Virtual Categories In Myriad Schedule Plus

Requires Myriad Playout / Schedule Plus 6.5.1 or higher.

Myriad Schedule Plus 6.5.1 introduced a new feature called Virtual Categories. The purpose of Virtual Categories us to allow you to schedule content that meet a specified criteria from a selection pool of one or more Song Categories.

Let's say as an example, you have a Tag that is called 'Number 1 hits' which you apply to Songs across multiple Categories with the common theme being the songs reached number 1 in the charts.

The problem is that whilst your 'Pop' Category may have many such tagged Songs, your Folk Rock category may only have a few.

To ensure a slot in a Clock is filled with a 'Number 1 Hit' Song, you would normally set the Tag in the Clock to force only Songs with that Tag to be selected. If you are also specifying the Song Category then you can select a Category that has plenty of 'Number 1 hits' Tagged but what if you are using Song Category Goals?

In the case where you are using Song Category Goals, it is feasible that the system would select a Song Category that does not have many songs with the 'Number 1 hit' Tag, meaning you could end up with an unscheduled position in your Log.

Even if you do specify the Song Category in the Clock, there is still a likelihood that you will get an unscheduled position in the Log if the Category contains only a few appropriately Tagged Songs.

Virtual Categories avoid both of these issues by creating a list of Songs that:

• Can be selected from one or more Song Categories (i.e Pop, Rock, Folk etc).
• Meet the specified criteria (i.e must have X Tag etc)

The resulting list contains all Songs from the allowed Categories, that include the specified criteria. This Virtual Category can then be used as any other Category by either setting the Category in the Clocks or as a Song Category Goal.

You can create a Virtual Category for each Station Rule Set so if you need use multiple Virtual Categories, you can do so using multiple Station Rule sets.

Setting Up Virtual Categories

To setup Virtual Categories in Myriad Schedule Plus, follow these steps:

1. In Myriad Playout, click on the Station Menu > Edit Myriad Schedule Station Rules option. If you are using the Myriad Schedule standalone app the Station Rules are listed in the left hand menu bar.
   
   
   Myriad Playout
   
   Myriad Schedule App
   
   
   
2. Open the Station Rules set that you want to setup or edit Virtual Categories in. Don't forget, you can copy a Station Rule set, edit the copy and assign that Rule set to a Clock if required.
   
   
   
   
3. In the left hand navigation of the Edit Station Rules window, click on the Virtual Category Selection Criteria option.
   
   
   
   
4. Click on the Add Categories button to the right of the Categories section, and select a Song Category to add to the list. You can also see the list of Categories already included, and can remove them by clicking on the X by a Category.
   
   
   
   
   
   So in the example above, Songs will be included from the A-List, Pop, Gold, Dance and Rock Categories.
   
   You will also see an example list of Songs that meet the criteria, towards the bottom of the Window.
   
   
5. Next, click on the Add Criteria button and select the criteria you want to use.
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. In the example below, we have selected the Type: Big Hits & Gender: Female Group or Female. We can also see that only three Songs meet this criteria from the selected Categories.
   
   
   
   
7. Let's remove the Gender criteria and see if we have more Songs that meet the criteria. Click on the X by each Gender to remove the criteria.
   
   
8. Now we have an estimated 47 Songs available that live in the A-list, Pop, Gold, Dance or Rock Categories that are also Tagged as 'Big Hits'.
   
   
9. If you are happy with your Virtual Category criteria, you can click on OK to close the window.

Now that the Virtual Category Selection Criteria is set, you can treat the Virtual Category as any other Category including:

• Adding Schedule Rules and Search Depth for the Virtual Category.
  
  
  
  
• Including Virtual Categories in Song Category Goals.
  
  
  
  
• Specifying Virtual Categories in specific positions in Clocks.
  
  

Using More Than One Virtual Category

Each Station Rule Set contains only one Virtual Category, but because you can have multiple Station Rule Sets and apply them to Clocks as required, it effectively allows you to use multiple Virtual Categories.

Let's say you wanted to use a new Virtual Category that only allows 'Romance' Tagged Songs, you could use the following steps:

1. Open the list of Station Rule Sets.
2. Select an existing Station Rule Set to Copy or you could build a new one from scratch.
3. In this example, we will make a copy of the existing Rule Set. Select the Rule Set and click on the Copy button.
   
   
   
   
4. Give it a suitable Title, then click on OK.
   
   
   
   
5. Follow the steps above to set the Selection Criteria. Then click on OK.
   
   
   
   
6. To apply this Station Rules Set to a Clock, open the Clock and select the Rules and Goals to use the new Rule Set we just created.
   
   
   Remember that you still need to add Virtual Category to specific Songs in the Clock, or add it to the Song Category Goals.

CAUTION - Whilst Virtual Categories can be a very powerful tool to add with specific scheduling requirements,applying Virtual Categories with Selection Criteria that is unrealistic, will result in poor scheduling perfomance.