Remote Advertising planning

[LanderdFM]

Hi, we've just purchased Proppfrexx last week and we're setting up the system so it can soon replace our current radio automation software.
Most of the technical issues have already been resolved, there's only a few left.

One big question that we have is: Is it possible to manage the advertising from a different computer?
The goal is that we create a virtual machine that runs the software to plan the advertising, so our planners can do this from home, without actually touching the ProppFrexx Live machine, because honestly... we don't trust the planners to work on a live machine.

I think it would be possible, with all the remote capabilities, but the manual doesn't provide the instructions for this yet.
So, how would we go about this? What do we need to do to get this to work?

[radio42]

The entire advert and news configuration incl. the overlay scheduler is stored in a so called Advert Storage Path (which is a folder containing all files and sub-folders for all partners, campaigns, advert files, news files etc.).
From the Advert and News Manager you can open such a folder location from any PC within your LAN ... it must just be accessible, e.g. located on a shared drive.
As such, you need to have 'physical access' to the Advert Storage Path (this for various reasons, one is for providing and preparation of the audio files).

In you case it sounds like you want to edit adverts and news completely remotely over the internet. I am afraid, that this is not (really) supported!
One workaround is to edit everything locally and then use a sync tool and sync the folder back to the server (e.g. via ftp).
But that almost limits your work to one planner only; except your planners strictly only edit adverts for a very particular (set of) partner(s), as each partners data is saved underneath a dedicated folder - meaning syncing multiple partner sub-folders wouldn't result in any conflicts.
However, that still limits editing of the global configuration (e.g. the overlay scheduler calendar) to one person at a time between the syncs!

Another option would be to use 'other' virtual machines in the same network as the main machine, but with common access to the used Advert Storage Path.

[LanderdFM]

That last option is the one we intended to use for remote access: Use a virtual machine that runs on a machine within the same network as where ProppFrexx is running, and use a remote desktop connection to connect to that pc, so that's not a problem.

I understand what you mean by using the scheduling storage path and to use a network drive that's accessible for both machines.
Understood and makes sense.

This does raise just one more question:
We have an enterprise license. Do we need to install the full package of proppfrexx onto that second network machine in order to get the advertising app to run? If so, the license keys that we have seem to only work for the main machine. Is it possible to make this work on 2 machines using our enterprise license, or do we need to install a demo license on the second machine to run the advertising manager?

Also, thanks for the fast response so far.

[radio42]

There is no need to do a full install (the setup is anyhow just there for convenience). You might also just simply copy the entire ProppFrexx installation folder over to a target PC/folder.
Using the additional tools, like the Advert and News Manager, Tagger or the Media Library Server does require any license at all.

Note, that the Advert and News Manager asks for a password when manually started - which is by default "ProppFrexx" - you can change that in the general settings of the Advert and News Manager.

[LanderdFM]

Thanks! That info should get us going.
We'll test it in the coming days. Again, thanks for the prompt response.