All-New Lightning Booking Calendar for Streamlined Inventory Management

As an advertising professional, you know that managing ad bookings can be a complex and time-consuming task. Coordinating with clients, juggling multiple campaigns and keeping track of available inventory can be overwhelming. That’s where ADvendio comes in. Our all-in-one advertising management platform includes a powerful booking calendar feature that streamlines the entire booking process, making it faster and more efficient than ever.

Whether you sell online, print or broadcast advertising, the Booking Calendar makes it easy to track available inventory and schedule bookings with just a few clicks. This feature is designed to help you save time and stay organized, so you can focus on growing your business.

With a complete view of the inventory catalogue with availabilities for a given time period, sales reps can leverage the calendar to easily create campaigns at the click of a button. Inventory Managers can also use the Booking Calendar as a report to identify highly in-demand inventory as well as under-reserved inventory to start incentivizing more sales.

It is also worth noting that the Booking Calendar handles all availability inquiries that are not performed in connection with an external ad-serving system. This new component also allows customers to use a new data model for Retail Out-of-Home availability. Furthermore, with an upgraded Lightning user interface based on the most recent technical standards, the new Booking Calendar ensures the capacity to work with larger amounts of data.

In this article, we will showcase the 4 most popular user flows of ADvendio’s Booking Calendar.

1. Filters

Filters are essential for streamlining the process of finding the required inventory for campaigns. These filters are divided into three sections: time range, inventory, and status filters that will apply to the table view. Users can select the specific time period they are interested in, as well as filter by campaign if necessary, to provide maximum flexibility.

Inventory filters help reduce the number of results by filtering by inventory type, location, or any other relevant criteria. While status filters allow users to quickly see which inventory is available, partially booked, or fully booked.

2. Templates

ADvendio’s Booking Calendar feature also includes a template creation option that allows users to save frequently used filter combinations for future use. With this feature, users can avoid manually selecting the same filters repeatedly, saving them time and streamlining their workflow. By simply selecting a predefined template that includes all the necessary filters, users can significantly speed up their processes and stay organized.

The process of creating a template is straightforward thanks to ADvendio’s configuration wizard. The wizard provides all the necessary options to define the configuration of a template, making it easy to set up and use. With this feature, both Sales Representatives and Inventory Managers can quickly access their preferred filter combinations and focus on other important tasks, such as creating campaigns or analyzing data.

3. Table

The Booking Calendar’s table feature is a central component of the tool, displaying campaign and inventory information in an easy-to-understand format. The availability status of campaigns is color-coded for quick reference, allowing users to easily see which dates and inventory cells are available for booking. The table also provides detailed information on booked campaigns for specific dates and inventory cells, giving users a comprehensive view of their inventory and campaigns.

Additionally, the Booking Calendar table supports different use cases for various inventory types and processes, including Print, Retail OOH, and Digital. Providing advertising professionals with a flexible solution that can adapt to their specific needs and workflows.

a. (Retail) OOH

With the new data model, we are happy to announce that this new Booking Calendar supports also Retail Out-of-Home customers in their processes. Not only the new data model gives more flexibility but also an aggregated availability view allows one to just see the relevant information a user needs. Our new backend technology ensures that even bigger amounts of data can be handled by our Booking Calendar.

b. Digital

Even limited digital inventory can be managed in the Booking Calendar in cases where the ad server itself can not provide the required information. For example, Sponsorship campaigns can be better overseen by this tool to avoid overbooking of inventory.

c. Print

The Print use case of the Booking Calendar table is designed to support print inventory management, specifically for magazines or newspapers. With the improved view of publication dates, users can easily see the available dates for their print campaigns and select the relevant ones for booking. The table shows the availability status of each date, making it easy to find available slots for booking. The Print use case also supports customization, allowing users to define their own publication dates and filter combinations for faster access to frequently used settings.

4. Campaign creation

The last step for Sales Users going through our Booking Calendar is the creation of basket items. Just clicking on the relevant cells will add them to the Media Campaigns basket or will ask to create a new campaign which can then be further configured in the Campaign Builder.

Conclusion

ADvendio’s new Booking Calendar feature offers a comprehensive solution for managing inventory and campaigns in a user-friendly way. Its powerful filtering tools enable quick access to relevant information, and its new data model, designed for Retail Out-of-Home use cases, provides flexibility and an easy-to-read overview. By simplifying processes and campaign creation, the new Booking Calendar meets the modern needs of the media industry and provides customers with a personalized experience.

If you would like further details on our features, release note information, or support information you can access the ADvendio Knowledge Base at any time. If you’re interested in learning more about ADvendio, you can check out our AppExchange® listing or simply reach out to your ADvendio technical account manager who will be happy to discuss your needs in further detail.