Cinema Intelligence Booking Optimization product aims to empower you to make booking decisions while accessing a live, interactive overview of all bookings. Our vision is to enrich this view with data, intelligence, and automation to help you build the most optimal plan as efficiently as possible.

The initial product version allows you to book films cinema by cinema, for the upcoming week, together with a full circuit view of all bookings.

You can access this module by clicking the BOOKING icon on the left-hand navigation panel and then selecting 'Booking Optimization'.

Simply click the expand button in the top left-hand corner of the data grid. This will maximize the data grid so that you can keep auditoriums out of sight until needed for scheduling.

From the moment you access the product, you can select your desired cinema from the drop-down menu at the top left corner. You should see all cinemas here that are actively licensing the module. You can either select one cinema to start the booking process or select Entire Circuit to view and print all current data.

When selecting one cinema, you have the ability to toggle between 'Day View' vs. 'Week View' by clicking between the two options available on the top left of the navigation bar, below the cinema drop-down menu.

When 'Week' is selected, you will be viewing an overview of plans for the entire week for the selected cinema. All of the data appearing in the data grid is an aggregate of all days across the week.

When 'Day' is selected, you will be viewing an overview of plans for that specific day. For this reason, you will also have the ability to see time slot level data for that day across all auditoriums. To switch between days simple toggle left or right using the date picker located next to 'Day'.

Beneath the Cinema selection, you will also see a date picker. As of now, you are able to access only the upcoming week. For example, if your play week starts on Friday the 13th and today is the 12th, you will see the play week available for Friday the 13th - Thursday the 20th.

Note that in Week View, the drop-down is disabled. In Day View, feel free to use the drop down to select a particular day or view the monthly calendar.

This section aims to describe all actions that can be performed across the product. The screenshot below displays some of the primary actions which are available as buttons on the top navigation bar. In addition to these actions, you will also find additional actions that are possible by double-clicking, or drag and drop.

Refresh provides a way for you to ensure that the booking plan you are viewing contains all of the latest details. It is not uncommon for changes to be made outside of the system which will impact your booking plan, such as additional films added from your ticketing system, pre-booked shows, or events. By pressing 'Refresh' you can always count on the data you see to be up-to-date.

A new booking request (distributor contract) can be added by clicking the ADD button from the Actions menu, which will generate a blank booking template. At this stage, it is possible to add a booking for any film by typing into the TITLE input section which indexes all films within your Film Database.

A new booking can also be added by double-clicking on the VERSION name with status 'Unplanned' that exists in the data grid.

When a film is available in multiple formats, bookings can be created for all of them in just one go, by simply selecting a new VERSION and FORMAT from the drop-down menus available on the page.

A booking request is defined by the following input:

- Day(s) - select the day, days, or week that apply to the policy

- #Shows - select the Min or Exact number of shows requirement and add a value. When Min is selected, the system will add the minimum number of shows requested, and it can also include extra shows based on forecast.

- Timeslots - select the Min or Exact timeslot requirement and enable the values that apply.

- Auditoriums - select the Min or Exact auditorium requirement and choose a value from the drop-down menu.

If case the distributor agreements are recurrent, you can save time by defining booking policy templates. You can assign the BOOKING POLICY by simply selecting it from the drop down menu on the ADD BOOKING tab of the 'Add booking' screen.

Stopping prints for films or events is as simple as selecting the drop down available in the data grid for the 'Status' column. Any film or event with Status 'Playing' or 'Unplanned' can be changed to 'Stopped' which will remove it from the Auditorium Grid (if it was playing), and prevent it from being scheduled in the future.

An existing booking can be edited in a few ways. Within week view, if you hover over a title in the Auditorium Grid, you will see an edit icon shaped like a pencil.

If you click this, it will also lead you to the edit booking pop-up. From here you can adjust the policy, start date, status, etc. and resave to see the changes take effect.

Please note: In order to see changes take effect immediately, you must add a Complete booking, which means selecting an EXACT auditorium. If you choose a MINIMUM auditorium, you will need to optimize to see the booking outcome. For more information, please refer to the section on 'Complete vs. Incomplete Bookings'.

Alternatively, you can double-click a title from the data grid to generate the same edit booking pop-up. It is important to note that you must double-click the Version to generate the pop-up with booking details.

The ‘Add Booking’ pop-up window contains a tab called FILM DETAILS. By clicking this tab, you can find more details of the selected film, like film length.

The ‘Add Booking’ pop-up window displays a list of all film bookings. Each film format will have a separate entry.

