Planning Lesson #2: Generate a blocking chart (a.k.a flowchart) of your media plan

The blocking chart is a media document that presents your media plan in a visual way on a colored timeline. It helps understand:

• The cost allocation by media category
• The cost and run dates of media insertions.
• The total cost by week, month, quarter, or year

It is often used to communicate the media plan with your clients and stakeholders to gain their approval.

Where to generate a blocking chart

The blocking chart is a specialized view of the “Planning” module.  

Click on the “Blocking chart” link in the “Views” section.

Note that the blocking chart is contextual to search and filters.  This means you can decide which media insertions are included in the blocking chart by setting a search criteria or different filters.

Exercise: Generate a blocking chart

Follow these steps to generate a blocking chart:

• Step 1: Go to the “Planning” module,
• Step 2: Click the “Blocking chart” view.  

Remember that the blocking chart is contextual to search and filters.  To generate a blocking chart for a specific media plan and/or organization, you must set the “Media plan” and/or “Organization” filters.

• Step 3: Click on the different options to customize your blocking chart:

Trim empty edges: Remove all empty weeks/months at the beginning and end of the timeline.

Display budget/expense amounts: Display the budget/expense amounts in all the blocking chart cell.

Color by: The color coding strategy for the blocking chart cell.

Week / Month: Display the timeline by week or by month

• Step 4: Mouse-over a blocking chart cell to display the given media insertion details including the creative files.

Step 5: Click the “Export” button to save your blocking chart to PDF or Excel