Digital Signage at Montgomery College

Transcription

1 Digital Signage at Montgomery College Digital Signage is an important and powerful communication medium. Over the years, Montgomery College has invested in more than 100 digital signs throughout our three campuses and other locations communicating information on various topics to our community of students, faculty, staff and visitors. Most of these signs are run as single displays or small groups of displays with very limited ability to run content throughout the College. The look and feel of slides also varies greatly throughout the College and often differs from the College s brand guidelines. The Administration has decided that all existing and future digital signs will be brought together in a network controlled through a single template-based content management system using the Scala digital signage platform. The Office of Communications has developed a number of templates incorporating the College s brand standards for your use when creating slides for digital signage. All you, as a Content Contributor, need to do to create a digital message is to: Log in to the Scala Content Management System (we recommend that you use Firefox as your web browser for the best experience when accessing the Scala CMS) choose a Template that fulfills your needs follow the prompts to select images (if images are available in the specific template), enter text and other fields for such things as slide duration, headlines and text font color and the like select which screens you wish to display the slide, share the slide with the network and submit it for approval You are also able to upload images such as photos, stock photos, logos, clip art, and the like that you may need in your slides as backgrounds and images. This is covered towards the end of this document. PLEASE NOTE: The system is set up to time out after 15 minutes. Be sure to save your work if you step away from your work station before completing your slide. 1. Access SCALA at (we recommend that you use Firefox as your web browser for the best experience when accessing the Scala CMS) 2. Log in. Your log on is your first initial and last name (example: John Smith would be jsmith). Your initial log on password is Scala2017. Please re-set this password to one of your own choosing. (If you should have a problem in the future with remembering your password, please contact Staffan Sandberg, the system administrator (Staffan.Sandberg@montgomerycollege.edu). At this time, the Scala CMS does not have a Forgot Password feature. 1 P a g e

2 3. Once logged in, you ll be taken to your dashboard (see image below). IMAGES: 4. You might want to start by seeing what images you have available to use in the slides you plan to create. To view existing images, roll over the word Content in the menu bar and select Media. This will display all slides that have already been created by your department as well as any images or videos available for you to use. Please note that not all images can be used in all Templates. TEMPLATES: If you don t see any image that you wish to use, you can upload a new image. Please go to the section on Uploading Images on Page 11 of this guide. 5. Once you have whatever images you may wish to use in your slide uploaded into Scala, you ll want to start creating your slide. In the menu bar, roll over the word Content at the top of the screen and select Templates from the dropdown menu. This screen will display all the Templates that you have access to. Each Template has a different look and feel and a variety of 2 P a g e

3 fields that you can fill in to create your unique message. There are two template views: LIST and GRID that you can select by clicking the button to the right of the Search box. You can click on each thumbnail to see an example of what a message using that Template might look like. If you check the box next to a Template you can select Upload, Properties or New Message from the upper menu. Upload allows you to upload additional images that you may need in a Template, Properties lets you learn more about the specific Template and New Message allows you to use that Template to create a new Slide. 6. To create a new Slide (also known as Message), click on New Message. 7. Assign it a NAME. While we have experimented with naming conventions, none have proved useful to all users across the College. We recommend that your group or department come up 3 P a g e

4 with a naming convention that works for you. Please keep in mind that no two names in Scala can be the same so be as specific as possible or we will find that we will start running out of good names. You might want to use the date in your name in order to make it unique. Then click NEXT. 8. Follow the prompts in the Template. Some fields are required (will be designated by a *) while others are optional. All Templates are different and not all Templates will have all fields/prompts. Background an image that covers the entire background of the slide. In some Templates, a white opaque box covers all or part of the image to make reading easier. Available images are presented in a dropdown. Once selected, look at the Preview screen (to the right of your screen) to see if the image works the way you wish. If not, select another image. There may be a slight delay between the time you 4 P a g e

5 type in text or make a selection before your changes display. Other types of image fields include images that appear within a slide rather than the background. They work the same way. In some Templates you are able to change the size or position of an image. If you know the name of the image that you wish to use, you can use the search box to search for the image. Otherwise, use the slider to the right of the box to scroll through the available images. Headline the title or main message on the slide. A number of lines available for a headline varies from slide to slide. Please note that the characters left feature is not accurate and is not used. The best way to judge how many characters work for a given text box is to look at the Preview image to the right of the screen. Subhead additional text describing the message of the slide Text or Textbox a larger box that can be several (up to 8) lines long. Footer Text Legal, contact information or other for additional information type text along the bottom of most slides. Event Place, Event Date, Event Time - Specialty fields in which you can enter more detailed information about an event In some cases, it s possible to change the color of text. Text color associated with a specific region of the slide is controlled by different radio buttons. The colors available for the region are specified on the buttons. You can click the buttons and see the color in the Preview. Please note that all text in a given area will all have the same color. 5 P a g e

6 Image Resize slide bar a slide bar that lets you change the size (larger and smaller) in percent. Image Left/Right and Image Y Up/Down bar slide bars that allow you to move an image left and right or up and down. This type of slide bar is also sometimes used to move an opaque white box on the screen. Depending on how the slider works, it may be labeled Right, Left, Position, Width and the like. 6 P a g e