To edit one of the bookings, select FILM and FORMAT from the available drop-down menus and update the existing policies. Click Save to enforce the new updated bookings.

In order to add additional prints to a booking, you can simply press the 'plus' icon on the Add/Edit Booking pop up. Each print can be individually selected so that you can view the policy per print. This is possible for new releases and holdovers.

In an upcoming version, we also plan to add the ability to delete prints. In the current version, if you wish to remove a print that was added, we recommend setting the status to 'Stopped'.

Drag & drop functionality is available while you are in 'Day View'. As you are able to view timeslots from this view, you can drag and drop films from the data grid directly into a time slot in order to create a time slot show for that day. In a similar fashion, you can delete time slot shows simply by clicking the X that you see while hovering over the time slot show on the Auditorium Grid.

By pressing the 'Optimize' button, you are able to automatically generate an optimized booking plan for the day/week depending on which view you are in. By using this option, the powerful Cinema Intelligence booking engine will make recommended decisions based on forecasted film performance, manually added booking requests, and the remaining available space.

Optimize will not consider films that have been manually stopped by the user. Also, any shows which have been locked in place will stay in place.

New releases without forecast will not be included in the final proposal, unless they have been booked in advance.

When you are confident in the final outcome of a film print, you can mark this print as 'confirmed'. Bookings can easily be confirmed/locked by checking or unchecking the 'Confirm' box available in the data grid.

Bookings which have been manually confirmed will be represented by a key lock icon on the auditorium grid.

An important differentiation to note is that bookings or pre-booked shows which have been imported from your ticketing system will be represented by an actual lock icon.

In both cases, the time slot shows will not be moved upon optimization of your booking plan.

The Clear button on the top right side of the page is available to clear all time slot shows with one click. Upon pressing this button, you will see a pop-up which prompts you to specify if locked shows should be cleared. This pop-up refers only to manually added time slot shows rather than pre-booked shows imported from the ticketing system.

The Export button at the top right provides a way to directly export your entire booking plan to an excel sheet. You have the option to export in two formats - grouped by films or grouped by auditoriums.

The Publish button allows you to translate your booking plan to the Scheduling module. All booking requests will be translated to policies that will serve as booking input for scheduling. Films with the status 'Stopped' will not be translated to scheduling, whereas films with the states 'Unplanned' or 'Playing' will be.

Please note that if there are any booking conflicts, an error message will pop up after an attempt to publish. Possible conflicts include a single print containing 2 or more shows in the same timeslot across multiple auditoriums. Please correct any conflicts to keep only one show per film print, and then publish again.

*In the future, we plan to implement a solution to support a VPF free enviroment in which these types of conflicts will not be valid.

While in Week View, you are able to take a snapshot of the existing booking configuration at any time simply by clicking the camera icon in the top right-hand corner. The snapshot will save the name you give it, the total predicted admits, the date stamp, and the user who took the snapshot. Most importantly, the snapshot will save the entire booking plan at the time it is taken, and can then be reloaded via 'Manage Snapshots'.

The purpose of taking snapshots is to empower users to compare and contrast various booking configurations. The more snapshots you take, the more options you have to compare.

By clicking the settings icon in the top right-hand corner, you can access all snapshots that you have taken for the current week. This section allows you to control which snapshot functions as the baseline KPI, and which snapshot functions as the current KPI/configuration so that you are able to compare and contrast based on the KPI values displayed at the top of the module at all times. Whichever snapshot you set to be the 'current' snap will be reloaded as your current booking plan.

At the top of the Navigation Bar you will see 3 Key Performance Indicators - Current Admits, Baseline Admits, and Delta Admits.

Current Admits represents the total admits that you can expect based on the booking plan that you see on screen at any given time. If you are in week view, you will see the calculation for the week, and if you are in day view, you will see the calculation for the day.

Baseline Admits represents the # of admits for the corresponding week/day for a snapshot that you took of a previous booking plan.

Delta Admits represents the difference between the above two KPIs, which makes it very straightforward for you to compare the difference between two different potential booking plans.

Using the snapshot functionality combined with the KPI calculations will empower you and your team during studio negotiations, and support you in making the best booking decisions possible week after week.

The term "time slot shows" is our way of referring to plans to play a particular film format, in a specific auditorium, on a specific day, within a specific time slot. It is representative of a show which has not yet been given an exact start/end time, but has been instructed to play in a particular time slot.

A complete booking represents a booking request which includes all necessary input to be translated immediately into time slot shows. This input includes day(s), exact auditorium(s), and chosen time slot(s).

