This document provides an overview and instructions for using various tools used by Sales Assistants at News 12, including OSCAR, TIM, Salesforce, NOVAR, Strata CablePost, and PVR. It summarizes the key programs as follows: OSCAR is used to create invoices from agency orders. TIM is used to organize sales orders and flag changes from traffic. Salesforce allows account executives and assistants to manage client accounts, opportunities, and proposals. NOVAR is used to pull order confirms and pre/post logs. Strata CablePost finds ratings for advertising campaigns. PVR is used to verify agency orders against reports before printing confirms.

1. News 12 Sales
Assistant Manual
Updated May 27, 2015

2. Table of Contents
News 12 Overview………………………………………………………………………………………………….…….3
Oscar……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……….4
TIM…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….……19
Salesforce…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….….23
Novar……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...60
Strata CablePost……………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………..…………73
PVR………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….84
2

3. What is News 12?
News 12 is a subsidiary of Cablevision that provides 24 hour local news coverage to 3.5 million
households throughout the tri-state area
A Decade of Excellence
in Hyper-Local News
In the past 10 years, News 12
has won 127 Emmy Awards.
3

4. Overview of OSCAR
4
OSCAR is a tool used by Cablevision’s billing department to send invoices to
media agencies. In order to create the invoice, assistants use the agency order to
transcribe the client and agency information, as well as the commercial schedule
into OSCAR. This information is then used to create the invoice.

5. Log into the portal and open “Oscar Production”
5

6. Click “Order Entry” to begin entering orders in Oscar
6

7. This is the order header (cover page for the Oscar insertion order). The
highlighted fields represent what you are entering on a new order, or copying
from a previous one. These are the only fields that may need changing.
7

8. Enter the contract ID you were given, followed by a dash, and then hit the tab
button. You will then see the header populate. Click on the double pages icon
as highlighted to clone the header.
8

9. The “Copy Contract” window will pop up. Fill in NE12 as the market and fill in
the account field and the start and end dates and click “Header Only”
9

10. Begin inputting order
If inputting order for all zones, enter N12R
under “System.” If inputting for specific zones
use N12LI, CT, WC, NJ, BX, BK, or HV.
Under the day of the week, put a Y for the days the ad
is supposed to run.
• Click the yellow paper icon on the top left-hand corner to create a new line. Click the blue box on the left of
the line to select the line. Drag upwards or downwards to select multiple lines.
• Control + C to copy (line or field), control + V to paste, tab to move to a horizontal field. 10

11. Continue inputting order
Enter ad duration (Usually 15 or 30 seconds)
and the dates/times in which the ad will run
• Network is almost always NWPL
• Commission rate is always the same
• Flights weeks and actual weeks are always “1”
• There is never a skip week
• Region is always “R1” and the group number is always the same as the line number
Enter number of spots/week, spot rate, and make
goods if needed
11

12. To copy lines, select the lines you want to copy. Then click “Edit,” “Flight Line
Copy,” “Highlight”. Then hit OK.
12

13. Click “Sort” then “Line Number” to correctly sort the lines.
13

14. When you are finished click the money icon as highlighted below to make sure
the OSCAR total matches the agency order. Press “OK” when the window pops
up and go back to the order header
14

15. Press the page with the check mark and click “Yes” to approve the order
15

16. After you approve the order, the order will have to be approved by the credit
department. This will take an hour or so. When they approve it the credit status
will change from “Pending” to “Approved”
16

17. 17
Now that the orders have been approved by credit, you can print them
out. Print out two ALM breakouts by system as shown below

18. 18
Finally, print out an insertion order as seen below and bring the
insertion order along with an ALM breakout to the VP of Sales

19. Overview of TIM
19
TIM, or Total Information Management, is a program used to organize the large volume of orders
Cablevision receives. The following information is available to view in TIM:
• Client and agency name
• The Account Executive responsible for the order
• Scheduled run times, days, frequencies, spot length and cost
• Client and agency name/ID numbers
• The total $ value of a contract, as well as individual zone totals
• Total amount of spots per order
• Status of an order
Sales Assistants use TIM to input contracts as well as monitor them. In a process called “TIM flagging,”
sales assistant put changes by traffic into effect.

