Office screens for internal communications
· 6 min read
Office screens work for internal comms when they carry things staff need to know this week: building and safety notices, upcoming events, the canteen menu, figures the team cares about, and news that would otherwise sit unread in an inbox. Put them where people wait or walk slowly, give one person the job of keeping them current, and put an end date on every item so nothing hangs around past its sell-by date.
Why office screens get ignored
Most office screens that fail do it the same way. Someone sets them up with enthusiasm, a dozen slides go on, and six months later the screen by the kitchen is still advertising the summer social and a fire drill that's already happened. Staff learn within a few weeks that the screen is wallpaper, and after that even the important notices get missed. Treat it like a noticeboard that somebody owns, with a short loop of things people can use.
What to show
Safety and building notices are the bread and butter: the date of the next fire drill, who the first aiders are on each floor, the lift that's out of action, the car park being resurfaced on Thursday. These have a clear start and end, which makes them easy to schedule.
Events come next: training sessions, the all-hands, Friday drinks, the charity bake sale. If your team already keeps these in a shared calendar that gives you an iCal address, Casty's Calendar widget can show them straight from the calendar, so nobody types them in twice.
Figures can work well on a screen near the team they belong to, as long as people care about them and they're current. Sales this month, say, or progress towards a fundraising target. Keep them in a dataset (a small table in Casty that you can update by hand or by importing a CSV), and the layout shows the new numbers as soon as the table changes. If the figures live in another system that can publish them at a web address as JSON or CSV, a dataset can fetch them on a timer. That needs details from whoever runs the other system, so email us and we'll help set it up.
The canteen or kitchen menu is a popular one if you have catering on site. A clock, or a set of world clocks for offices with teams in other countries, earns a permanent corner of the screen. And if your intranet or company blog has an RSS feed, a ticker along the bottom can carry the latest headlines.
People news (new starters, long service, a team that's just won something) usually goes down well. Ask before you put anyone's name or photo up, and respect a no. A screen in a shared space is visible to visitors and contractors as well as colleagues.
Where screens go
Put them where people pause. The kitchen, by the coffee machine, next to the lifts and in the corridor outside meeting rooms are all good. Avoid putting a screen where people sit at their desks all day, because it becomes background noise for them and a distraction at the same time.
A screen in reception is a different job. Visitors and job candidates see it, so it should greet them and say something about the company. Keep internal figures and staff-only notices off it. In Casty you'd usually give reception its own content and schedule the internal loop to a display group of the other screens.
If you have more than one floor or office, make a display group for each and one that holds them all. Company-wide notices go to the big group, and each floor or office can add its own content on top. Running screens across several venues covers groups in more detail, and it works just as well for offices.
Using the slides people already make
Offices run on PowerPoint, and Casty can show PowerPoint files on a Windows player that has PowerPoint installed. That's handy when a team wants to put up slides they've already made. For any other player, save the slides as images (most presentation apps can export each slide as a picture) and upload those. PDFs can go on screen too. The devices page explains which player suits which job.
That said, slides designed to be presented in a meeting room usually have far too much text for a screen on a wall. A slide with six bullet points works when someone's talking you through it. On a wall, people read the heading and walk on. Writing words for screens has tips for cutting a slide down.
Who keeps it up to date
Give one person ownership of the screens. It might be someone in internal comms, HR or the office manager, but it has to be written into somebody's job, otherwise the screens drift.
Other teams can contribute without having full access. We set up logins for your staff, and one option is access to a single playlist from a simple page: HR, say, gets a few spots in the loop, and can drop a new image into one of their spots or replace an old one. Spots they shouldn't touch show as locked. Folders work the same way at a bigger scale, so each department can have a folder of its own content that only they can edit. See adding people to your account.
Ask everyone with a login to turn on two-factor authentication, since anything they publish ends up in front of the whole building.
Keeping it fresh
Expiry dates do most of the work. Every image or video in the Casty library can have one (End of Today, In 7 Days, In 30 Days, or a date you pick), so the fire drill notice drops off the day after the drill. Scheduled events can have an end date too.
A dynamic playlist helps when several people contribute. It fills itself with any media matching a tag, so anything uploaded and tagged "news" joins the loop without anyone editing the playlist. Pair that with expiry dates and the loop more or less maintains itself. The playlists guide shows how to set one up.
Keep the loop short. Eight or ten slides that change every week will get more attention than thirty that never do.
Questions people ask
Can we show PowerPoint slides on office screens?
Yes, on a Windows player with PowerPoint installed. On other players, export the slides as images and upload those, which also lets you check how each slide looks before it goes up.
Can each department look after its own content?
Yes. We can set up logins limited to one playlist or one folder, so a team can update its own slides without being able to change anything else on the screens.
Should office screens have sound?
Almost never. People are on calls, in meetings or trying to concentrate, and a screen playing audio on a loop tends to get switched off by whoever sits nearest.
What player works best in an office?
It depends on what you already run. Windows suits offices that want PowerPoint, ChromeOS suits organisations that already manage devices through Google Admin (each device needs Google's Kiosk and Signage licence), and a commercial display with the player built in avoids a box on the wall. Talk to your IT team early, as the players need to reach the internet through your network.