N.Y. Times Group Gets ATS Ad System

By: E&P Staff Advanced Technical Solutions of Acton, Mass., is supplying the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group with an enterprisewide AdVisor Advertising PowerSales system for Classified Advertising. The first of 15 sites -- the Star-News, in Wilmington, N.C. -- is in full production.

The Times Regional Group consists of four dailies in Florida, one in California, three in Alabama, two in Louisiana, three in North Carolina, and one in South Carolina. ATS said its AdVisor system also will go into the Petaluma (Calif.) Argus-Courier, a non-daily. AdVisor will be configured to give cross-selling capabilities to all the papers. The dailies also publish weeklies and area magazines.

AdVisor Advertising PowerSales is designed to minimize time and effort required to enter what would otherwise be complex orders. The object was to keep the focus on sales by making AdVisor easy to use, learn, configure, and maintain. ATS streamlined processes and features, including its PowerSales tools, to streamline order entry in high-volume, deadline-intensive environments.

For Windows NT and Unix environments, the advertising framework manages the workflow and cross-selling in one order. A single application relying on a central database, AdVisor creates a unified environment for all advertising functions, from simplified order entry through production and reporting.

The group's system consists of classified liner, display ad, legal notice and obit order entry, AdsOnLine Web-based order entry, and AdFax facsimile (in/out) ad-management systems, and will use ATS' Long Obituaries and Legal Notices Pagination System module.

Each property will have a pair of MS Clustered AdVisor Servers. For disaster recovery, all databases will be backed up at the company's Shared Service Center, Norfolk, Va., which also will connect users to their specific database via Citrix servers in the event of a disaster. Backup of databases and related files will occur over the group's wide-area network.

One AdsOnLine server will be in the current Web server facility in northern Virginia. AdFax will coexist and operate as a passive member of the server pair at each newspaper. The AdVisor system includes enterprisewide interfaces with Rita (real time credit card verification and processing system), the new Software Consulting Services pagination system and Publishing Business Systems software.