20. TIM flagging
20
Step 1: Click on the arrow and select “zza – N12
regional Flags” from the drop-down menu
These yellow exclamation points indicate that the
corresponding order requires action

21. Right-click on an order, then click “Traffic Snapshot”
21

22. A window similar to this will pop up. Click “OK,” then “Apply” to apply the
changes to the order. This order will no longer appear under “N12 regional Flags”
22
*The things highlighted in yellow are the changes to the order that need to be applied

23. Overview of Salesforce
23
Salesforce is a tool used by Account Executives and Sales Assistants to organize sales pitches for
prospective future business as well manage client orders.

24. Click on the Salesforce icon in the Cablevision portal
24

25. Log into Salesforce
25

26. Search for the account in the search bar
26

27. Click the account name
27

28. Click “Edit Account Team”
28

29. Click “Add”
29

30. Type your name in the box and click the magnifying glass and select your
name. Select “News 12” from the drop-down menu and click “Save”
30

31. You have finished adding yourself to the account team and can begin working
on the account
31

32. Click the “Opportunities” tab then click “New” to create a new opportunity
32

33. Complete outlined fields and save.
• Make sure to change “Opportunity Account Executive” from your name to the Account
Executive's name.
• Fill in “Stage” as Presentations.
• Close date is today’s date.
33

34. Click “Create Proposal”
34

35. Complete outlined fields then click “In View”
35

36. The TIM number is created. Click “OK”
36

37. The strata viewer will then open up, with the below message box. If you have
already created a Strata file, click “Use Existing,” if not, click “Create New.”
You will have to create a new Strata file the majority of the time.
37

38. Double click on the most recent survey so that it appears in the outlined box
(the active list), then click “OK”
38

39. Open the ALM rate breakout excel sheet and type in the rates and number of
spots
39

40. Switch from the “Order” tab to the “Rate Breakout” tab and Excel will
show you the rate breakouts for each zone.
Tabs are located on the bottom of the screen
40

41. Fill out the fields on the left using the system codes below
In this space, put the system code, which
represents the zone this TIM is for
This field is where you put the secondary system code
System codes
Long Island 4860 N12 LI
Connecticut 5119 N12 CT
Westchester 5087 N12 WC
NJ Central 9036 N12 NJ
NJ North 9035 N12 NJ
NJ South 9037 N12 NJ
Bronx 5958 N12 BX
Brooklyn 5212 N12 BK
Hudson Valley 5727 N12 HV
Traffic & Weather 6768 ZTWC
41

42. Build ad schedules
Below the zone codes, you will enter the daypart. ex) M-Su 9a-12a.
Enter how many times the ad will run per week
Press shift + enter to create a new line (ctrl + enter to copy
previous line)
Enter the rate
Enter ad duration (Usually 15 or 30 seconds)
42

43. Go back to the ALM rate breakout excel sheet and switch to
the ALM 7610 tab. Compare the rate total of your schedule to
the rate total on the spreadsheet and make sure they match. If
they don’t, go back and see what you did wrong
43

44. Once the schedule is built, click “TIM” to send the schedule to TIM and
press “OK”
44

45. 45
Click “No” and exit the program

46. Go back to Salesforce and click “Complete Proposal”
46

47. Select the zone associated with the schedule that was just built and click “Save
Proposal”
47

48. Go into TIM and right click on the proposal you just completed. Right-click on it
and select “Traffic Options”
48

49. 49
Enter the highlighted information and press “OK”
If order is for Traffic & Weather:
Rep Firm: (Leave blank)
Primary: Oscar T&W
Secondary: N12 T&W
If order is unconsolidated:
• Rep Firm: (Leave blank)
• Primary: Oscarn12
• Secondary: Oscar N12

50. If the order is for Traffic & Weather, you will need to roadblock it. The first step
is to click on the order in TIM and click “Edit Order” > “Edit Order in TIM”
50

