Scheduling weekly offers in a shop so they change on time
· 6 min read
To get weekly offers changing on time, build next week's offers a few days early and schedule them with a start time, an end time and an Until date, so the screens swap over at opening time on the first day of the offer week with nobody touching them. Give every screen a sensible default layout for the gaps, put expiry dates on anything time-limited, and the Monday morning scramble goes away.
Where weekly offers usually go wrong
Most mix-ups come from doing the changeover on the day. The new offers get designed on Monday morning between customers, uploaded in a rush, and last week's offers stay scheduled because the old event was set to run until the end of the month. In Casty, two events that overlap on the same screen both play, in turn. That's useful when you want a timetable and an offer to share a screen. It's a headache when last week's two-for-one is still rotating next to this week's price, and a customer brings it up at the till.
A weekly routine
Pick a day that suits your trading week. If offers run Monday to Sunday and head office (or your supplier) confirms them by Wednesday, Thursday is a good day to build. Then:
- Make next week's offers layout. Start from your offers template so you're only changing words, prices and pictures.
- Add an event for it. Choose the screens, or better, a display group such as all your window screens, and set the time to your opening hours on the first day, for example 08:00 to 20:00 on Monday.
- On the Repeats tab choose Day, and set Until to closing time on the last day of the offer.
- Check the week in the calendar view (more on that below).
- If a supplier is paying for the space, switch on proof of play for the layout before it starts.
Scheduling a few days ahead has a second benefit. Casty players download content ahead of its scheduled time (two days ahead by default), so the screens have next week's files well before Monday, even if the shop's internet has a wobble over the weekend. The weekly offers tutorial goes through the event form click by click.
Make the weekly build quick
The less work the weekly change takes, the more likely it is to happen on time, and a template saves most of it. Once your offers layout looks right, save it as a template. Each week you start a new layout from it, swap the text and pictures and publish, while the fonts, colours and positions stay exactly as they were. See starting from a template.
Prices are worth keeping in a dataset, which is a small table kept in Casty. In the Casty demo, Northgate Store's weekly offers layout reads its prices from one, so fixing a typo in a price changes the screen without anyone opening the layout. Bear in mind that a dataset change reaches the screens as soon as you save it (at the widget's next update). That's what you want when you're correcting a price mid-week. For the planned Monday changeover, keep next week's offers in their own layout (with its own dataset if you use one) and let the schedule switch between them at the right time.
If you'd prefer one offers layout that stays put in the schedule, publish it at a future date instead. Check it out on Thursday, change the offers and set it to publish at 08:00 on Monday. The screens keep showing the current version until then.
Ending things on time
Every offer needs an end, and Casty gives you a few places to set one:
- Until on the event's repeat, which stops the whole event after the last day.
- Expiry dates on images and videos in the media library (End of Today, In 7 Days, or a date you pick), so a file drops out of playlists on its own.
- Expiry dates on individual widgets inside a playlist, for a promotion that should disappear on a given day.
Then set each screen's default layout to something that makes sense any day of the year, such as your logo, opening hours and website. If you finish one offer at Sunday closing and the next starts at Monday opening, the screen shows the default in between (which matters for a window screen that's still on at nine at night). The scheduling features list covers all of this.
Flash sales and supplier promotions
A one-day flash sale that should take over the screens can go in as a priority event. Everyday events have a priority of 0, so a priority 1 event replaces them for as long as it runs and hands back when it ends. Set its end time carefully, because it covers everything else on those screens, including other promotions.
A supplier who wants a set amount of airtime is better served by an interrupt layout. You give it a share of voice in seconds per hour, say 300 seconds (five minutes an hour), and it slots in around your normal offers. If you've got several offer layouts that should take turns in a set order, put them in a campaign and schedule that once. Priority, interrupts and overlays explains the first two in more detail.
And when the supplier asks whether their promotion ran, a proof of play report shows the number of plays and total time on each screen, and downloads as a CSV you can send them. The proof of play post has more on that.
Check it before Monday
Five minutes on Friday saves the awkward Monday. In Schedule, switch to Calendar View and click Monday: you should see the new offers starting and nothing from last week still running. For more certainty, open the agenda, pick Specific point in time and click a time on Monday morning. It lists exactly what each screen or group will play at that moment, with each event's priority.
On Monday, glance at the Displays list. Each screen's thumbnail shows its latest screenshot, and you can ask for a fresh one. If you made a last-minute change and don't want to wait for the next check-in, Collect Now asks a screen (or a whole group) to check in straight away.
Questions people ask
What if an offer changes halfway through the week?
If the price is in a dataset, edit the row and the screens pick it up. If it's in an image, use Replace File in the media library and leave Update across all Layouts ticked, so the new version replaces the old one in your layouts. Then use Collect Now if it can't wait.
Can I schedule a whole month of offers at once?
Yes. Add one event per week, each with its own start and Until date, then check the month in the calendar view. If the weeks overlap by mistake, both offers will play in turn, so look for that before you leave it.
What happens if I forget to set an end date?
The event carries on repeating and plays alongside next week's offers. Edit the event and set Until on the Repeats tab, or delete it. Deleting a repeating event removes the whole series, so make sure that's what you want.
Do I need someone in the shop to change the screens?
No. Everything is done in the CMS from a browser, and the players pick up the schedule on their own. Someone in the shop only needs to get involved if a screen goes offline.