National Service desk signage status is very important in service organizations.  The heartbeat of the operation is the live status of their current service levels.  Live national service desk status is critical to the people who work there.  It is even more critical when the operations are spread out geographically.

Either:

1. Over multiple service desks in different locations, or
2. When the people in the operation are working from different geo-locations. This can include agents working from home or service delivery providers who work from a different location.

We discuss here, the many ways to mix local content and system-wide content to play on company screens.  So, in this blog, we dive deeper into a national service desk signage status example.  The National Service organization has multiple service desks in different locations.  Their requirement is for a single Show which reflects the up-to-the-moment status of each service desk. In addition, they also want some cross-company information to play in the Show.

National Service Desk Signage Needs

Further, there is also a need for individual service desks to have access to their portion of the screen content.  Moreover, the access includes the ability to create and manage the content for their service desk.  However, all the information from the 3 service desks and the cross-company content must come together.  Finally, operational control over the single Show is important.

A Display5 Show has 1-40 panels in it of any size.  Each panel has a playlist of content that plays while the Show is running.  The Show is dedicated to playing system-wide content controlled in one of two ways:

1. By one group, or
2. Have several panels where the content in each panel is controlled by different parts of the organization.

But in either case, it must come together in the single Show.

An Example of National Service Desk Signage Status

The requirement is to have a Show (single screen playing content) which has the simultaneous, up-to-date status of each service desk. This allows anyone, in any of the locations, to look at the screen on the wall and see instantly the service desk status for all 3 service desks. In addition, they will also be able to see some company content that is not service desk status-related.  

In our example, four areas or panels are required on the screen. Let’s make them equal-sized sections. But they could be any size or shape on the screen canvas.

Each service desk is responsible for the information in their section of the screen.  They know at any time, exactly what information regarding the status of their service desk should be up on the screen.  So, anyone in the company operation can see or be aware of the status.  It is ideal if each service desk is responsible for keeping the information in their section of the screen up to date.  

What are the alternatives that might meet the requirement?

Alternatives for the Multiple National Service Desk Signage Scenario

• First, each service desk sends its status to a central location where it is consolidated and published. However, this will cause delays and will require extra effort and associated costs. Most importantly, the difficulty will compound if the service desks are in different geographic locations.
• Secondly, having multiple screens (4), each one showing the status of a single service desk, plus the organizational info. In short, this approach requires 4 times the investment in equipment; it still means each service desk will update their screen information; but instead of looking at a single screen to see the status of 3 service desks and the company-wide info, you look across all 4 screens.
• Finally, rotating the status of each service desk on the screen at a predetermined interval, say every 12 seconds. This option still requires each service desk to update its screen information and wouldn’t deliver the info at a single glance. A single-screen provides the instant status of all 3 service desks, plus the company info.

A Show in a Show: National Service Desk Signage Consolidated Live

Display5 has a widget called a “Show Container” which creates a Show, made up of a number of sub-Shows. Using the Show Container widget, each of the panels in the example above is managed and updated independently from each other. In short, the Show Container widget lets you build a separate sub-Show for each of the service desks.  Each of the sub-Shows is the same size, width, and height, as the panel in the main Show into which they fit.

How National Service Desk Signage Works:

1. The Main Show is the National Service Desk Show which will play on the screen(s). It has four panels.  See the example above.
2. Also, three of the names of the panels in the National Service Desk Show are “Service Desk One”; “Service Desk Two”, and “Service Desk Three”. See the example above.
3. Each of these three panels has a corresponding Show which is the same height and width, in pixels. The Service Desk One panel has a corresponding Show called SD1; Service Desk Two panel has a Show called SD2; and finally, the Service Desk Three panel has a corresponding Show called SD3.
4. All three service desks manage their own Show – SD1, SD2, and SD3. Each service desk only changes the content in their Show.
5. After that, the National Service Desk Show uses the Show Container widget in the playlist of each of the 3 Service desk panels. The Show Container widget pulls in the three service desk Shows – SD1, SD2, and SD3, into their panels.
6. Each service desk has both the responsibility and authority for the content in their Show. Their Show, is a sub-Show, in the National Service Desk Show.
7. Owners of the National Service Desk Show, control their own content in the panel called Cross-Organizational Info.  As well, they control the insertion of the sub-Shows into their corresponding panels.

Sub-Shows are independent of the Master Show. However, because they all come together in a Master Show, they appear simultaneously in real-time on the screen.  

The “Show Container” widget is really a Show within a Show.