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Podcast Key Sheets

Because this is highly technical admin functionality, we have a spreadsheet to reference each field within the Key Sheet. Please reference this spreadsheet for input specific questions. Below are notes on general workflows

Here is documentation on Podcast Episode Cards

Creating a new Key Sheet

Only done when onboarding a new podcast channel. Key Sheets created are automatically in a Draft state until all required inputs are filled out and the state is changed from the Channel Information tab.

See notes on required fields here

Changing the state on a Channel

Setting the state on a Channel largely impacts two things:

  • Automatic draft creation
  • Availability on listening platforms, the website, the app and the RSS feed

Three states:

  • Active, available: Channel is actively making new drafts with the stub creator or with manual stub creation and actively publishing new episodes
  • Inactive, available: Channel is not creating new episode drafts, but is available for listening and downloads downstream to platforms
  • Unavailable: Channel is no longer publishing nor available for listening and downloads on platforms

The state can be changed while editing the Key Sheet. The field can be found in the "Channel Information" tab at the top.

Editing an existing Key Sheet

Changes to a Key Sheet are "batched" to prevent a snowball effect of changes building up with unintended consequences.

These batched changes are saved to your browser client, so navigating away would lose them.

Batched changes are shown with UI to indicate the impact and a button to submit

Impact from Key Sheet Changes:

  • Past, published episodes: These changes could impact the display and playing of previously published episodes (shown as backwards arrow in batch UI)
  • Channel: These changes impact either the channel page or the channel RSS feed (shown as globe icon in batch UI)
  • Future episodes: This impacts all future episodes. Any episodes published after this Key Sheet change will reflect the change (shown as forwards arrow in batch UI)

Changing Episode Defaults

Setting episode level defaults to reduce duplicative work in episode producing

Ad Tag Configuration

Three types of ads:

  • Preroll: Slot held for an advertisement ahead of the podcast episode starting
  • Midroll: Slot held for an advertisement within the episode. Producer user will "tag" the episode with preferred location(s) within the episode for these slots. These have unique strings to identify which types of ads are expected. Read more on ad tag config nomenclature
  • Postroll: Slot held for an advertisement after the podcast episode

The Key Sheet allows the channel to have unique configurations based on the publishing cycle. For example, some podcasts may publish multiple times a week with different ad expectations for each day of the week, as shown in the example above.

Defaulted Episode Title and Description

This functionality allows for an auto filling of the episode title, description based on set variables

Allowed variables TBD

Presentation Creation Defaults

Setting which presentation(s) are expected on all episode cards created, referencing this Key Sheet

Image Upload

Image upload for defaulted episode images. See more on image expectations here (drafted).

Referencing Delivery Definitions

Setting delivery workflow that each episode is expected to flow through.

Changing Media Experiences

Setting default media experiences that each episode is expected to have. Some media experiences are required and others are "accessory".

Creating New Episode Draft Stubs

Key defintions:

  • Episode Card: Producer oriented form to fill out podcast episode details. See documentation here
  • Megaphone Stub: Publishable vessel shared to the ad server, Megaphone

This functionality to create drafted stubs is to create the latter - "stubs" within Megaphone. Users can then create episode cards to fill out and "attach" to a Megaphone stub for publishing.

The process to create drafts is simple: select the date the episode is expected to publish. If needing to create multiple, select "Create Another". If a draft is already created for this podcast channel on that day, a soft error will show.

Appendix

Draft/Stub Creator

Auto creation of stubs for podcast channels based on their Key Sheet configuration. See notes on implementation here