An incomplete booking represents a booking request which does not include all necessary input to be translated immediately into time slot shows. If any of the information listed above is missing, then the booking will be considered incomplete. It is very common for bookings to be added this way, and it indicates that decisions about day/ time/auditorium placement will be left up to the intelligent Cinema Intelligence engine (booking or scheduling).

Complete bookings are marked with this icon

to help users easily differentiate between the two types.

A booking request represents of the booking details which were specified by a user upon manually adding a booking. The request is typically representative of an agreement with a studio. When the request is 'complete', you will see the associated timeslot level shows in the Auditorium Grid immediately upon saving. For more information, see above information on 'Complete vs. Incomplete' bookings. The booking request can be seen on the booking pop-up page.

Booking outcome represents what will actually be scheduled during the upcoming week. Without specific instructions for day(s), exact auditorium(s), and time slot(s), no booking outcome will exist visually in the Auditorium Grid until the user triggers an Optimization. With these specific requirements set when the booking is added, you will see the booking outcome appear on the screen in the Auditorium Grid, or in the 'Booking Policy' column on the data grid.

This section details the available columns within the data grid, and what each column represents.

Abbreviations Legend:

TD - To Date
​Wk - Week
​# - number
​2PW - 2 weeks in the past
​NW - Next Week
​TW - This Week
​LW - Last Week
​BLW - Before Last Week

Based on what data is important to you, we have built in functionality to allow you to select which columns you would like to be visible or hidden within the data grid. In order to customize this, simply click the 'eye' icon and check or uncheck your desired columns. These preferences will be remembered for the next time that you enter the module.

The ability to dynamically group columns is another powerful way to be able to view your data exactly as desired. For example, you can group based on Film Parent in order to see all versions that you have available for a specific Film. Alternatively, you can group by status in order to see what films are Playing, Stopped, or have yet to be planned (Unplanned).

In order to create a group, simply click on the column header and drag it to the above white section.

From here, you are also able to collapse/uncollapse all by clicking the double arrows in the top left corner. When a group is collapsed, you will see a counter so that you know how many line items fall within that group.

The sort functionality provides you with a way to sort columns up and down. Alphabetic values (like Film or Distributor) will be sorted in alphabetical order. Numeric values will be sorted in numeric order. The sort functionality is particularly powerful when used to sort films/bookings based on performance data.

Filtering functionality allows you to narrow down your data to focus in on a smaller subset of data. All columns are able to be filtered. For example - you can look only at New Releases by filtering the 'Type' column.

The data grid can be further customized to your needs by allowing you to choose the order of the columns, and the size of the columns. Simply click on a column, and drag it to a new area within its respective section (Data / Action / Intelligence). Additionally, you can hover over the border of a column to extend or shorten the width of the column -- just like in Excel.

You can quickly access the Circuit Overview by selecting Entire Circuit from the drop-down menu at the top left corner of the page.

Reload provides a way for you to ensure that the overview contains all of the latest updates on all cinemas.

The Download button at the top right provides a way to directly export the overview to an excel sheet.

The Publish button allows you to translate all booking plans to the Scheduling module.

All actions from the Cinema Data grid are also available in this view. You can filter, hide, resize, group or sort columns. For more details, see Data grid chapter above.

The Distributor Report can be found by clicking the main Booking icon on the left-hand panel, and then selecting the tile labeled "Distributor Report".

Select 'Booking' next to where you see the text 'Generate Report'. Next, depending on your needs, you can select All Distributors, a single distributor, or a custom group based on the films you are playing during that week. You can also easily search for a specific distributor. Once you have made your selection(s), click 'Run' to generate the report.

Similar to the data grid, you are able to pick and choose which columns are displayed on the Distributor Report. You can find this by clicking the 'Eye' icon found on the right-hand side of the report and then selecting/unselecting the columns that you wish to see.

Also similar to the Data Grid, you are able to control the way that the report is organized by using 'Groups'. In order to create a group, simply click on the column header and drag it to the above white section. You can also easily sort/filter the report by clicking the arrows or the filter buttons on the relevant columns.

The distributor reports now show the totals per film version and per film (see blue in the above screen sheet). To have this available, group the report per Title and Format. The totals are automatically calculated for each grouped item. In the above example, the total would be calculated and displayed per Distributor, Title, and Format.

All filters and grouping set in the Distributor report are now saved in CI as a user preference. Next time you log in and access the report, you will receive the report with exactly the same Sorting, Filtering, Grouping, Column order, and width settings.