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Media Link

We are interested in using Media Link and are very interested in some feedback from people using it now. Our Media department is currently using Smart Plus.

The theory of it sounds great but curious about advantages and or problems.

Thanks,

Chrissie Scott
Accounting Manager
BOHAN
www.bohanideas.com

Chrissie,

We have been using Media Link with both C&P and SmartPlus for just over four years now. The process works well. It's not quite as automated as the product descriptions make it sound, but it's also not complicated. It takes a bit of coordination on the part of the Media Department and the Accounting Department to be sure things have been uploaded to C&P before billing time. And that if any revisions are made, those are uploaded also. We do a little over $10 million worth of TV & Radio buys annually in SmartPlus. We do smaller & non-rated markets and most of our print orders directly into C&P.

In addition to remembering to export & upload orders and revisions, one other thing that slows the process down a bit is if the media buyer makes the campaign dates longer (into another month) during which there are no spots scheduled, that transfers and attempts to import a blank PO. Also, prior to exporting an order from SmartPlus, you have to be sure you have entered the appropriate Job Ticket number, Vendor code and Task code on the buy in order for it to import correctly into C&P. Those codes must match exactly or you'll have a mess on your hands.

All that being said, I would recommend it- It most definitely simplifies the billing of media orders that were generated in SmartPlus and keeps all of your orders placed in the right database for billing.

Let me know if we can be of any further help or offer any additional advice.

Greg Bojko
Adstrategies, Inc.

Our media department is made up of 4 Dell/Windows machines + 1 Dell/media server. All other computers (including the billing dept. ) is on a Mac. We utilize a Dell server to "import/export" media files from our media dept. to our billing dept's Mac computer which runs Clients & Profits.

The advantages are pretty obvious...no more duplicate input of media information for billing. However, the whole "media link" has had its share of "bugs". For example, we just had an issue whereby the media orders would be imported from SmartPlus. After C&P would go and "retrieve" the files from the media server, the media orders numbers would be one digit lower than the original order in SmartPlus. We called SmartPlus and they finally figured out the problem.

Problems too have been seen whereby only some orders successfully transfer over to C&P. There appears to be no reason why some orders are not transferred successfully.

On the whole however, we place a lot of media, and most files do transfer successfully. The media link option is vital in saving us hours and hours of time that would be spent otherwise entering media information directly into our billing system.

Also..Mike from Clients & Profits is the "media guru". Whenever we have a problem, we call him first. He can usually help us determine if the problem is C&P or a SmartPlus issue.

Good luck.

Anna M. Parisi,
V-P/CFO
GBL, Inc.