Administrator Only Content

Another system capability at your disposal to mix system-wide content with local content in a Show is the “Admin Only” access designation. This applies to any content item in a playlist.

Most importantly, Display5 allows you to assign different roles to users. There are both Admin users and Content only users. Content only users only have access to Shows which they have been specifically granted the right to view/edit/publish. However, Admin privileges give the user access to all Shows and system capabilities. Every single content slide in Display5 gives you the option to restrict that piece of content to “Admin Only” users.

This means that the local content user can only add or edit local playlist items in a panel. They can’t alter any playlist items which are designated as “Admin Only”. The “Admin Only” content would be system-wide content, controlled by the system-wide content owner.

So, controlling content with the “Admin Only” capability dedicates content in a panel to either local or system-wide content. You can also mix the content in any panel between local and system-wide.

Alternating Show Play

Local content Shows, system-wide content Shows or a mix of the two, can creatively play in different sequences or at specific times instead of just playing in a continuous loop.

There are many reasons to want to use these capabilities, here are a few:

• To alternate Shows having local content with Shows having system-wide content
• The main Show that normally loops but occasionally you want to play other content without changing the main Show
• You want to play ads/commercials, which you are getting paid for. However, you want to keep them in a separate Show and sequence between the play of your regular Show(s)
• To play certain Shows which you want to play at different times of the day
• Playing specific Shows or content during specific windows of time during the day

There are 4 tools or functions which give you a great deal of flexibility to mix local content with system-wide content. Doing the things listed above and much more:

Show Sequences

First, the Show Sequence tool allows different Shows to be played sequentially for specified periods of time. Creating a Show sequence enables the play of different Shows in a sequence for defined windows of time. The Shows would not loop one after the other, they would each play for a specific amount of time – hours/mins, as determined by you. In short, it is very simple to mix local content Shows with system-wide content Shows with this tool.

Next Show Pointer

Secondly, the Next Show Pointer is a special slide which you insert within a Show playlist, that points to the next Show you want to play. With this slide you can simply point to the next Show you want to play or you can create a loop, or playlist, of Shows which play one after the other. 

The Next Show pointer in the last Show in the loop can point back to the first Show so the whole loop will start over again. So, it creates a much larger play loop, but it is easier to do this in separate Shows vs having one very larger Show. You also have the flexibility to simply un-publish the Next Show pointer slide. When you do that the Show runs in a loop and it no longer points to another Show.

Similarly, this widget has some additional capability which is very powerful. You have the ability to point to multiple “Next Shows” depending on the city. This capability allows you to play a Show with system-wide content for all locations. After it finishes playing, you can point to specific Shows by location, to play.

Look at the example slide where all the locations are initially playing “ABC Company One”. Once ABC Company plays in a loop 12 times, each different location will play the designated next Show, e.g. Boston will start to play “Corp Sign Outside Auditorium”.

In short, this is another great way to mix local content with system-wide content.

Show Schedule

The Show schedule allows you to designate a specific window of time when a Show will run. When you use this capability the Show that is currently running is interrupted and the scheduled Show will play for the duration of the window of time specified, and when that time window ends, the original Show which was interrupted will resume playing.

This capability is particularly useful when you would like to stream an executive broadcast or town hall event to play on screens at a particular time. Another way to mix local content play with system-wide content like the town hall Show.

Note: This capability only works with the default database which comes with Display5, MySQL, this capability does not work with SQL Server from Microsoft, because SQL Server doesn’t allow timed events.

Invisible Panel and Blank Slide

The combination of an invisible panel and blank slide gives you the capability to have the content play on top of a running Show. A content slide can play on top of the Show, part or full screen, at a specific time and for a specific duration, and then disappears.