Displays

The most basic purpose of this solution is to show content on screens and the entire suite of applications exists for that one basic purpose. This solution provides a concept called Displays to manage when and how content is shown on a screen.

Connecting a Display

Displays connect to the CMS over an API called "XMDS". Each signage player software application will have its own method of registering and connecting to the CMS - most of them only require the URL and CMS Key.

Display Administration

The CMS provides a page for Display Administration which is used to show the user the Displays they have permission to view and the status of those Displays.

The display administration table gives an easy to understand overview of each display registered in the CMS.

The rows and columns have the following meanings:

• ID

  The internal ID for the display.

• Display

  A friendly name for the display. This can be set during the registration process in the display client software.

• Status

  The status of the display. Tick (checkmark) = Player is up to date with the content, [!] = Player wasn't logged in since the content change, [X] = Player is currently downloading the new content.

• Licence

  A tick or cross showing whether the display has been granted a licence with the CMS. This prevents unauthorised displays being added to the CMS.

• Default Layout

  The default layout that will play when there are no other layouts / campaigns scheduled or when all scheduled layouts are invalid.

• Interleave Default

  A tick or cross showing whether the default layout will play when there are other layouts scheduled.

• Email Alert

  A tick or cross showing whether an email alert will be sent by the Maintenance module.

• Logged In

  A tick or cross showing whether the display has logged in recently. The time out for the display is set on each display OR in the global settings field MAINTENANCE_ALERT_TOUT.

• Last Accessed

  The date/time of last access.

• IP Address

  The IP address the display had the last time it reported its status through the "Media Inventory" status call.

• Mac Address

  The Mac Address of the display (if the client software is capable of sending it).

Row Menu

Displays can have a number of actions performed against them.

• Edit

  The display edit form for adjusting all options available on the display.

• Schedule Now

  A quick shortcut to scheduling a layout from the current time for a particular duration.

• Default Layout

  A quick shortcut to updating the default layout.

• Assign Files

  Allows the assignment of generic files to the Display. Usually for use by an embedded media type or custom module.

• Media Inventory

  View the required media inventory and the current status of each item as reported by the display during the last check in.

• Wake on LAN

  Send a Wake on LAN packet to the display - requires the Wake On LAN settings to be configured.

Media Inventory

When you schedule new content, or change existing content, it is helpful to know that the displays have updated with the new information. In the CMS and client system, the client applications will connect in to the CMS periodically and update itself on the media items that they have stored locally. Media Inventory allows you to look at a glance to check if your updates were pulled by the clients yet.

On the display management page, you'll see a column "Status". The status mark can be one of either Tick (checkmark), [!] or [X].

When you make a change that affects the output of the CMS to a given client (for example if you modify a layout scheduled on that client, schedule a new layout or change the default layout), the status mark will immediately goes [X]. That signifies that as far as the CMS is aware there are updates pending for that client and it has not received them yet.

The client will then connect up to the CMS on a schedule and will read the new information that is available. If there are new files to download (for example if you modified a layout or scheduled something completely new), the status mark will turn [!] while the files are being downloaded.

Once the client is satisfied that all files have been downloaded, it will send an inventory of all the files it has active in it is cache back to the CMS, and the CMS will change the status mark to Tick (checkmark).

If you are curious to see what files the client is actively monitoring, you can click the "Media Inventory" button and a popup will appear showing the status of each file, along with the last time the client checked it was still stored correctly on disk. You will also see any files that the client is in the process of downloading.