OneLan

Introduction

Welcome to your online OneLan/Digital Screens Training Guide

To get the most out of your digital screens, we've collated together various guides to help introduce you to the various features within OneLan.

OneLan manages users by assigning them user permissions. The features one user can access might be different to someone else. If anything in this guide looks different to what you can see, you may have different permissions.

You must request access to OneLan via AV Services: https://warwick.ac.uk/avsignagerequest

December 2023 Update: The guide has been updated to the latest version of OneLan, which introduces a whole new UI.

Please note that the options presented in this guide may differ depending on your permission levels.

Basics of OneLan. Logging in, navigating the platform, and how to access most frequently used features.
Scheduling Content. How to make videos and images appear on specific dates, and also disappear when they're no longer relevant, without having to manually delete them.
Advanced: PLI Guide. Playlist items can be targeted at specific screens using local player information, such as room locations.
Additional Training. Links to more information and how to request a training session.

This guide was last updated in Dec 2023

Basics

Basics of OneLan

To access the signage software, please visit https://digitalsignage.warwick.ac.uk/signinLink opens in a new window and log in with your normal University account.

Please note that you can only access the CMS from a wired or wireless (hotspot-secure or eduroam) connection within the university, or when connected to the VPN serviceLink opens in a new window or using the WorkspaceLink opens in a new window virtual desktop when you are off campus. Additionally, the CMS does not work correctly with old web browsers such as Internet Explorer – please use an up-to-date version of a modern browser such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, or Safari to access the CMS.

Once logged in, you'll see a number of menu tabs across the top. You can select them below to find out more information about them.

Home

You can navigate through the system using the menu options down the left of the screen.

Media

Media is where you can see all the content you've uploaded and have access to. You can also upload new content straight to the media library if you wish.

Files and Folders

The Files & Folders tab lets you navigate through the folders you have access to.

First, find the folder where you'd like to put your content. You now have two ways to upload content. Either drag it straight into the folder from your computer or select the 'Upload Files' tab and click 'Choose File'. Adding content via the 'Upload Files' method only allows to single items at a time. To upload multiple files, use the drag method.

Please note, the system will rewrite any files that have the same name and sit within the same folder. Try to name your graphics something sensible.

Then select 'Upload File'. From here you can also choose to create a folder to put content in.

NB: If you've uploaded some content but it appears to have disappeared instantly, this may be because you've uploaded a file type that is not supported. Navigate to your media folder via Media > Files & Folders to reveal the piece of content in question and delete it from the system. All supported media types can be read in the User Guide, found under Help > User Guide.

The more files you upload to a folder, the slower the system will respond when loading that folder. Please make sure to delete old images and videos once they've been used, so keep the system running smoothly. Remember, deleting an item from a playlist won't delete it from the media library too.

Playlists

Playlists

Selecting the 'Playlists' item reveals all the playlists you have access to.

Now you can see your playlist and a few more tabs. Adding content to your playlist couldn't be easier. As with the Files & Folders tab you have two options.

Simply drag your content straight in from your desktop. OR
Click the 'Files & Folders' tab. This will reveal all your media and you can simply click the 'Add' button next to the piece of content you want to put into your playlist.

Multiple files can be dragged in simultaneously, either placing them all in the playlist straight away or adding them all to your media folder and then adding each piece of content individually. You can also add an entire folder from within your media library if you'd like. This is useful if you have multiple slides that you want to attached the same scheduling information to.

The order you see the content in the playlist is the order in which it will play out. To reorder your playlist, simply drag the items into the position you want.

Next to each item in your playlist you'll see three buttons.

Two lines allows you to drag and drop to recorder the playlist
The trash can deletes the item from the playlist (not the media library)
The double box copies the item on the playlist
The pencil allows you to edit the item's properties

It's from within 'Editing the Item Properties' we can set the item duration as well as play out validities/ scheduling. You will also see some other, more advance, features which can be ignored for now. If you've added a folder to your playlist you can also adjust its playout properties in a similar way.

Channels

This is where you can send playlist updated to the associated channel.

Channels work much like those on your TV. The broadcaster sends content down a channel (for example BBC One). This works in a similar way. Your content is sent down one of many channels leaving the CMS. Your digital screens are set up to be 'tuned into' whatever channel(s) you have access to and control. The difference here is that once the content is sent down the channel, it sits on the NTB (Net Top Box; think of this as your Sky box) until some newer content is sent to it by the CMS.

In the event that an alteration you've just made to your playlist needs to be reflected on screen straight away you'll need to Publish the channel. For that, you'll need to access the Channels tab.

