Your first week with digital signage: a setup checklist

Use the first week to get the foundations right. By the end of it every screen should be connected, named and in a group, each one should have a sensible default layout, and the two or three layouts you use most should be scheduled to switch over on their own. Then spend a couple of days watching it run from the Displays list before you add anything clever. The checklist below spreads that over a week; with one screen you could squeeze it into an afternoon.

Before the screens go up

Get these sorted before install day, because they're what holds everything else up.

• Decide where each screen goes and what it's for. A menu board and a TV that also shows the football need very different content. Where to put screens in a venue helps with this.
• Check there's power at each spot, and either a network point or a decent Wi-Fi signal. Stand where the screen will hang and test the Wi-Fi on your phone.
• Know which player each screen will have, or ask us to suggest one.
• Find your login. We'll have sent you a username and password for app.casty.co.uk.
• Gather what you've already got: logo, menu, price list, photos of the food or the shop floor, and any posters you've had designed.

Day one: log in and connect the screens

Log in at app.casty.co.uk and have a click around. The dashboard has shortcuts to Schedule, Templates, Layouts and Library, and the menu down the left takes you everywhere else. Log in and find your way around explains what's under each heading.

Turn on two-factor authentication while you're in there. It takes a few minutes with an authenticator app on your phone, and afterwards a stolen password on its own won't get anyone into your screens. You'll find it under the pencil icon next to your name in the user menu.

Then connect each screen. Switch the player on and it shows a short code. In Casty, go to Displays, click Add Display, type the code in and save. Email us to say it's connected, with the venue and where the screen hangs, and we'll approve it and add it to your account. It won't appear in your Displays list until we have, so don't worry if it isn't there straight away. If we installed the screens for you, they're already connected and you can skip this bit. The full steps are in connect a screen.

Day two: names, groups and defaults

New screens turn up in Displays under whatever name the player gave itself, which won't mean much to anyone. For each screen, click the pencil icon on its row and:

• give it a name that says where it is, like Harbour Cafe Window or Crown Bar (up to 50 characters)
• put it in the venue's folder
• add tags such as the venue name, window or bar, which dynamic groups can use later
• set its default layout

Then add it to its venue's display group, using Add to Group in the row's menu. Anything you schedule to the group plays on every screen in it, so you're not ticking screens one by one every time.

Take a minute over the default layout. It's what the screen shows whenever nothing's scheduled: before your first event of the day, after the last one, and in any gap. Pick something that's right at any hour, such as your logo and opening hours, in the right shape for the screen. Set the breakfast menu as the default and it'll still be up at nine at night.

While you're in each screen's settings, look at Timezone on the Details tab. For a UK venue it should be Europe, London (or left empty, which uses the CMS time zone), so events start at the right hour.

Days three and four: your first layouts

You don't need everything on day three. Make the layouts you'll use most:

• the main thing each screen is for, such as the menu, the class timetable or this week's offers
• a welcome layout to use as the default
• one promotion you're running this month

Upload your files to the media library first, into the venue's folder, with tags you'll recognise later. Pictures should match the shape of the screen: 1920 by 1080 for a standard HD TV the usual way round, or 1080 by 1920 in portrait. Use JPG or PNG for pictures and MP4 for video.

Start from a template if there's one close to what you want, or drag your own images onto an empty layout. Preview it, then publish. Screens only play published layouts, so you can leave a half-built design overnight and it won't turn up anywhere. Design a layout walks through the editor.

If your menu or prices change often, set them up as a menu board now. It's a bit more work up front, and afterwards a price change takes seconds with no layout editing.

Day five: the schedule

If your venue's day has a shape to it (breakfast, lunch, evening, happy hour), set those up as dayparts first. You name each slot once with its times and reuse it in every event. Then add events: which layout, which screens or group, which daypart or times, and how often it repeats.

Keep it simple to begin with. An everyday event has a priority of 0. Leave priority events and overlays for later, when you need the screens to drop everything for a big match. Schedule content on your screens covers the whole event form.

The weekend: watch it run

Now check it's doing what you meant. In the Displays list:

• Logged In should show a tick for every screen
• Status should say Up to date once a screen has downloaded everything
• Current Layout shows what each screen says it's playing
• the Thumbnail column holds the last screenshot, and Request Screenshot in the row's menu gets a fresh one

Look at the screens in the room at the changeover times, too. Is the lunch menu up at half eleven? Can you read the prices from the back of the queue?

If something doesn't appear, the usual culprits are a layout that's still a draft, an event on the wrong screen, or a screen that hasn't checked in since your change. Collect Now in the screen's menu makes it check in straight away. New content isn't showing has the full list of checks.

Sort these before you need them

• Logins for staff. We set these up: tell us who needs one and what they should be able to change. A bar manager might only need one promotions playlist.
• A spare player in the office, if your screens use sticks or boxes.
• A note of the Wi-Fi name and password the screens use. If the router's ever replaced, the players may need setting up again, and Wi-Fi or wired explains why.
• One person who owns the screens. Out-of-date offers make a venue look neglected, so pick someone and a regular time each week for them to check.