Digital Signage
1. What it is
Digital Signage turns any browser-capable screen into a workplace display that rotates alerts, Communications posts, recognitions, calendar events, and custom media slides. Each screen runs as a web page authenticated by its own token — no partner hardware or device agent is required.
- Enablement: Digital Signage is a pay-as-you-go app billed per registered screen. A registered screen counts whether it is active or deactivated, online or offline, until you delete it; sample screens don’t bill. An admin enables it from Admin → Apps → All Apps, then registers individual screens.
- What it is not: Digital Signage does not replace a third-party signage platform. Its display URL can be embedded as a web zone inside an existing player (BrightSign, Scala, Yodeck, etc.) alongside that platform’s own content.
2. Standing it up
- Go to Admin → Apps → All Apps and enable Digital Signage.
- Open Digital Signage → Settings and review the module toggles. At minimum, confirm Enable screen management is on (it is by default).
- Go to the Screens tab and register your first screen. Give it a name, optionally assign it to a location, and save. The system generates a unique display URL.
- Copy the display URL and open it in the browser on your target device (a Chromium browser, Fire TV, smart TV, or any signage player that accepts a web URL). The screen begins polling for content immediately.
- Return to the Dashboard tab. Within a few minutes the screen’s status badge should change to Online, confirming it is connected.
What silently does nothing until configured: a screen assigned to a location will only show media slides and broadcasts targeted to that location (or to all locations). If you upload media scoped to “Lobby” but the screen has no location set, that media will not appear.
3. How it fits together
Screens
A screen is a registered display device. Each screen carries its own 32-character token, and its public URL (/signage/display/<token>) is the only credential the device needs. Screens have four statuses:
- Online — heartbeat received within the last 5 minutes.
- Offline — previously connected but no heartbeat in the last 5 minutes.
- Never connected — registered but the display URL has never been opened.
- Inactive — manually deactivated by an admin (the display shows “Screen is paused.” instead of content).
Example: you register three screens — Lobby Wall (location: HQ), Break Room (location: Warehouse), and Cafeteria TV (no location). Lobby Wall shows HQ-targeted media plus media published to all locations. Break Room shows Warehouse-targeted media plus all-location media. Cafeteria TV shows only media published to all locations.
Content types and the feed
Each screen rotates a playlist built from up to nine content types: custom media, Safety Hub alerts, Communications posts, recognitions, calendar events, open shifts, OKR progress, contest leaderboards, and Live Boards visualizations. Seven of them have an app-wide default in Settings and a rule on each screen. Contest leaderboards and Live Boards visualizations have no switch in Digital Signage Settings: each is switched in its own app’s Settings, and on each screen. A broadcast sent to screens from the Communications composer follows the Communications posts rule rather than having a switch of its own.
Every type except custom media and calendar events comes from another app, and produces no slide unless that app is enabled: Safety Hub for alerts, Communications Hub for posts and broadcasts, Recognitions, Shifts & Scheduling for open shifts, OKR Hub, Contests, and Live Boards. Calendar events need Company Events switched on in Calendar.
Alerts reach a screen only when they are sent to everyone in the business — never when they are sent to particular people, groups, departments, locations, job titles or roles — and stay in the rotation for 24 hours after sending (longer only with an acknowledgement chase-up window that runs past that), or until the alert is stood down.
The feed is assembled on each poll. Pinned items come first: urgent alerts (for those 24 hours), custom media slides in the order you set, must-read Communications posts, posts whose author ticked Break-room screens, and critical broadcasts. Everything else is ordered by how close it is to now — the newest posts and the soonest events and open shifts first — and the playlist is cut at the screen’s Max items in rotation.
Content rules (per-screen overrides)
Each content type can be set to Show, Hide, or left to follow the app-level default — per screen. A screen’s own Show or Hide always wins: the matching switch in Settings decides only for screens that follow it. A screen also supports scheduling windows: a one-shot date range and recurring dayparting (specific days of the week and a daily time window). This lets you show shifts content on the factory floor only during weekdays, 6 AM–6 PM, without touching the tenant default.
Custom media and the approval workflow
Custom media slides (images or short videos) are the content that originates inside Digital Signage rather than being mirrored from another app. A slide moves through these statuses:
Pending → Approved (live on matching screens), or Pending → Rejected
Uploading a slide sends it for review — there is no separate draft or submit step (only sample data creates slides in Draft). When Require media approval is on (the default), new uploads start in Pending and must be approved by a reviewer before they appear. Reviewers are whoever Who can approve media before it goes live? admits — app admins and business admins by default — and a reviewer can approve their own upload. When approval is off, uploads go straight to Approved and appear on matching screens without review.
