Chaining Logs (How your log rolls over at the end of the day)

First, go to the Async menu and choose Show Scheduled Events.

The Scheduled Events window will appear as shown at right.

Open Event Builder either by clicking on the Event Builder icon , or by going to the Tools menu in the main Simian window and choosing Event Builder.

Once in the Event Builder, go to the Macro tab and choose ”CHAIN” from the Macro name dropdown list.

Click your mouse cursor into the Macro name dropdown.  Move the cursor to the end of the word “CHAIN” and add the name of your program log.  The CHAIN macro has the ability to use meta variables to represent the file name.  This means that it can dynamically find your program log based on the current day or date using the following codes:

%W   [the first three letters of the day, Ex: Mon, Tue]

%M   [two digits representing the month]

%D   [two digits representing the day]

%Y   [two digits representing the year]

Therefore, if your program logs are named with the date that log is going to air, your CHAIN macro should be entered as shown.

Now you are ready to add your CHAIN macro to your Scheduled Events.

Click and drag from the Drag From Here icon  and drop it onto the Scheduled Events window.

Now that the event has been added, we need to set the days and time it is to occur.

To set the days, highlight the CHAIN event added to the Scheduled Events window in the last step.  Click on the Set Event Schedule icon . 

The window shown at right will appear.  In most cases you will want to CHAIN your logs every day, so click on the Every Day button, then click OK.

Make sure the CHAIN event is still highlighted.  To set the time the event will occur, click on the Set Event Time icon .

The CHAIN macro should be set to 23:59:50 under most circumstances.  Because the meta variables always reference tomorrow’s date, running the CHAIN macro before midnight will load up the next day’s log to be ready to play at the top of the hour.

After setting the time, click on the Set button.

You are now done adding the CHAIN event to your Scheduled Events.  Make sure to save your Scheduled Events set.  Just as importantly, make sure you set your saved Scheduled Events set as the set Simian is currently using, and also that it is the set automatically loaded when Simian starts by setting the Startup Scheduled Events and Current Scheduled Events dropdowns to your saved set before closing the Scheduled Events window.