Introduction
Digital Signage can be used as a way to advertise and generally display information and other forms of media. Whether that be for upcoming events, general scheduling, the date and time, weather, etc. One of the most convenient parts about it is that you can update your work remotely and then push the updates to a TV in real time! Let's look into how to set it up.
Necessary Components
To start with with digital signage, you will need a few things. These are:
- An available monitor/TV to use as the signage display (must have an available HDMI port)
- A USB-A port on the display device to power the signage hardware and/or a nearby outlet in the case that a separate charger is needed
- A signage account. If you do not have one but need one, reach out to your local signage admin (See Jesse Browder or Jason Erickson for details) and it can be created for you
- Hardware to run the signage program/media. This is typically provided by the ITS department, but if you have something else that would potentially work feel please refer to your signage admins to see if that is feasible
-- The aforementioned hardware has to either connect to the school's network wirelessly or wired to work
Signage Studio
At South Dakota Mines, SignStudio is our primary method of utilizing digital signage. SignStudio utilizes both a website, found here: https://galaxy.signage.me/signstudio/login and a program (Legacy version) to adjust your signage displays.
Once created, your account will be added to a "group," which will allow you and everyone else within it to access the same media to share for your displays. This means that multiple people can work on editing their slides as needed, similar to some of the Microsoft suite programs.
When you first log in, you will immediately be inundated with information. Let's start by focusing on the left-side panel for now. Here is a breakdown of what a few of the options do. Note that I will be focusing on the ones I feel are most important:
- Home: Takes you back to the main screen. Here you can see "Recent Scenes," and a ton of pre-built signage media
- Scenes: Your main bread and butter. Scenes are essentially the slideshows that you create and fill with images and everything else you would like to display
- Resources: Here is where you can upload the images you intend to use for your signage displays. In the most simplified sense, digital signage is utilized to showcase PowerPoint slides, and this is where you would upload the slides. Note that you will have to upload your slides as image files such as .JPG or .PNG, as .PPTs will not work
- Players: These are the aforementioned monitors/TVs you are utilizing to display your signage. From here, you can check to see if your player(s) are on and connected, you can click on specific players to adjust their naming convention, or even "push new content" to force the TV to update the a new slide that you may have added
- Help: Has video tutorials on how to use SignStudio, both the Legacy version (not covered here) and the current version. Check the "SignStudio" folder for the current version and "Legacy" for the old version
Example Signage Tutorial
Looking at the sheer amount of information on the SignStudio landing page can be overwhelming, so let's run through a brief tutorial.
- Starting with the "Scenes" tab on the left, click on the "+ Create Scene" button. From here, choose "Empty Scene" and you can then name and adjust the size of your scene as needed. Once done, click on "+ create"
- You will be welcomed to the Scene Editor page that looks like something from an art program. From here, the most important thing we need to setup is called a "Playlist"
- To get to the playlist, click on "apps & components" on the left side of the screen
- The very first option should show a black, square shaped icon with "Playlist" written under it. Drag and drop the playlist to your blank canvas
- From here, we have some options. You can start by clicking on the playlist and stretching it to fill out the whole canvas size, but because you are able to put in as many as you want, how that will look is up to you
- Once the size is configured, click again on the playlist and notice the timeline that now shows at the bottom of the screen. Minimize the "apps & components" tab from earlier and not click on "resources" to add images
- Drag and drop the images onto the playlist at the bottom and they will show you how much time they will be displayed for. The default should be 5 seconds but that is all adjustable
- Under the "Properties" section on the right side of the screen you can make some adjustments to the resource images. Use "Properties" -> "Playlist" to adjust the default time frame that the images are displayed for
- Once your slides look good to go, click on the floppy disk icon near the top left of the page to save the current scene
- You can also click on the "Preview" button to the left of the save icon to see a web preview of how your new slideshow will look
Displaying your signage
Now that your test slide(s) are done we can add them to a "player" to see what they look like in-person. Click on the "players" tab on the left side of your screen and you will see the connected devices you have set up. If none are set up they will appear later after you first sign into the signage hardware. Choose whichever signage player you want to edit and you should see options appear on the right side of the screen. Signage players in green are currently active and players listed as red are inactive (likely off).
Click the checkbox on whichever of the players you would like to look into and you should see that specific player's settings menu appear on the right side of your screen. From there, you can Start, Stop, Push New Content, etc., to your signage player. You can also adjust the name of the player and change the current "Scenes" that are being displayed from the device here. You may also use the "disconnect player" option if you no longer use a certain set up.
Signing into a Player
The hardware for the signage players is run via an Android device that connects to our campus internet, either wirelessly to the SDSMTOPN or wired to the SDSMTWPA network. An internet connection is required for the signage to be used as your signage media won't be displayed otherwise.
The older signage players utilize a black Android device called a RikoMagic. They have USB-A ports allowing you to connect a mouse and keyboard to them as needed. When you first run the SignStudio application, you will need some way to type in your username (email) and password, so a wireless combination mouse/keyboard is helpful to have on hand to move forward.
Initially, the signage application will ask you to choose a server. We want to start with the "Default Server" and then click connect. After a few seconds, you should be on the next screen where you can input your login information for SignStudio. After signing in, you will be prompted to name the player (the display device) as well as to choose a campaign/playlist that you would like it to show (remember that both of these can be adjusted later). Anybody within the same group on SignStudio (IE: ITS, Athletics, CBEC, etc.) can share and use the other people in said groups' slides as needed.
Signing out of a player
In the case of staff/faculty changing responsibilities, graduation, retirement, etc., you may either gain another display to use or inherent the duties of one of your cohorts. Considering that they are likely still signed into the signage hardware, we will have to sign out to allow us access into the device.
The quickest way to remedy this situation is plug in a mouse/keyboard device, look for Settings, Apps, and go to the SignagePlayer application's settings. From here, there should be an option to "Clear data." which will fully clear out the previous user's login credentials.
After that, you can repeat the previous set of steps to sign back into a new player with your login.
Notes
This guide is focused on the current Signage Studio player. The legacy player is still in use, and no plans for support being dropped are in the works, but for the sake of updates and moving forward, we are focusing on this version for now.