Maintain interval between two ad breaks

At times, some assets can have segments of duration shorter than the duration gap limit required between two ad breaks. To avoid scheduling ad media after segments of shorter duration, the minimum duration between two ad breaks needs to be defined per channel from the global configuration settings. Once defined, the ad automation automatically schedules the ad media, maintaining the minimum interval between two ad breaks. 

Consider that an asset (Asset - 1) has segments of duration of 4 mins, 3 mins, 1 min, 7 mins, etc,. and ad slates have to be scheduled between the segments, keeping a minimum interval of 8 mins. 

To achieve this use case, follow the below steps to configure the minimum segment duration:

1. Click the gear icon on the top-right corner of the PLANNER application. 

2. In the Minimum Segment Duration window, select the channels to which this configuration has to be applied.

3. Provide the minimum gap between two ad breaks. In this case, it is 8 minutes.

4. Provide a guard period of 2 minutes to provide the minimum gap threshold between two ad breaks. 

In this scenario, the ad break will be scheduled in the below priority order:

• Priority 1 - If a segment of exact 8 minute duration is found, the first ad break will be placed exactly after the 8 the minute.

• Priority 2 - If a segment of exact 8 minute duration is not found, then the system will check for a segment having duration anywhere between 8 minutes to 10 minutes (8 minutes plus guard period of 2 minutes). When such a segment is found, the system inserts the ad break there.

• Priority 3 - If a segment of exact 8 minute duration is not found, then the system will check for a segment having duration anywhere between 6 minutes (8 minutes minus guard period of 2 minutes) to 8 minutes. When such a segment is found, the system inserts the ad break there.
  
  Note: If the system cannot find a segment with duration between 6 minutes to 10 minutes, then the ad break will not be inserted in the media.

5. Save the configuration.

6. Once the configuration is saved, schedule an asset to check if the ad breaks are scheduled after the minimum duration. 

      Note: Ensure that the ad automation rules are already created before scheduling the media.