GNM_RCS_Specials_TS

• 1. .Introduction

     1. Purpose

The document GNM_RCS_Content_Processing_FS.docx is the functional specification that describes what business functions RCS supports in relation to processing published content.

This document is one of a set of technical specifications that provide details of how those functions are implemented in RCS.

• 1. Scope

This document focusses on the processing that is specific to Specials content in RCS. Separate documents deal with all other aspects of content processing in RCS, including print & web content processing, matching, and AV products.

This document is intended as a high-level technical document outlining how the relevant business functions are implemented in terms of software modules.

Importantly, this document does not aim to provide the level of detail that would be required in a programming specification in areas such as program structure, detailed business rules, data integrity, validation, locking considerations, data security, and calls to/from other software modules, performance considerations, and so forth.

For details of program logic and coding, the reader should refer to the program files themselves.

• 1. .Specials

A “Special” is a one-off publication of a set of content usually published in its own book (print) or on its own micro-site (web).

All print pages that are created are allocated a 3-letter editorial department code, such as “spo”, which identifies the cost centre that should process that page post-publication. In this example “spo” is linked to the “Sport” cost centre.

In the case of Specials the 3-letter codes that are used are shared by all of Editorial, so it is not obvious who should process each Special that is published.

A selection of these Specials codes is given below:

• 1. .Processing new specials content

Content on pages that use these Specials codes needs to be allocated to the Cost centre that created the page. This ensures the content is directed to that cost centre for post-publication processing i.e. processing of the content by identifying what is staff, what can be disregarded, and matching other items to commissions and contracts.

On any given day all pages for a specials code can be allocated to the same cost centre, and so the pages do not need to be individually allocated.

It may be necessary to allocate the images to a different desk to the articles, for example if the picture desk sourced the images, and so allocations need to be done separately for each format.

• 1. Identifying new print specials

The Text Library (TLIB schema) holds a list of all Editorial Department codes that have been used on published pages in the EDITORIAL_DEPARTMENTS table. Whenever a page is loaded into the TLIB PAGES table the department code is checked to see if it already exists and if it doesn’t a new code is added to the list.

The RCS Administrator reviews all new editorial department codes and usually allocates them to one of more cost centres. However in the case of Specials a flag is set identifying the code being used for Specials.

When content from print pages are recorded in RCS a check is made to see if the department is a Special. If it is an entry is made in the SPECIAL_MATERIAL_ALLOCATIONS table. Separate entries are made for Text, Pictures and Illustrations. This table holds a queue of Specials department codes, published in print on a specific date. The RCS Administrator records against each entry the Cost Centre that must process the content.

The RCS Administrator adds the supplement name to the record by checking the PDF of the first page. The PDF is accessible via the button labelled “PDF…” shown above.

• 1. Identifying new website specials

Content published as a Special on the website is not processed any differently to other web content. All website content has a Section name and it is that name that gets allocated to a Cost Centre. A new Special would be given a new name, which would not be used again, and so it can be safely allocated to a cost centre just like any other section, and without any date qualification.

The screen used for this is an Oracle Form called rcs_wsec_010_pc.fmb, which is accessed from this menu option: Housekeeping → Department setup → Website section mapping

The fields highlighted in yellow show where a cost centre still needs to be allocated.

It is possible to disregard all text content in a section, by choosing a disregard reason at the bottom of the screen.

The content may also be marked as Sponsorship or Advertorial by selecting from the List of Values on the Type field:

Finally the content may be assigned to a commercial client by choosing from the List of Values available on the field labelled “Commercial client”.

• 1. .Matching specials content

     1. By department

If matching content by Cost centre the Specials are shown at the end of the list of the departments a user has been given access to. Below that on the screen, on the left hand side, unprocessed content is listed for that department but only relating to the days that the current user’s cost centre(s) has been allocated that Special code.

The detail of the matching process is described in a separate document, but the screenshot below is provided illustrative purposes.

All the departments shown at the top of this screen are Specials – the names being too long to fit, but they can be seen by double clicking on the field.

• 1. By cost centre

If matching by cost centre the unprocessed Specials content is listed in amongst the other unprocessed content for the highlighted cost centre.

Again the detail of the matching process is described in a separate document, but the screenshot below is provided for illustrative purposes – “Labs” is an editorial department that produces a lot of Specials: in the list of Unmatched published content the Section field shows “2 Full Supplement (Guardian Commercial)” which equates to a department code of “fc2” which is named “Full Supplement 2 (Commercial)” (c.f. the list provided in first section of this document):

End of Document