Scheduling
The last step of Add to plan, Set the schedule, decides when an item plays, for how long, and how it is fitted to the display. The same step opens when you press Edit on a plan row.
When should it show
| Choice | Result |
|---|---|
| Always show | The item is in the rotation whenever the plan is active. The plan row's schedule column stays blank. |
| Scheduled | Reveals Date range, Time of day and Weekdays. The item plays only when all three agree. |
Date range
A panel with its own switch. On, it asks for From and To dates (day/month/year) and defaults to yesterday through one month ahead. Off, the item is not limited by date. The item plays from the start of the From day to the end of the To day.
Time of day
A second panel with its own switch. On, it asks for From and To times in 15-minute steps. Off, the item plays at any time of day.
A To earlier than From is an overnight window: 22:00 to 06:00 plays from ten in the evening until six the next morning. Equal times mean all day.
Weekdays
Seven buttons, all on by default. Switch off the days the item should not play. At least one must stay on, or the step reads At least one day must be selected.
Duration
How many seconds the item stays up each time its turn comes, from 1 to 50,000. The field is prefilled where the widget knows better: a News or RSS Feed widget proposes posts × slide duration, other widgets propose their own duration, and anything else takes the default from Playback defaults.
Video, YouTube and Vimeo items ignore the field: they play to the end, then the next item starts. A section with a single video loops it.
How the media is displayed
Shown for Image, Video and Canvas items. The label reads How the image is displayed (or video, or canvas).
| Option | Result |
|---|---|
| Fit (No cropping) | The whole picture is shown, with bars where the shapes differ. The default. |
| Fill screen (Possible cropping) | The picture covers the section; edges may be cut off. |
| Fit with blurred background | Like Fit, with an enlarged blurred copy of the picture filling the bars. |
| Stretch (Possible distortion) | The picture is pulled to the section's shape. |
| None | Shown at its own size, scaled down only if it does not fit. |
Which clock the schedule follows
Schedules are read in your workspace time zone, set under Settings › General, not by the device's own clock. A display in another country plays the lunch menu at your lunchtime unless you give its plan its own times. Widgets that show a time of their own, such as Date & Time and the calendars, take a time zone from their own settings.
What plays when nothing is scheduled
A section with no active item shows the default widget from Playback defaults, an image or video you choose once for landscape and once for portrait. Set one, or a display can go blank between windows.
Reading the plan
The plan row's schedule column shows only what is set: dates on one line, times on the next, days on the last. A run of days collapses, so Monday to Friday reads Mon–Fri. An always-on item has an empty column.
Playlist items
An item inside a playlist can carry its own schedule, and the playlist itself is an item on a plan with a schedule of its own. Both must be satisfied for the item to play. If the two time windows never overlap, the item never shows. See Playlists.
Worked example: a lunch menu
You want the menu board to show the lunch menu from 11:00 to 14:00 on weekdays, and a promotion the rest of the time.
- Add the promotion image with Always show.
- Add the lunch menu with Scheduled. Switch Date range off, set Time of day to 11:00 to 14:00, switch off Saturday and Sunday.
- Switch on Take over so the menu plays alone during lunch.
- Press Add to plan, then Publish changes.
Between 11:00 and 14:00 on a weekday the display shows only the menu. Outside those hours the promotion plays.
A schedule that ends never breaks anything. When the last scheduled item runs out, the section falls back to its always-on items, and to the default widget if there are none.
Next
- Add to plan, the first two steps.
- Publishing changes, nothing plays until you publish.