December 16th Update

SendMyAd

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Features 

• Pickup ad form allows publisher to assign the new ad to a different user. 
• Picking up a spread or multipage ad now picks up all related pages as a set. 
• Splitting ads is now easier to configure in the ad specification area.
• Splitting ads extended to approved and completed ads. 
• Improved navigation for multipage and spread ads.
• New "Ads Per Issue Compact (By Issue)" report. (The older report is now labeled "Extended"). 
• Redesigned Approval Cycle Editor.
• Configuration of ad upload form items moved to new editor. The button to access this is still found in the Publisher Information > Print Ad Settings area.
• Optional sales representative selector on upload form. In order to populate the sales rep list you must add a new group in the groups area and classify it as an ad sales rep group. Each person added to this group will become a possible selection for sales rep on the ad upload.

Fixes

• Extended characters in product, headline and ad instruction fields will be cleaned when writing XMP data during finalization. 
• Back button in pickup form now returns user to the original ad.
• Low-resolution image preflight warning now shows the incorrect resolution.

SendMyAd Tablet Ads

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Features

• Updated "iPad 1 and 2" default profile name to "iPad 1, iPad 2, and iPad Mini",  in order to reflect that these three devices use the same specs.
• Created default profile for "iPad 3 & iPad 4"
• Put disclaimer within URL confirmation modal window. Default text is "The rendered website may appear differently than the actual device due to browser rendering"
• Enabled "Reject Ad" functionality. Rejecting a file now draws a "Rejected" status within the right panel of the preflight view and locks all future revising of the ad's device files.
• Template selector is required within 'Add Tablet Profile' modal, in order to set the tablet profile up with the correct ad specs.
• "Designed for Tablet" uploading prevents users from trying to upload more than one file at a time. 
• Removed ability to drag-n-drop upload onto files after the total ad is complete. Once the total ad is complete, no more revisions can be made.
• User can now upload a new file to a completed device, as long as the entire DFT Ad is not completed.
• Increased size of icons within device navigation thumbnails.

Virtual Publisher

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Features

• Position notes for empty pages in the flatplan.
• Improvements to billing report.
• Editorial Manager Plugin Supports full page non-bleed advertisement downloading and placement.
• New color selector on story views.
• New easy to use in site texteditor

Fixes

• Only Virtual Publisher help is shown in the Dashboard. 
• Prevention of dropping more than one editorial page from the desktop at a time.

December 2012 Features & Fixes

SendMyAd

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Features 

• Support for multi-page advertisements added. Publishers can now create ad specifications which allow page ranges, fixed length and indeterminate length ads. Watch the video!
• Ad spread splitting now fully supported.
• AdShare System now shows full preflight report with trim boxes. This is enabled by default. It can be turned off in the publisher settings under Print Ad Settings > Ad Details View.
• New print ad approvals report shows all approvals by user for a given issue.
• Added ability to auto-trigger specific custom workflows from publisher approval area.

SendMyAd Tablet Ads

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Features

• New supported ad type DFT Tablet ads. This new system supports dragging and dropping dft ads directly to the browser. Final dft ads are injected with XMP data, zipped and delivered to the publisher. This can be turned on your company account profile if you have tablet ads.
• New Tablet ads report shows all information concerning tablet ads. Also supports full year report.

SendMyAd AdCreator

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Features

• New publisher only form field option on ad creator forms allow publishers to hide form items from advertisers so that only the publisher can enter information into specific areas of the ad template.

Virtual Publisher

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Features

• Support for multi-page advertisements added. Publishers can now create ad specifications which allow page ranges, fixed length and indeterminate length ads. These show as spreads in the book plan.
• Support for linking 2 pages of an editorial to ensure they always stay connected in page order.
• Support for changing the shape of a story page to any common size.
• All incoming production customers with preflight will have their files auto trimmed to bleed size.
• Added ability to print most VirtualPublisher lists from the action menu.
• Better page navigation menu in Magazine viewer.
• New page info on and off checkbox in magazine viewer.
• Better support for jpg preview dropping in book plans. Jpg previews must be to trim size.
• Ad data import now replaces and picksup ads when possible.
• More detailed billable items report.
• Added ability to not enforce section rules when dropping content.

New Editorial Manager Plugin 1.4.1
Features / Fixes

• New action to download SendMyAd ads directly into your Adobe Indesign documents for placement.
• New action to send merged pages directly through the plugin. This allows users to not be forced to use the online merge tool.
• New tab list and actions to download and create a new document out of pages containing multiple partial ads. The document can then be uploaded as a single merged ad page.
• New ability to tag any page with the MergableAd tag and send as a merged page.
• Better support and enforcement of custom metadata collection forms.
• Support for exporting all Adobe pdf file types to the book plan. This can be configured in your company account area.

