WHAT IS DIGITAL SIGNAGE SOFTWARE?
Vikram Bali
With Two decades of a sales career behind me (which, I must admit, was accidental), I'm reflecting on what defines success in this career. Without doubt, it has to be one's attitude.
Digital signage software is a tool that enables users to manage their digital signage content and screens through Cloud. With digital signage software, users can schedule content, create playlists, organize their screens into groups, and even diagnose playback issues that occur with remote screens. Digital signage software is typically sold via a Software-as-a-Service model.
Why cloud-based digital signage software is important
Initially, to run a digital signage system, users would have to check each signage physically in order to change the displayed content. Users would first have to hook up a keyboard and storage device (such as a USB drive) to a digital signage player. Next, users would have to stand there as they transferred each piece of content. The process was time-consuming and required dedicated manpower.
For most businesses, digital signage was too high-maintenance. Many businesses were short of resources to run a digital signage deployment. In such cases, digital signage was either never deployed or it was deployed and content was rarely updated. Businesses needed a more efficient way to manage their digital signs.
Cloud-based digital signage software addresses this market need. The software allows users to manage their digital signs and update content from the Cloud. As this software exists on the cloud, users can change their digital signage content from anywhere. Users no longer need to physically visit each screen and manually update their signage screens. Instead, users can drag and drop their content onto the software’s web interface.
Some important features of digital signage software...
The most important feature of digital signage software is enabling users to manage content remotely. This feature enables businesses to more efficiently manage the company’s digital signage’s and focus their time on more productive tasks.
Users can also create playlists with multiple pieces of content and schedule these playlists to run at predetermined times. This feature is key for teams who want to get the most out of their digital signs. With this feature, teams can set and forget their digital signs for as long as they have their content scheduled.
Another important feature is enabling users to manage multiple screens at once. With some digital signage software, users can organize related screens into groups. These grouped screens can then be managed together. For example, instead of having to assign a playlist to each screen one at a time, users can assign a playlist to a group. The playlist will then play on each of the screens in the group.
Real-time monitoring of your digital signage network
Some digital signage deployments span across several locations within a city. Other digital signage deployments can span across multiple cities or even countries. For these large-scale deployments, the responsible team for managing these digital signs may go for weeks without seeing a screen.
In such a scenario, the team relies on feedback from customers or other employees to learn when a screen is having issues. However, without the individual assigned responsibility for this feedback, this feedback loop often fails. This failure results in unnecessary screen downtime.
To address this issue, digital signage software allows teams to monitor the status of their digital signs remotely. The software displays the status of each screen on a central dashboard via a map visualization. Teams can then see the status of their entire deployment in real-time, and any screens that experience playback issues can be quickly identified and fixed.