While approval is required, a rejected slide can be edited and saved again by its author, which returns it to Pending. With approval off, an author’s save puts their own waiting slide live, but not one a reviewer rejected, unpublished or sent back by editing it: that stays off screens until a reviewer approves it. An approved slide can be unpublished by a reviewer (returned to Pending without a rejection badge). While approval is required, only a reviewer can edit or delete an approved slide, and a reviewer’s edit sends it back to Pending for re-review; its author can change it again once a reviewer has unpublished it.
Zone tags
Both screens and media slides carry optional zone tags — free-form labels like “lobby”, “safety”, or “cafeteria”. A slide with zone tags appears only on screens whose tags overlap. A slide with no tags appears on all screens. A screen with no tags sees only untagged slides.
Location scoping
Screens can be assigned to a location. Media slides can also be scoped to a location or left as “all locations.” The feed matches: a screen at Location A sees slides for Location A plus all-location slides. A screen with no location sees only all-location slides.
Integration with Communications
In the Communications composer, an author can tick Break-room screens on a message. A broadcast appears on screens only when it is ticked, and can be limited to specific sites (locations where a screen is registered). A post that goes to everyone appears on screens anyway while it is among the newest; ticking it puts it ahead of the other items, and a post sent to only some people never appears on a screen. Either way this is a request, not an override — each screen’s own Communications posts rule still decides whether Communications content shows — and a message stays in the rotation for up to 14 days after it is published. The composer shows the option only when at least one active screen exists.
4. Running it
Registering a screen
- Go to Digital Signage → Screens → Register screen.
- Enter a name, optional notes, and optionally assign a location.
- Save. Copy the generated display URL and open it on the target device.
Uploading custom media
- Go to Digital Signage → Media → Upload media.
- Upload an image (PNG, JPG, GIF, or WebP) or video (MP4 or WebM). Give it a title — the title, and the caption if you add one, are drawn along the bottom of the slide on the screen.
- Optionally scope it to a location, add zone tags, set a schedule window, or configure recurring dayparting.
- Save. If approval is required, it enters the review queue. If not, it goes live on matching screens without review.
Reviewing pending media
- Open the Media tab. The pending count appears at the top.
- Open a pending slide and choose Approve or Reject. Rejections can include a reason the author sees in their notification.
Forcing a screen refresh
On an active screen’s detail page, open the More actions menu and choose Force refresh. This sends a live signal to that screen, which reloads its page within a few seconds instead of waiting for its next poll — so it picks up new content and any change to the screen’s own name, branding or settings. A screen that is offline cannot receive the signal; it loads the latest content on its own once it is back online.
Rotating a screen’s token
If a screen’s URL may have been exposed, go to the screen’s detail page and click Regenerate token. The old URL stops working immediately. Update the device with the new URL.
Reviewing the audit log
Go to Digital Signage → Audit log. Every change an admin makes is recorded: screens created, edited, deleted, activated, deactivated, force-refreshed and token-rotated; media created, edited, deleted, submitted, approved, rejected and unpublished; and settings updates and resets. Each entry shows who acted, what they acted on, when, and the originating IP.
Filter by action type or by a date range, and choose 50, 100 or 200 entries per page. The action dropdown is built from what has actually been recorded, so it only ever offers actions your business has performed. Approvals and rejections made through the AI assistant are recorded here too, marked as taken via the agent.
The tab is visible to company admins and to users granted the Digital Signage app-admin role.
Reviewing analytics
Go to Digital Signage → Analytics. The page shows your screen total with status tiles — Online and Offline always, Never connected and Inactive when there are any — and Slides delivered: the total, by content type, by content item, by screen, and per day. A slide is counted when a screen fetches its feed, so the figure is delivery volume, not how many people saw it. Choose the last 7, 30, 90 or 180 days (30 by default). The figures can be exported to CSV.
5. Settings
All settings are at Digital Signage → Settings.
Modules
The seven Show… switches are defaults, not commands: a screen uses one only while its own rule for that content type is left on Follow app Settings. A screen set to Show or Hide keeps its own answer. The other three switches are business-wide.
