Schedules

A schedule answers when and where. It is where a playlist meets a screen, and the only place in the product where time exists.

The four questions#

What is it called? A name you will recognise in a list of thirty.
When? A daily time window and the days of the week it applies.
Where? Screens, locations, or groups of either.
Which playlist, in which zone? See below.

Schedules → Add Schedule

Schedule name *

Lunch menu

From1

11:00

15:00

MonTueWedThuFriSatSun

Targeting & scale

All London cafésLocation group · 6 locations2

Zone assignments

MainLunch loop · 4 files · 50s

FooterNews ticker · 1 file

1The daily window. A schedule is not a calendar entry — it repeats every day it applies to.

2Target screens directly, or whole locations, or a group. Mix them freely.

3A playlist per zone of the layout.

Zones#

A screen's layout divides it into areas. Full screen is one area called Main; other layouts add a Sidebar, a Footer ticker strip, or split the panel in two — and you can draw your own. Every layout also has an invisible Audio zone, which plays sound without occupying any of the picture. See Layouts and zones.

A schedule assigns a playlist to each zone independently. They loop independently too — a twenty-second sidebar and a two-minute main area do not have to line up, and trying to make them would only produce gaps.

Example — A menu board with a ticker and music

Layout: Main + bottom ticker. The Main zone gets the food playlist. The Footer zone gets an RSS widget showing today's headlines. The Audio zone gets a playlist of three background tracks. One schedule, three zones, and the sound comes from one panel even though the wall has four.

Two schedules on one screen at the same hour

Nothing stops you creating them, and the result is rarely what you intended. If a screen shows content you did not expect, look for a second schedule whose window overlaps — it is by far the most common cause.

Coverage#

The Schedules list shows Coverage: the share of each screen's operating hours that any schedule actually covers. A screen at 60% has more than nine hours a day with nothing to play. That is a legitimate choice, but it is usually an oversight, which is why the number is on the page rather than buried.

What the numbers mean defines it precisely, alongside every other figure in the product.