51. This window will pop up, click “OK”
51

52. Change the Roadblocks from “N” to “Y” and click “Save”
52

53. Go back to the proposal in Salesforce and click on the opportunity
53

54. Select “Clone Proposal”
54

55. Choose your proposal from the drop down menu and select “Continue Clone
Proposal”
55

56. Remove the “Copy of” portion of the description and change the zone then click
“OK” to generate a new TIM #
This represents the zone
There are 9 zones: LI, CT, NJN, NJC, NJS, WC, HV, BX, and BK. You have to make separate
proposals for each zone. An example of the name for a proposal for Long Island would be
NR1500468-N12LI, for NJ North; NR1500468-N12NJN, etc. For Traffic & Weather use N12T&W
56

57. Edit order in View to open up strata file and repeat the process detailed in the
previous pages
57

58. Once you are finished with all of the proposals, go back to TIM and change the
status of each proposal to “Submitted to Manager” followed by “Submitted to
Credit.” Send an email to your managers and the AE letting them know that the
proposals have been submitted.
58

59. Example of email
59

60. Overview of NOVAR
NOVAR is a program used by assistants and account executives to perform duties related to order
entry and scheduling. It is mainly used to:
• Pull confirms – ensure the order has been exported and used to check for accuracy
• Pre/post logs – spot scheduling, aka spot listing (the time when commercial spots are slated to
run)
• Look up contract ID numbers
60

61. Go to the Cablevision portal and open Novar

62. Pulling Confirms
Step 3 Step 2 Step 1: Click “Contracts”
62

63. Fill in contract ID and click “Go”
63

64. Press “Go” and you have your finished contract data report
64

65. Pulling Spot Listings
Step 1: Click
“Scheduling”
Step 2Step 3
65

66. Fill in highlighted fields and click “Go”
Dates, *client/CID, AE,
spot status, sort by and
exclude interconnect (Y)
Select HTML and Click
“Go” to run listing
66

67. *If there are multiple clients with the same name, this window will pop up when entering the
client name. Simply click on the client with the correct ID #. and press “OK”
67

68. Name the file (start date followed by client) and save under
your H drive
68

69. Open the file you just made and it should look something like this
69

70. Looking up contract ID numbers
Step 1: Click
“contracts”
Step 2
70

71. This window will pop up, enter the NR number and click
“Search”
Enter % followed by the NR
number followed by
another %
71

72. If there is one contract, the ID will be located as shown below, if there are
multiple, a window will pop up with a list of the contracts IDs
72

73. Overview of Strata CablePost
73
STRATA CablePost is a program used by sales assistants to find the ratings of
advertising campaigns run on News 12 networks. Ratings show the estimated
audience size of a particular News 12 networks advertising campaign. Strata
CablePost can utilized after the spot listing has been done in NOVAR.

74. Go to the portal and click on the icon
74

75. This window will pop up, select the “Spot Detail Information” tab then select
“Novar” from the drop-down menu and click “Browse”
75

76. Select the specified file and click “Open”
76

77. Click “Load”
77

78. Click “Settings” in the upper right-hand corner and select the outlined fields
78

79. Select the specified demographic and market
79

80. Select the specified time period and dates and click “Ok”
80

81. Click the Microsoft Word icon, then click “Yes” to send the report to Microsoft
Word
81

82. This is the finished report. Click “File” to begin saving it
82

83. Click “Save As,” “Computer,” “My Documents,” and name the file. Click “Save”
to save it (make sure you save it to your H drive)
83

84. Overview of Preverification Report (PVR)
84
Preverification report (PVR) is used as a guide to check against the agency order given to you by your AE.
To perform the check, you will match each line on the PVR against each line on the order to ensure entry
accuracy. Once it is confirmed that the agency order is correct, print the confirms in Novar. You can do
this by using the contract ID’s and plugging them in one by one into Novar.

85. Type the web address you see in the top left-hand corner into the search bar
and you will be brought to this screen. Log in to NOVAR Web Manager
85

86. Go to the “REPORTS” tab and select “Consolidated Preverification Report”
86

87. Select the bubble next to “Remark Search” then type the NR number in the
“Enter Remark” field and click “Export”
87

88. Switch to the “DOWNLOADS” tab, then enter the dates you are doing the report
for and click “Filter”
88

89. Click “Download” to download the report
89

90. This is the finished report. If nothing is highlighted in yellow, print it. If something is
highlighted, there is something wrong and it should be saved rather than printed
90

91. You are now ready to be a Sales Assistant for News 12.
Congratulations and good luck!
91