply and integrate every aspect (from equipment to business process reengineering) of your CDS project.

Click here to contact SCS for additional product information.