7 Text Left Side or Left Edge some Templates allow you to shift the position of one or more text boxes. Opacity slide bar used to adjust the opacity of a white box over an image or part of an image (usually from 88 to 100 percent). In some cases, we use an on/off toggle instead of a slide bar. In these cases, On is usually 88 percent opacity and Off is 100 percent. Slide Duration This slide bar allows you to control how long a slide stays on the screen before transitioning to the next slide. The default value for this is 15 seconds, but if you have a large amount of content, you may wish to increase that to 20 seconds. 7. When entering text, highlight the sample text content and enter your text. Just below the text window. Make sure that you look at the Preview to make sure that you are happy with how the text looks in your slide. There is a standard dictionary. If you have mis-spelled a word, the word will be highlighted but it will not automatically correct the mis-spelling. 8. Click on CREATE. If you have inadvertently duplicated an existing slide s name, you will be told to re-name your slide. 7 P a g e

8 9. Click on PREVIEW to preview your slide. Make any changes you need to make and click on SAVE CHANGES. 10. PLEASE NOTE: the RESET tab in the upper right hand corner will return the slide to the way it was the last time it was saved. 11. Click on PROPERTIES. Write a description of your slide that will help you and others remember what the slide is for. 12. Add your START and END dates. The Start Date can be anytime in the future and the End Date should be no more than 2 weeks following the Start Date. If you do not set an End Date, one will be set for you by the Communications Department. If you really do mean for the slide to run forever, don t set an end date and explain your reasoning in the Description. If you set an End Date that is considered too far into the future without a good argument, it will be changed. 13. To select the locations where you want the slide to appear, click on CATEGORIES and check the box next to each Display (labeled with a Campus, Building and Display) where you wish your Slide to appear. The list is hierarchical so if you click on a campus, for example, all the displays on that campus will be selected. You can uncheck any individual selected location if you want. Really think about where each slide will be of most interest so that you only pick those displays most appropriate for your message. For example, if your slide really is only of interest to students on the Germantown Campus, then don t include screens on the Rockville or Takoma Park/Silver Spring campuses. NOTE: Keep your selections to 10 unless you have a very specific reason for wanting the slide repeated on more displays. 8 P a g e

9 In certain cases, such as for Student Life and Welcome Centers, you can select which screens to display your slide on by Group. These are also hierarchical so you can select all the screens for an entire group or just individual ones no matter what campus they are on. For the Pilot Project, we have a special list of displays that are part of the Pilot Project. Use this list when selecting which screens you wish your slide to display on. This option will go away when we roll out to screens across the College. 9 P a g e

10 13. Just as you are part of a Workgroup, the Player PCs are part of a Workgroup. In order to make your Slide available to the Player Workgroup, you must Share your slide with a Workgroup called *Playback. To do this, look at the second column of the Workgroups list and check the box next to *Playback. 14. If you would like to share your slide with other Workgroups, check the boxes next to those Workgroups with whom you wish to share the slide. When the other work group signs on, they will see the slide in their system. Please note: shared slides cannot be modified but they can be duplicated. Once duplicated, the content of the slide can be changed. The duplicate slide will need to be saved with a new name. 15. As you complete your slide, you have 2 choices: SAVE CHANGES and SAVE & CLOSE. Click on SAVE CHANGES: your slide enters the approval que and you remain on your slide. Click on SAVE & CLOSE: your slide enters the approval que and the system takes you back to the MEDIA menu to create a new slide. 10 P a g e

11 NOTE: If you have not finished your Slide or do not wish for it to be passed for Approval, click on the Approval Tab and then click Save as Draft and then Save or Save & Close. UPLOADING IMAGES: 1. If you wish to add an image, roll over the word Content again and select MEDIA. Roll over +New and select MEDIA UPLOAD. Minimum image size is 700x700 pixels (depending on aspect ratio). If you wish to use an image as a Background (full screen), it must be at least 1080 x While there is no maximum image size since the system will adjust the image to fit if it is too large, remember that larger images take more space and longer to download onto the Player. If the image is too small, the image will likely appear pixilated. PLEASE NOTE: all images must be copyright free and approved by the Office of Communications. 11 P a g e

12 Click the word Add and select the additional image that you would like to upload from your computer and click Upload 12 P a g e

13 Images will upload with the name that they have as their source. We suggest that you use a similar naming convention as with Slides with a date, image type (Logo, Photo, MC Photo, ShutterStock, ThinkStock), and some descriptive words such as Pumpkin, Beach, or Traffic. In order to make the image available for use, each one needs to be tagged with a piece of Metadata. To do this, click on the Metadata tab and select the dropdown menu next to MediaItem.Slide Element and pick Background, MC Photo, Clipart, or Logo (other metatags may be added in the future). Images are automatically assigned to your Workgroup only so that no other users can see or use your images. If you wish to share an image with one or more other Workgroups, check the box next to each Workgroup in the right hand column and then click Save Changes or Save & Close. 13 P a g e

14 Any image that is Shared to you from someone else will say (shared view only). This means that you can use this image in a Template, but you cannot make changes to it. 14 P a g e