October 2012 Features & Fixes

SendMyAd

• Issue selectors now hide issues that have an issue run date older than the publisher retention date. 
• Issue management action "Set Active" changed to "Hide", "Set Disabled" to "Unhide."
• Dashboard charts track tablet ads.
• New feature to duplicate web media profiles. 
• Ability to reselect a color profile and resubmit an ad with a "color profile missing" server error.
• Printable preflight report added and improved.
• Significant speed and accuracy improvements for the Your Approvals view. 

Fixes:

• Better handling of default text in Ad Creator templates.
• Approval Cycle configuration window now shows the list of approvals in the configured order.
• Approvals thumbnail / list view switcher works correctly now. 
• In Ad Creator, approval of an ad will wait for any outstanding text edits. 

Virtual Publisher

• New dedicated delivery system for editorial files. 
• Delivery View contains new status filter menus. 
• Much faster document switching in soft proofing system.
• New option to compare two files in soft proofing system from the Approvals list view.
• New revisions viewing in soft proofing system.
• Product selector in delivery location setup for Virtual Publisher-specific options.
• Added duplication of position tags, ad categories, sections and regions to other titles. 
• Many interface improvements across the product.

Fixes: 

• Merged pages respect color conversion settings.
• Numerous fixes in soft proofing and approvals.

September 2012 Features & Fixes

SendMyAd

• New "Force Approve" feature, found in the Actions menu when viewing an ad. Publisher only. User must accept a warning, and this action is logged in the file history. Use at your own risk!
• Soft-proofing available as a required action for a publisher approval.
• Bulk issues management area enabled for all publishers.
• Added %MaterialsId% variable for use in delivery path.
• Improved separation of email notifications based on the type of ad. See the appropriate areas in the publisher settings.
• Ad Sizes view now shows web and tablet information in addition to print.
• New "can manage ad sizes" right available.
• Improved CSS file editing for portal customization and branding. 
• More flexible XMP metadata insertion method.

Print ads:

• New preflight profile option for SendMyAd to automatically remove hidden layers during file processing. 
• Print ad preflight report printable view added.
• Enhancements to ad category management system
• Easily duplicate ad specifications

Tablet ads:

• "Allow only one issue" option for tablet ads. 
• New "Product URL" field option on upload and validation for tablet ads.
• More meta details added to the tablet profile forms

Web ads:

• Added "boost revision limit" feature for digital ads.

Ad Creator:

• New "Download Ad Bundle" feature from actions menu when viewing a completed ad. Downloads all placed images and other files associated with Ad Creator ads.

Virtual Publisher:

• New soft-proofing application.

Java plugin required. Latest versions of Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome supported.

• New Approvals list view
• New Plan Items view
• New paper size options and other formatting options on "Print Plan View"
• More notifications for Virtual Publisher events.
• Many new rights added to customize the user experience. This can be seen by adding a group with specific rights. 
• Re-organized book plans view
• New plan selection and management view
• Improved story flow

Fixes:

• A newly added ad size now enters edit mode automatically.

• Ad size re-ordering no longer requires a manual refresh to show changes.

• Ad size editing with unequal bleeds fixed.

• .html extenstion added for Ad Creator HTML export deliveries.

• Ad Categories now show publisher-added items or the default ones provided by SendMyAd 

• Improved handling of special characters in Ad Creator templates
• Improved handling of special characters in SMA form fields, including auto conversion of curly quotes to straight quotes.

• Preflight suggested fixes speed improvement

• Dashboard report fixes

• Ad Spec "extra information" returned to print ad upload form.

• Better handling of special characters in filenames when generating zipped ad bundles for download.

• Various fixes when displaying newly uploaded files.

• Several improvements and additions in the email notifications metadata.

• Fixed SWF/JPG view toggle for Flash ads.

• Various fixes for the password reset interface.

• Filename variable is now used correctly during manual delivery. 

• Approve all button in campaign view now visible only when appropriate.

• Many miscellaneous fixes throughout the site. 

July 2012 Features & Fixes List

New Features:

• Refreshed user interface across the web site. Larger, cleaner, standardized dialog boxes are the biggest change. A new calendar widget is also used throughout the site.
• Improvements to notification configuration. Notifications can be configured at the publisher level, by file type. They filter through to the publication level, where the publisher defaults can be overridden. The publisher may also reset all publications to match the global settings for a particular notification. New interface for publication level notification management. 
• Improved user feedback for some types of file errors that prevent a file from reaching the preflight stage (hidden layers, missing color profiles, password-protected files, etc).
• Expanded the types of errors that will still allow the user to trim a file. For example, if a preflight profile requires a crop box, and none is present in the file, the user will be directed to trim the file, which will set the proper boxes and clear the preflight check performed after trimming.
• For publishers using our soft-proofing module, ICC profiles can be uploaded and managed per publication. 
• Billing report now includes issue information.
• Ad Creator ads now create an HTML version of the ad, and this HTML export is available as a delivery option. Configured in the delivery locations section of the publisher settings.
• Streamlined pickup process for Ad Creator ads.
• Ability to split a spread file in SMA. Details to follow in a later blog post and video.
• File processing is faster now due to workflow optimizations. 
• Next-generation preflight engine is fully operational.
• "Actual Days Left" column in Ad Sizes > Closing Dates tab is now only visible for publishers. 
• New warning text set for "outgoing email address" to explain the consequences of changing this from the default value.
• Improved selection of Ad Creator templates in the Create an Ad screen.

