MusicMaster Blog

by Jesus Rodriguez

In my previous life before MusicMaster, I was tasked with scheduling up to eight radio stations that were under my watch in one day. As you can imagine, that can take hours to do, especially if you have some strict rules and unscheduled positions. In this brief blog, I will share one of my favorite tricks to get the job of scheduling done quickly and accurately by using two different rule group setups. When you walk away from this, I hope you tell yourself, “Why didn’t I think of that, genius!”

I first created two rule groups, one for the Automatic Scheduler and the other for the Schedule Editor. Let’s begin with the first one, the Automatic Scheduler rule group.

Place this group in your Unbreakable section of the All-Category folder at the top of the Rule Tree. You can name it anything you like, as the name is not essential. Just make sure it’s something you can easily remember. The key settings here are the ‘Availability’ dropdown, which should be set to ‘Rules are only available in the Automatic Scheduler’ and the ‘Group Mode’ in the upper right, which should be set to ‘Test rules as if they are not in a rule group.’

In this Rule Group, place all your most restrictive rules that would be perfect in a perfect world. If you had enough music, genres, artists, tempo, etc., this rule would create your perfect radio station for the entire day. However, yes, I am hearing you. “Wouldn’t this create some unscheduled positions?” Yes, so now let’s move on to the second Rule Group.

Like the first Rule Group, you can give it any description you like. The name does not matter. Make it something familiar to you. The most critical parts are the dropdown under ‘Availability’ set to ‘Rules are only available in the Schedule Editor’. Also, like with the first, put your Group Mode on the upper right to ‘Test rules as if they are not in a rule group’.

Copy the rules from the first Rule Group and paste them into the second one. You can place this group in your Unbreakable or Breakable folder in the all-category section. I personally like mine in my Breakable section for this group. Now, go through your rules, and relax those you usually break when manually filling in unscheduled positions. For instance, if your rule is set to not play more than two rock songs in a row, but you occasionally allow three in a row to fill in the unscheduled position, set it up that way here. This way, the next step does it for you, eliminating the need for manual adjustments. This applies to any other rules you tend to look past or relax in your decision-making when you have to fill unscheduled positions. Think of what is ok and not that big of a deal for your station’s listening experience; hits are hits!

Now that these two Rule Groups are ready, run your Automatic Scheduler by going to Dataset, Schedule, and Automatic Scheduler. You will end up with unscheduled positions because of the stricter rules of your perfect radio station scenario in Rule Group One. When the Schedule Editor is opened after your Automatic Scheduling is complete, hide everything but your unscheduled music elements from the log by going to the Show/Hide Elements tab.

This will open the following window, and you can hide these items temporarily by unselecting them.

Your log should look something like this with all your unscheduled music elements. To turn all those positions blue, click on the top left corner box, as shown in the image below.

Are you ready for the magic? Press Shift + F9. This will now fill in all of your unscheduled positions with the more relaxed rule settings you created the same way you would select your songs manually for unscheduled positions, should you decide to break your rules.

Now, I will get my occasional third rock song in a row, which is not the end of the world for me, and any other rules I felt were worth relaxing. On the plus side, I only have a handful of unscheduled songs, an almost 100% perfect log based on my ideal radio station rules. It also allows for filling in unscheduled positions in seconds rather than taking much longer to go through each position.

I highly recommend restoring all the hidden elements and reviewing your log for any adjustments you may want to make.

This trick is helpful and saves time while getting you closer to a perfect log in minutes. If you need any assistance, please contact your support representative at MusicMaster.