CS Play Planning
The planning engine builds the playback schedule for your digital screens. You enter campaigns, ads, frequencies and restrictions, and the engine produces a playlist that repeats seamlessly on the screen.
This documentation explains every setting that influences the result, so you can predict and control what ends up on screen.
What the engine does
Given a set of campaigns and their settings, the engine:
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Places every campaign at its requested frequency — a campaign with a 60-second period plays once every 60 seconds, on average, across the whole loop.
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Spreads plays of each campaign as evenly as possible, avoiding bunching.
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Keeps two plays of the same campaign from ever standing back to back, including across the loop boundary.
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Keeps competitors apart when you assign separation categories.
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Fills unsold time with fillers according to the rules you set.
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Warns you before solving when requested settings cannot all be satisfied, and reports the achieved quality afterwards — see Planning Quality.
How to read these docs
If you are new to the planning engine, start with Playlist Structure — it defines the three building blocks (block, loop, media plan) that every other page relies on.
Then configure your campaigns:
| Setting | Controls |
|---|---|
How often a campaign plays |
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The rhythm of the playlist and the quality of distribution |
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Which block a low-frequency campaign starts in |
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Which ads play together and how they rotate |
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Calendar periods when a campaign, group, or ad is on air |
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Which campaigns must be kept apart |
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What plays in unsold time |
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How the engine reacts to overbooking and empty time |
For a compact all-in-one table, see the Settings Reference.
Terminology
These docs follow the shared CityScreen terminology. Key terms used throughout:
- Campaign
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A series of advertising messages with a defined objective and schedule; the unit of frequency and reporting.
- Advertisement (ad)
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A creative configured for delivery — the creative plus its placement settings (duration, order, activity periods). The unit the engine schedules into playlists.
- Creative
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The content of an ad — a media asset or set of assets (video, image, HTML5) sharing one style and message.
- Playlist
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The ordered sequence of ads scheduled to play on a screen.
- Loop
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The complete rotation cycle of the playlist; when it ends, playback starts over. A standard industry term.
- Spot
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A single play of an ad on a screen.
- Filler
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Non-commercial content that occupies unsold time.
For the full industry glossary, see the Terminology component.