ASPLAY Logs

Asplay logs are the most commonly used log in DAD. These logs are used to determine what played when, for how long and from where. Many stations use these logs to reconcile their Traffic and Music.

Configuring DAD to use Asplay Logs

Administrators need to define an environment variable on the workstation they wish to write an asplay log.  This variable can be set in either the workstation environment or set in the BAT file that starts DAD.  Users should only set the variable in one location and should have each workstation set to a unique name value.

Workstation Environment Variable

	To set the workstation asplay environment variable, right click on My Computer and select Properties. From the Advanced Tab, select the Environment Variables button.  Press NEW under the User variables section. Enter  ASPLAY as the Variable Name.
	The Variable Value will be the ‘name’ of the asplay. Typically this would be the workstation's name or the name of the station.

BAT file

The asplay variable can also be set in the BAT file that starts the DAD program.  Typically in network mode, DAD is started with the C:\DAD\DADnet.BAT file. If DAD is run in local mode, then one would use C:\DAD\DADlocal.BAT 

Adding the line: @SET ASPLAY=<file name> will set the asplay variable. Users should note that there are not any spaces between the ‘ASPLAY=<file name>’. Users can also enter their own asplay name for the file name.  This line should be added near the top of the file after the %name% and %location% lines.

For example:

@echo off
@if "%name%"==""       set name=DAD
@if "%location%"==""   set location=DAD

@set asplay=%location%

When DAD starts, it will set the Asplay variable to the location name of the workstation.

Configuring the Asplay Style

DAD allows the administrator to choose between two styles for the Asplay log. This is defined in the ASPLAY section of the workstation's CFI with the line:

LOGGING_NAME_STYLE = 0 or 1

Setting this line to ‘0’ will create a log based on the day of the week. (ONAIR.MON, ONAIR.WED) This file will append to itself then next week day. Stations using this method should monitor the size of the asplay as it can grow in size every week.

Setting the value to ‘1’ will create a log for every day of the year. (ONAIR021703.DBF, ONAIR021803.DBF)

Assigning Asplay logging to Playback machines

Within the SETUP under Channel Assignments one can assign either ‘Program’ or ‘Audition’ status to a machine and type of event. Machines set to Program will log to the asplay file whereas a machine set to Audition will not.

Exporting Asplay logs to Scheduling systems

Export is an external application that allows one to export an asplay log to a file that can be utilized by an external scheduling system.  Export parameters are written expressly for each client based on their needs and configuration. Export can also be written to output a readable discrepancy report.

Export is an optional purchase item.