Soft Lock Feature in SBMS Digital

Soft Lock Definition

Soft Lock is an auto lock applied to each placement or package in flighting. It was added to give users complete control of monthly distribution of Purchased Costs and to provide users a way to actualize monthly costs. In order to make a change to cost or date, flighting must be added to Placements and Packages. The Soft Lock feature is enabled by date and users must unlock flight(s) to make a change to cost or date to the Package or Placement. It is recommended that users relock any flighting that gets unlocked for changes.
 

Soft Lock Rules

• Soft Lock does not apply to any package or placement in Draft status.
• Soft Lock rules apply to both Placements and Packages/Roadblocks.
• Once a placement/package is Approved, Soft Lock functionality will automatically lock any months prior to the current date.
• The flighting total cost cannot be changed to less than the Cleared invoice amounts.
• If a user attempts to change the placement cost to be less than the total net cost for unlocked flights, the message, “Error saving:  Saving placement error:  Updated net cost is less than the previous total net cost.   You might want to unlock the flights you want to re-allocate” will display.
• If a user attempts to change a placement and all flights are locked, the message, “No available flights to distribute, please unlock first.” is displayed. The user needs to go into Flight Manager for that placement and unlock the flight(s) that should be updated based on the placement changes. Once the flight(s) are unlocked, the placement changes can be re-entered.
• The Soft Lock feature excludes any placements or packages that are a month or less long, one billing cycle, and don’t have flighting.

Cost Changes to multi-month Placements and Packages

Follow the steps below to change the cost of a multi-month placement with Soft Lock enabled, and no flighting. If your placement already has flighting, skip to step 3.

In this example, the cost of the Videology placement needs to be changed from $10,000 to $1,000. The user attempts to update the cost from $10,000 to $1,000.

1. Choose OK on the warning message that appears after moving out of the updated cell.

2. Add flighting to the placement by doing one of the following:

1. Double-click in the Flights field and using the placement default flighting
2. Double-click in the Flights field and manually create the desired flighting
3. Right-click and select Generate Monthly Flights.

Note: Monthly flighting allows the user to control monthly costs. In this example, Monthly flighting is used.

3. After adding flighting, manually unlock the desired flight(s) by deselecting the Locked field. The updated placement cost only applies to unlocked months. It is important to note that flight costs are updated based on campaign settings if enabled, otherwise they will be prorated according to the number of days in each flight.


 

4. Choose Save.

5. Update the cost of the placement/package. Note that if one or more cleared invoices exists, the cost cannot be updated to less than total amount cleared on the invoice(s).


 

6. It is recommended that users reopen the Flight Manager and re-save the Soft Lock. This is not a required step, however if the soft lock is not re-saved, users can continue to make changes to costs and/or placement dates.

 

Date Changes to Placements and Packages

Follow the below steps to change the dates of a multi-month placement with Soft Lock enabled.

We will use the same placement from the previous example. In this case we will update the dates from 11/1/2017 – 03/31/2018 to 11/1/2017 – 01/31/18.

If a user attempts to update the date with Soft Lock functionality enabled, the message “Soft lock error: Invalid Start/End Date. You might want generate monthly flights and unlock them to reallocate ” will display.

1. Choose OK on the warning message that appears after moving out of the updated cell.


 

2. Double-click the Flights field to open the Flight Manager.

3. Unlock all flights for the placement and choose Save.


 

4. Change the date on the placement line. Note: If cleared invoices exist for the placement/package, you cannot update the dates to exclude months with cleared invoices.


 

Actualizing or Changing Monthly Costs for Placements and Packages

Follow the below steps to actualize or update monthly costs. Note that if the placement or package is in Draft status, Soft Lock functionality is not enabled and updates can be made without going into the Flight Manager. If the placement or package has been Approved and/or Billed, users will need to unlock any monthly flights they would like to update.

In this example, the cost for December will be updated from $2,527.17 to $2,000.

If Campaign Settings are enabled to generate monthly flights or your placement already has monthly flighting, skip step 1 and continue to step 2.

1. Create monthly Flighting by right-clicking the Flights field and selecting Generate Monthly Flights.

2. Unlock the September flight.

3. Unlock the flight that the cost should move to. In this example, it will move to the last flight.

4. Change the Net Cost from $2527.17 to $2000 in the first month. The $500 cost change is automatically moved to the last flight, because it is the only other unlocked flight and the placement total cost has not been changed.







 

If the intention is only to update November’s cost, and not to re-allocate that amount to another flight, they would need to unlock only November, then Save and close the Flight Manager. After that, update the placement cost to be $7,500 and the November flight will update accordingly. Again, it is recommended that users go back in and relock any flights they unlocked.