Giving staff access to the screens without giving them everything

Give each person their own Casty login with access to only the parts they need. We set the logins up for you: email us the person's name, what they should see and what they should be able to change, and we create the login with that access. A venue manager can look after one pub's screens and nothing else, and a supervisor can swap tonight's offers in a single playlist without ever opening the layout designer.

One login each

A shared login on a sticky note by the till works fine until someone leaves. Then you either change the password and pass the new one round everyone else, or a former employee keeps access to the screen in your window.

Separate logins fix that. When someone leaves, we remove their login and everyone else carries on as before. Each person can turn on two-factor authentication on their own phone. And Casty keeps an audit trail of changes made by users, which is far more use when each user is one real person.

The kinds of access we can set up

Most teams fit one of four shapes:

• Full access, the same as yours, for someone who runs the screens with you.
• One venue, so a manager sees the screens, content and schedule for their venue and nothing from your others.
• Scheduling only, for someone who books content onto the screens but doesn't change your layouts or media.
• One playlist, for someone who keeps a single playlist up to date (the promotions loop in the bar, say) from a simple page.

Within those, each folder or item can be shared with view, edit or delete access. View means they can see and preview it, edit means they can change it, and delete means they can delete it. I'd hand that last one out sparingly.

How folders decide what people see

Folders do most of the work. In the Casty demo each venue has its own folder, plus a Shared folder for content every venue uses. When we give someone access to a folder, they see what's in it and nothing else, and access to a folder covers everything inside it, sub-folders included. Every other folder shows up for them as Private Folder and won't open.

So it pays to keep things in the right place from the start. Anything you create, such as a layout or a playlist, has a Select folder location box on its form. Put it in the venue's folder and the manager with access to that folder sees it. Leave it somewhere else and they won't.

You'll also notice a Share option in the menus on layouts, media and other items. The groups it lists are the account groups Casty uses to run your account, so leave it alone and email us instead. The folders and sharing help page explains the rest.

What a venue manager sees

In the Casty demo, Sam is the bar manager at The Crown, with view access to The Crown's folder. When Sam logs in, the menu on the left is shorter than yours: under Schedule there's only Events, under Design only Layouts, and under Library only Playlists and Media. The Displays list shows The Crown's three screens and none from the other venues. Sam can see each screen's status, but there's no Add Display button and no edit icon, because Sam's access is view only.

That suits someone who needs to check the screens are on and see what's coming up, without changing anything. Once they're comfortable, edit access to the venue's folder lets them run their own screens.

The one-playlist login

This is the one I'd use most for bar and floor staff. A person with one-playlist access lands on the playlist page when they log in. They pick the playlist at the top and see each numbered spot in it, with what's in the spot now. To change something, they drag a new file onto an empty spot (or use Select File), or select a spot and replace its picture. A spot marked Locked holds something they can't change, such as your logo.

For a supervisor swapping in tonight's cocktail specials, it's about as simple as the job gets. They can't break the layout, because they never see it.

There's one set-up step on our side. The playlist has to sit in a layout with a set number of spots, so tell us which playlist it is and how many items it should hold, and we'll set that up along with the login.

Menu boards work in a similar way. Staff can update the menu without access to the layout designer, so the kitchen can mark a dish as unavailable and every screen showing that menu dims it. See marking dishes as sold out for how that looks.

Asking for a login

Email hello@casty.co.uk with:

• the person's name and email address
• the venues, screens or content they should see
• what they should be able to change, for example "schedule content at The Crown" or "update the promotions playlist only"

We'll set up the login and tell you when it's ready. Changing someone's access works the same way, and so does removing a login when someone leaves. Do that on their last day, while it's fresh in your mind. The team members help page lists the options in full.

A starting point for a small group

If you run two or three venues, this set-up works for most:

• You, and anyone who runs the business with you, get full access.
• Each venue manager gets edit access to their own venue's folder, so they can schedule and change their own screens.
• Supervisors and bar staff who only change offers get one-playlist access.
• Anyone who designs for you gets edit access to the Shared folder, so the brand layouts stay in one place. (Keeping your brand consistent across sites goes into that.)

Only one person can edit a layout at a time, so two managers working on the same design can't overwrite each other's changes. There's more on running several sites in managing screens across several venues, and the users and permissions section of the features page lists what's possible.