User guide · Plain language
Using CMC.
A short guide.
CMC is the Campaign Management Console on DCOBuilder. It is where briefs come in, campaigns get built, and the live pipeline runs. This page is the plain-language version of how it works, who owns what, and where to go when something breaks.
Version v0.9
Audience Agency POCs, HC internal team
Read time 4 minutes
Hosted at dcogallery.com / demos
01
What CMC is
CMC stands for Campaign Management Console. It is the home base inside DCOBuilder where every DCO campaign lives. Three things happen here. Briefs come in. Campaigns get built, reviewed, and shipped. The live pipeline keeps running after launch, with optimisation and in-flight changes routed through the same surface.
CMC is a platform module, not an agency tool. The same console serves agencies, direct brands, publishers, and the HockeyCurve internal team. What you see depends on your role. An agency media buyer sees their campaigns, budgets, and tags. The HC creative team sees the pod queue. The platform keeps the contexts separate.
Rule of thumb
Everything that has ever been a WhatsApp message about a campaign should live inside CMC. Briefs, approvals, feedback, revisions, status. If it is not in CMC, it did not happen.
02
Submit a brief
Two ways to submit a brief on CMC. The current version and the reimagined version. Both are live on this gallery so you can walk the team through whichever matches the audience.
The short version: open a new brief, pick your role, fill the fields that apply to you. Nothing is mandatory beyond campaign name and client. Whatever is missing gets routed to a teammate by email. The HC team handles DCO template selection via the Recommendation Engine, so you never have to pick a template yourself.
03
Stages of a campaign
Nine stages, start to finish. Every campaign moves through these in order, and you can see where yours is at any point on the CMC dashboard. The current walkthrough has live screens for each.
01
Brief in
Agency POC or HC sales
03
Template match
HC team, via HCCS
04
Demo build
HC creative
05
Internal QC
HC creative F&S
06
Client review
Agency, brand
Stages one through three happen in minutes. Four through seven are the iteration loop, where most of the back-and-forth happens. Eight is the trafficking handover. Nine is the ongoing optimisation and in-flight work, which can last the whole flight period.
04
Who owns what
CMC has role-scoped access. Six roles cover most of what agencies and clients do. Each sees only their own surfaces. An agency media buyer does not see the creative pod queue. A brand manager does not see the ad trafficking spec. The matrix below shows who leads, assists, or is absent at each stage.
| Role |
Brief |
Template |
Build |
QC |
Review |
Sign-off |
Ship |
Live |
| Sales / BD |
● |
○ |
· |
· |
○ |
· |
· |
· |
| Media Buyer |
● |
· |
· |
○ |
● |
○ |
○ |
● |
| Ad Ops |
○ |
· |
· |
● |
· |
· |
● |
● |
| Brand Manager |
○ |
· |
· |
· |
● |
● |
· |
○ |
| Creative Director |
○ |
○ |
○ |
● |
● |
○ |
· |
· |
| Account Manager |
● |
○ |
○ |
○ |
● |
● |
○ |
● |
● Leads the stage
○ Assists or reviews
· Not involved
05
Getting help
CMC has a support and feedback surface called FRS, short for Feedback and Response System. Two paths in, both one click away from any CMC page.
- Search first. Search bar on the support home covers 60-plus articles, suggested searches, and quick links. Most answers are here.
- Raise a ticket. If search does not answer it, the Raise a Ticket button is pinned top-right on every page. The ticket form is four fields. It routes to the right pod automatically based on the category you pick.
Tickets are for the live pipeline, not for brief submission
If you are trying to submit a brief and you feel the need to raise a ticket, the tool has failed. Brief submission has no required fields beyond client and campaign name. Everything else skips cleanly. Use the reimagined brief flow if the current one is in your way.
Pods handle tickets with tiered SLAs. The three tiers are Express, Priority, and Standard, tied to your subscription plan. You can see SLA remaining on every ticket. Escalation to a pod lead happens automatically if SLA drifts.
06
Common questions
Do I need a CMC login to submit a brief?
No. The reimagined brief flow works without a login. You get a deep link to your section, fill the fields for your role, submit. The link is single-use and expires in 14 days. A CMC account is only needed for ongoing campaign tracking and for HC internal team views.
Which DCO template will my campaign use?
You do not need to pick one. The HC team proposes templates for every brief, scored against the HC Creative Standard (HCCS): 6 pillars, 100 points, calibrated on live campaign performance. Version 1 of the Recommendation Engine ships in phases through 2026 and will surface a ranked shortlist with confidence tiers. Until then, Harsh and the HC team curate the shortlist manually.
What does 60 seconds actually mean?
It is a design target, not a stopwatch. It means a viable brief should take under a minute if you have what you need on hand. Sales typically files in 30 seconds with just a client name, one-liner, and email. A full media brief with flight dates, budget, and DSP sits around a minute. A full AM brief with routing and sign-off mapping is closer to two. The number is a metaphor for zero-friction brief submission.
Can I edit a brief after I have submitted it?
Yes, until demo build starts (stage 04). After that, changes go through the review stage (06) so the HC team can flag scope impact. Any teammate you invited during submission can fill or edit their own section, even after your submission.
What happens if I skip every optional field?
You still get a working campaign. Minimum viable brief is just campaign name, client name, and who you are. Everything else either routes to a teammate by email or uses a smart default. IAB-standard sizes, 30-day default flight, DSP matched to your agency profile, IAB tag type. You can always come back and override.
How do I see what my teammates have filled?
On the campaign dashboard. Every section shows a status marker. Done is solid. Pending has the teammate's email and the time since the email went out. Unassigned is dashed. You can nudge any pending teammate from the dashboard with one click. No chasing through email or WhatsApp.
Still stuck?
Raise a ticket on the FRS console. Four fields, pod auto-assigned, SLA visible. If your issue is about the brief submission experience itself, email
harsh@hockeycurve.com directly. That is the fastest path to getting the tool out of your way.