Important
in this update is that many of the previously manually run operations are now automated and can be run on a schedule. These
include automatic import and upload of closed caption data and fully automatic
backup and self-maintenance. QuickScan no longer requires
that any Microsoft Office products be installed in order to utilize its
rich feature set. QuickScan Pro 7, in addition to an internal FTP
client, now contains its own internal
email features and its own internal spelling checker. Previously
available Microsoft Office interfaces are all still functional (MAPI
email, Report-to-document conversion and spelling checker).
Search
Engine
The new advanced
search engine was
designed specifically for news monitors. The new QuickScan search
engine interface saves you hours of labor time by eliminating up to 90% of the search
result screening required with other search engines.
QuickScan incorporates a full compliment of Boolean functionality on nearly every field in the
database in addition to many advanced specialty features. These advanced searches may be created on an
ad hoc basis
or stored as an "Account Profile" to be used with future searches or in the
Batch
search process. In addition to a large variety of report styles, QuickScan
search results may also be exported to a format for QuickScan
DL users.
Ease of Data Entry -
Decoded Closed Caption text/Manual Input
Of
course there would be nothing to search without an efficient way to get
news data
into the database. QuickScan makes this easy.
 |
Easy,
intuitive interface for manual entry of news story synopsis |
|
Easy
batch import and parsing of closed
caption text data. Decoded cc text files are parsed into stories by delimiter
(where provided by broadcaster or manually entered). The story length is automatically calculated
along with the Relative Media Value of each story. |
|
QuickScan
Imports closed caption text data from two decoder formats
|
|
Where
delimiters are not provided by the broadcaster -
 |
Automatically
parse into story blocks based on a user defined time interval. |
|
Use
the parse interface and quickly and accurately parse each
broadcast into stories. |
|
Internal Spelling Checker
Until
recently the QuickScan family of applications relied on the installation of
specific Microsoft
Office products for its spelling checking features. QuickScan now contains its own, fully
functional spelling checking utility.
Return
to the top
The
international news source and delivery network, inewsnetwork,
was founded by Kevin Stewart in 2002. It's a system designed to work seamlessly
with your local QuickScan database. With 'iNN' you can service all of your important clients
with data from a market, region, the nation or around the world. iNN
provides unprecedented global access to broadcast and print news.
Order Creation and Tracking
With
the QuickScan order creation and tracking system we've tried to think of every thing
a news monitor might need. Monitors are faced with the the under-rated complexity
of tracking their business dealings and QuickScan makes sense of that. It begins by allowing a monitor to initiate orders directly from search results.
It will then calculate and display prices for items entered from a search as well as accept items
that may be added to the order that are not a direct result of a search, such as
dubs, transcripts, out-of-market clips, reports or other service.
|
Royalties
are automatically calculated according to the percentage you have
negotiated with the broadcasters you monitor and reports are easily
generated to make payment and accounting a snap. |
|
Sales
tax is automatically calculated according to the tax rate in the location
where your client makes his purchases. Taxable and non-taxable items
are accounted for. |
|
Track an order through its entire life
cycle allowing the department responsible for each phase of the order to
time stamp it when they are through with their portion of the work and
automatically pass it to the next phase. |
|
Office managers
have a quick view of the status
of all pending orders. |
Story
Flags
Return
to the top
Another important
feature is QuickScan's ability to
flag stories
(news clips) with any number of "Account" names and then later recall
stories according to those flags.
With
QuickScan, when a
data entry analyst (logger) is entering clips or importing a CC text
file, the analyst is able to flag any clip that they might recognize as being relevant to a client. The user can flag a story with as many Accounts flags as
may be needed.
The added benefit
is bringing your analyst/logger into the
sales process by helping your sales staff with the job of recognizing
potential leads.
Automatically
Flag
Stories
Return
to the top
Another ,even more convenient and versatile, way to use Account flags is after a
client's keyword search. As the user is viewing search results they may place a check mark on those
stories that are not relevant to the Client. They may then click a single button that
automatically flags all of the relevant stories! Among the other benefits, this means that a user may reconstitute a
particular search at some point in the future without having to go back through all of the non-relevant
stories again.
Reports
Media Value
Reports. These important reports display the audience numbers for each relevant
story and then calculate the approximate relative media value of each story based on the
story's length and the 30 second ad cost for that particular program. The report also
total these amounts
to give total audience numbers and a total approximate media value of the
coverage received during the report's
date range. It also calculates and displays a "Media Value Index", which is a number that goes up or down depending on the number of
hits per newscast, the length of the stories in the newscast containing
the hits and the ratings of the newscasts where the hits were received.
The Media Value Index is a simple number that your publicity-minded
company may use to track the quality of the news coverage they are
receiving.
There is also a plethora of other reports found within QuickScan including a Transcript Report, Clipping Report, large font versions of
many of the standard QuickScan reports, Logging Report that calculates who
logged which program, various sales and tracking reports, etc. etc..
If there's not a report to suit your specific needs, it's an inexpensive
convenience to have Broadcast Data Systems create a variation to your
exact specifications.
Batch
Reports
With
a single mouse click, automatically search and create reports for every client who
has coverage within the specified date range. QuickScan allows you to set up sophisticated search
profiles for clients and then run them in groups according to how often
the client wishes to receive the information and in groups that you can
quickly and easily define. From the batch QuickScan will automatically
output reports via
|
Email
- in four formats:
|
RTF
(Rich Text Format, for virtually all word processors); |
|
HTML
(viewable in any Web browser); |
|
SnapShot
(Microsoft's portable document format); and |
|
PDF
(Adobe's portable document format). |
|
|
FAX
- automatically outputs reports through your computer's FAX software |
|
Print
- sends reports to your default printer. |
Printed
News
Return
to the top
There are now new optional features in QuickScan for news monitors who are
also logging printed news and a companion program to help print
"readers" flag articles to the correct account.
|