The easiest way to do this is to click the 'Publish Listed Channels' button.

If this is not done, new content will be published automatically overnight.

Help

For more advance features you can browse the help pages. Some features described here may not be visible, dependent on your user role. Speak to a member of the Signage team for further info.

For further advice on content, please visit our digital signage guidelines

Introduction

Scheduling Content

How do I schedule content?

You can find the playlist of your choice by following this navigation flow:

OneLan > Playlists > Departmental Playlists > Your Department

In practice, this may be something like:

OneLan > Playlists > Departmental Playlists > Physics

Once on the playlist, you will able to set various 'Play Criteria' options, including:

Time Validity:
- Date. Define play between (and including) a date range.
- Day. Allow content on specific days of the week.
- Time. Set play between two times.
(Advanced) Local Information:
- Such as Location

You can reach these settings from any playlist by selecting the Edit Item Properties pencil icon under Actions, and then selecting the Play Criteria tab.

Advanced: Location

You may need additional permissions to access these features.

If you edit a playlist that appears across several screens, you may be able to define which specific screens you'd like your content to appear. You can access these settings by selecting the Conditional Play View icon from the main playlist.

Change the Player Location Information (PLI) Name to your location. In this example, we'll use 'Location_Chemistry'.
Change the 'Always Play' condition to be another value. We'll use '...contains ANY of' in this example.
Select the checkboxes for the locations you would like your content to appear. I'm going to show this content on the screen outside Chemistry B1.21 only.

OPTIONAL: I would also like to make this the ONLY content that displays on this screen on Monday, so I'm going to select Monday on the Play Criteria tab, but also change the Media Duration to Indefinite. Then, by placing the content at the top of the playlist, this is the only content that screen will play.

Notes

If you add your content to your screens by adding them to a folder , you cannot set specific Play Criteria per item. You will need to add your content directly to the playlist.
- Folders as a whole can have Play Criteria, so can be scheduled the same as any other image or video.
You cannot set content to play across different dates with different time properties. For example, if you want to show a poster for an event that ends by 2pm on Tuesday, and display it on Monday (all day) and then Tuesday (until 2pm), you will need to schedule the same content on both days with different time properties, like:
- First Playlist Item - Monday - all day
- Second Playlist Item - Tuesday - midnight-2pm

Basics

Advanced: PLI Guide

If you have a group of signage screens, served by a single playlist, you can target certain content to play (or not play) on specific screens within that group.

For this example, we're going to take the Chemistry department. Chemistry have 3 screens, situated outside rooms B1.21, B2.01 and B5.14. On the whole, they want to send the same content to all three screens; so have just one playlist going to all of them. However, sometimes they want content to be targeted to specific screens. This can be done with PLI (Player Local Information).

What is PLI?

PLI is metadata we add to each screen, stating which group the screen belongs to and its specific location. Content can then be tagged with this data. You can set the behaviour of the playback system in a variety of ways.

Every screen is given at least two bits of PLI data, each bit contains a name and a value. The value of the Name 'Group' denotes what group/ department/ building the screen(s) is in. The value of the Name 'Location_' denotes the specific physical location of the screen. Given below is our Chemistry example.

Name: Location_Chemistry

Values: Chemistry B1.21, Chemistry B2.01, Chemistry B5.14

Note: Chemistry only has one group. Some departments can have multiple groups e.g. Accommodation has multiple locations (Bluebell, Arthur Vick etc) in each of these groups there are multiple screens. All the screens are served from one playlist, with folders targeted to specific groups (buildings). They also have the ability to target content to any specific screens, OR omit any specific screen or group of screens.

Adding PLI to specific content/Conditional Play

Within your playlist you'll have items of content. If you want this content to only play on a specific screen, we need to add a PLI rule onto it. Doing this is called giving it 'Conditional Play'. The easiest way to do this is via the 'Conditional Play View'.

PLI Name

This is where you can pick the PLI area to schedule content against. These include Groups (such as buildings or areas) and Locations (such as buildings or departments).

Locations will split the the target area into specific targetable screens.

Each item on the playlist can have different PLI information.

Don’t worry, there’s no chance you could accidentally put your content on anyone else’s screens, even if you select their location.

Always Play

You can assign a value against the criteria as:

Always Play - will play everywhere
ALL checked - will play when the screen matches ALL of the criteria
ANY checked - will play when the screen matches ANY of the criteria
NONE of checked - will play on any screen that DOESN'T match the criteria.

Remember if you select ALL and multiple screens in a Location, the screen cannot be ALL screens, so this won't display anywhere.

Scheduling Content

Additional Training