Bug fixes:


Too numerous to list all of them, but some major ones include:

• Improves ability to requeue failed deliveries
• Duplicated publication will have correct creation date
• "Send ad to other publications" issue selections are correctly maintained. 
• The Dashboard buttons for Inviting users and reports will no longer disappear when clicking anything but the Dashboard button
• Ad Creator pickups will show the correct issue(s).
• Digital ads: the web media profile is being validated correctly for ad size information.

Features & Fixes July 2012

July 2012 Upgrade

We've just released a new version of SendMyAd and Virtual Publisher. There are many new features and fixes. They include a refreshed user interface, creation and delivery of HTML versions of Ad Creator ads, and a much enhanced story flow feature for pages. We'll be detailing all the changes on the blog in the coming days.

SendMyAd Case Study: Texas Monthly

Roy Leamon describes his publication as a “particularly large regional magazine,” which, given that the region is Texas, and the magazine, Texas Monthly, attracts national sponsorship and attention, almost qualifies as an understatement—something you don’t hear too often in the Lone Star State.
“Still, Texas Monthly faces challenges that, say, large consumer magazines probably don’t.” The magazine may be known for award-winning journalism and beautiful photography, but its base of advertisers runs the gamut from New York ad agency clients to small-town mom and pop stores, some of whom have advertised with the magazine for years. Leamon, vice president of production and technology, must balance the needs of this range of current clients while positioning the magazine for the future.

Key to this effort was the implementation of the SendMyAd ad portal, which allows advertisers to upload an ad directly to the cloud based solution. Ads are automatically preflighted providing immediate feedback on the condition of the ad. Many problems can be fixed in the portal with tools like the trim tool to reposition and eliminate unwanted borders and slug information. All of this makes for quick, hassle-free corrections and approval.

“It’s important the portal allows anybody with any level of technological sophistication to be able to use it, and for the most part it appears the advertisers who use it really like it,” Leamon says.
The magazine is open ended about how it accepts ads, Leamon says, allowing long-time clients who prefer other submission channels to keep using them while encouraging advertisers to switch to the portal. The magazine has seen a steady increase in the number of advertisers using SendMyAd.
“We received ads from a variety of sources, both e-mail and ftp sites, and we have an upload page on our website, but none of those provides any kind of front-end flight checking for problems in the ad file itself or for size correction,” Leamon says. “Before offering SendMyAd, we probably had at least 30 to 40 percent of the ads we get every month would require us to fix something in the ad or to contact that advertiser or the agency or the designer in order to get an ad corrected.”
As every publisher knows, this can take time—usually a day or two to get problems ironed out, and sometimes longer. “It’s remarkable how often designers leave town when you need to make a revision on an ad,” Leamon says.

This is why SendMyAd has proven to be a tremendous time saver. “Any kind of reduction of workload during deadline week is significant,” he says. “It helps reduce the number of ads that either would have problems or simply have to be trafficked, and sometimes, especially in heavy months, that can make a big difference in how your deadline goes.”

Advertisers, he says, “appreciate the ease of use of the portal and have understood that it is ultimately going to be helpful to them, because it assures them ahead of time they are in good shape with their ad.”

It also dovetails well with Texas Monthly’s plans for future growth. Leamon says his decision to use SendMyAd was reinforced by the application’s support for Web and mobile ads, as well as the ability to create templated (or formatted) ads through the cloud-based tool, Ad Creator. He expects both capabilities to play a role as the publication adopts new production efficiencies and monetization strategies.

“Ad Creator will offer the ability for an advertiser to upload some copy, a logo and a photo into a layout, the system builds the ad, and then supplies us a final pdf rather than our having to build those formatted ads by hand,” he says. “We see this as one of the ways SendMyAd can grow with us.”
Near term, Leamon says, SendMyAd has allowed Texas Monthly to be more productive with a small staff. “And we’d like to explore more of the options SendMyAd offers down the road,” he notes, “especially as magazine production staffs have to be increasingly productive on a per-person basis, because hiring more staff is not an option.”

“We think we do a good job and our readers seem to think so too,” he adds. “We are constantly looking for anything that will help us be more efficient and produce the same high quality magazine that we have been producing all these years, so SendMyAd was something that really seemed compelling to us as a mechanism by which advertisers could take a little bit more responsibility for making sure their ads were OK, and getting them correct before they sent them to us. And it certainly has proven to be that.”