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Enable screen management | On | Shows the Screens tab and the controls for registering and editing screens. Turning it off does not stop screens playing. |
| Show media | On | Shows the Media tab, and is the default for whether screens play approved media slides. |
| Require media approval | On | Uploaded media starts in Pending and must be approved by a reviewer before going live. When off, uploads go live without review. |
| Show alerts on screens | On | Default for Safety Hub alerts: only those sent to everyone, for 24 hours after sending (or until a longer acknowledgement chase-up window ends). Requires Safety Hub. |
| Show feed posts | On | Default for Communications posts from the last 14 days that go to everyone, plus broadcasts whose author ticked break-room screens. Requires Communications Hub. |
| Show recognitions | Off | Default for employee recognitions from the last 30 days. Off by default because they name people. Requires Recognitions. |
| Show calendar events | On | Default for company events open for registration that start in the next 14 days. Requires Company Events switched on in Calendar. |
| Show shifts | Off | Default for published open shifts starting in the next 7 days at the screen’s location (at every location, for a screen with none). Requires Shifts & Scheduling. |
| Show OKR progress | Off | Default for current-quarter company-level objectives with traffic-light progress. Requires OKR Hub. |
| Email admins about offline screens | On | One daily email per recipient about active screens that have not checked in for 24 hours or more, repeated for up to 14 days. It goes to the app’s designated app admins, and to business admins only when none is designated or reachable by email. This switch is the only way to stop it: the email is not in a notification category, so a recipient cannot mute it from their notification preferences. |
Contest leaderboards and Live Boards visualizations are not in this table: each is on by default once its app is enabled, and is switched in that app’s own Settings or on a single screen.
AI Agent
Enable the Digital Signage AI agent in Ask AI (on by default) adds the Digital Signage assistant to Ask AI and the “Describe it and let AI fill the form” bar to this app’s forms. See Ask AI below for what the assistant can do.
Display Defaults
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Default refresh interval | 60 seconds | How often a screen polls for updated content, for every screen that has not set its own. Per-screen overrides take precedence. |
| Default theme | Dark | Light or Dark screen appearance, for every screen that has not set its own. Per-screen overrides take precedence. |
Content Publishing
Three capability settings, each defaulting to the behaviour it replaced, so nothing changes until you move a radio. App admins and business admins can always do all three.
Who can publish content to screens? controls who can upload and manage media slides — and, because the library is shared, who can open it and see every slide in it. It defaults to managers and above. Change it to people managers (anyone with direct reports), to everyone with app access or to a content-authors group, or narrow it to app admins only. How far does this grant reach? scopes it: leave it company-wide, or choose their own location only so a site manager publishes to their own sites and cannot make an org-wide push. Anyone you have given the “Contributor — records only” grant for Digital Signage can also publish, whatever this setting says.
Who can approve media before it goes live? controls approve, reject and unpublish. It defaults to app admins and business admins. Naming a group here is how you let a comms or brand team sign content off without making them Digital Signage app admins — that tier also shows every screen’s display URL and opens Settings.
Who can see screen analytics? controls the Analytics tab and its CSV export. It defaults to app admins and business admins. The audit log is deliberately not part of it and stays admin-only, because it records who did what and from which IP address.
6. Other ways to reach Digital Signage
Ask AI
With Enable the Digital Signage AI agent in Ask AI on, the Digital Signage assistant answers admin questions from the live data rather than from these articles. It can list screens with their online/offline status, summarise how many screens are up, list media by status, show what is pending review, and read the admin audit log. It can also approve or reject a media slide — both ask you to confirm first, both are limited to whoever Who can approve media before it goes live? admits, and both need the media library switched on. Try “Which screens are offline?”, “Show me media pending approval”, or “Who changed signage settings recently?”
On a phone
Opening Digital Signage on a phone shows a read-only status dashboard: how many screens are online and offline, each screen’s state, and — if you can publish or review media — how many slides are waiting for review. Registering screens, managing media and changing settings are on the full pages: tap Open the full page at the foot of the phone page to get there.
API
Two read-only endpoints are available for reporting and integrations: GET /api/v1/digital-signage/screens and GET /api/v1/digital-signage/media, each with an index and a show action. They are scoped to your business, and each requires the same access as the matching tab in the app: screens needs the app-admin tier with Enable screen management on, and media needs publishing or review access with the media library on. An employee who is bounced from a tab in the browser is bounced from the endpoint too. There are no write endpoints — registering screens and approving media happen in the app.
7. More help
- Digital Signage FAQ — specific setup and operating questions.
- Ask AI — ask about your own screens and media; see Ask AI above for what the Digital Signage assistant can do.