Map your systems: sellers
You already run the systems that sell your inventory: traffic and billing, rate management, sales research, maybe an order API of your own. Switchboard does not replace them. It connects to them, in whichever direction fits each one, and turns them into a machine-readable storefront that buyers and their agents can transact against. Nothing airs without your approval.
Where each system lands
Every row is one of your systems, the Switchboard object it feeds or consumes, and the connection that carries it. Full shapes: the object model.
| Your system | What it holds | Switchboard object | How it connects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales catalog | Selling titles, programs, rotators, what you will sell | packages, pools, versioned taxonomy | PUT /me/catalog, file drop, or console |
| Rate management | Weekly rates by package, class, length, tier | rate card commits | PUT /me/rate-cards, file drop, or console |
| Sales research | What is open, sellout, impression estimates | avails, tri-state, week or date grain | PUT /me/avails or file drop, on the cadence your profile declares |
| Order desk | Incoming orders, who approves what | orders at seller_review: your gate | GET /me/orders + decide, the console queue, or we call your API |
| Traffic | The schedule, daylocked air dates | placement_receipt booking receipts; allocation carries the dates | Order exports and receipts flow back through webhooks, queues, or files |
| Billing & as-run | Invoices, log times, actuals | delivery posts, reconciliation inputs | EDI invoices and as-run in via the file interface; posts by API or drop |
| Your own order API | All of the above, already built | the pull connection | Host your own API: Switchboard calls you, to a published contract |
Pick your connection
Three ways in, by build appetite. Mix per capability; the capability profile declares what you serve and the platform never calls what you have not advertised.
- No build. A spreadsheet drop and the approval console. Rate cards and avails by S3 or SFTP; orders approved in the console. This is Level 0, and it is fully transactable.
- Push. Your systems call our REST endpoints when things change: catalog, rates, avails in; the approval queue by API. Start at the seller quickstart.
- Pull. You already run an order or inventory API; Switchboard calls it and adapts to your vocabulary. See Host your own API.
What you keep
Control, structurally. Your approval gate sits on every order, human or rule-driven, and lands in the same audit trail. You define the packages, the currencies you sell in, the guarantee tiers you offer, and the make-good policy that travels with each package. Buyer-scoped rate cards stay scoped: presenting an agreement is the only way to see them. And prices lock at order time, so a card update never reprices booked business.