Digital Signage Template

Solstice’s digital signage feature gives you the ability to extend HTML-based signage to Solstice displays when they are not being used for wireless collaboration. This feature allows you to add signage feeds to your Solstice-enabled meeting rooms, huddle rooms, and transitional spaces without the additional cost or complexity of deploying dedicated signage hardware.

When enabled, Digital Signage in Solstice defaults to Mersive's Solstice Pod information feed at https://digitalsignage.mersive.com. URL-based digital signage feeds such as Tripleplay, Appspace, and Carousel, as well as Google Slides and YouTube feeds, are supported. Solstice digital signage also supports custom static welcome screens at a web URL.

Certain individual feeds, even from supported sources, may not work with Solstice. If the URL you are attempting to run is resource intensive, stability and performance can be negatively affected. Solstice version 5.5.2 and later will cache up to 2 GB of content. (Solstice versions 4.4 to 5.5.1 cache up to 1 GB of content.)

Requirements

  • Solstice Pods with Enterprise Edition Licenses
  • Solstice version 4.0 or later, with Solstice 5.5.2 strongly recommended
  • Source URL content must be compatible with Android’s Chromium-based WebView (Chromium version 94.0.4606.71).
    • Test your URL in Solstice and verify that it is playing well on a single display before rolling out to other Solstice Pods and/or leaving signage enabled on the Pod.

Layout Options

Solstice digital signage provides three layout modes: Full Screen, Footer Only, and Footer + Overlay. Footer Only and Footer + Overlay modes will render the source content in an HTML iFrame. Many content sources will work in all modes without an issue. However, an embedded URL must be generated for use in an iFrame to use sources such as Google Slides and YouTube for digital signage in Footer Only and Footer + Overlay modes.

Try Full Screen mode if you are having issues in Footer Only and Footer + Overlay modes. See how to set digital signage configuration options in Solstice Cloud and Solstice Dashboard.

How to find the embedded URL that will display successfully in an iFrame for Solstice digital signage in footer/overlay modes from common sources:

  • Google Slides - When publishing the Google Slides presentation to the web, select the Embed option. This creates HTML code with the presentation URL within an iFrame. Copy the URL from this code to enter in the Solstice digital signage configuration.
  • YouTube - View the Embed code for a video from sharing options. Copy the embed URL from the "src" attribute to enter in the Solstice digital signage configuration. Add URL parameters as needed. Turning on autoplay and loop options and turning off controls is recommended for digital signage. Find more parameters details in Google documentation.

    The following URL shows an embed link with the parameters noted above, as well as an optional playlist parameter to play more than one YouTube video:

    https://www.youtube.com/embed/<VIDEO_ID>?playlist=<VIDEO_ID>,<Additional_VIDEO_IDs>&loop=1&autoplay=1&controls=0

The Solstice screen measures 1920x1080 pixels at 1080p and 3840x2160 at 4K. Refer to the pixel maps if you are using the Solstice footer and/or sidebar overlay to ensure Solstice elements do not overlap important aspects of custom background images (.png or .jpg) or digital signage.

See Solstice 1080p screen pixel mapClosed

See Solstice 4K screen pixel mapClosed

Supported Authentication Methods

Some signage systems provide mechanisms to identify the device with which it is communicating. This can be helpful to tailor content to groups of devices, to prevent unauthorized access to the feed content, and for analytics.

The Solstice digital signage playback supports the following authentication methods:

Scheme Description
Open The signage URL is not protected by an authentication scheme. The content will load in any network-connected browser for any user.
URL-Based The signage URL is protected by a URL-based parameter. In this case, the content will only load when the URL parameter is provided.
Cookie or Local Storage The signage URL will load an initial page that presents a unique identifier for the Pod. The signage administrator will record the code and enter it into the signage provider's device-management console. After this process is completed, a cookie or other browser-based persistent mechanism, like local storage, is utilized to store the identification information.
MAC Address Primarily relevant to an on-premises signage system, the administrator will configure the Pod MAC address as part of the device configuration in the management console. This process may be automated by the signage system; however, the signage server and Solstice Pod must typically be on the same VLAN.

How To

  1. In Solstice Cloud, go to the left sidebar navigation panel and click Manage > Templates > Digital Signage.
  1. Click Create New Digital Signage Template.
  2. Enter the Template Name. For example, you could name the template by location (London Office) or descriptively (Mountain Theme).
  3. Click Save.

You can also start by duplicating an existing template and making changes to it. Click on the three dots to the far right of the name of the template you want to start with, then choose Duplicate Template.

  1. Select the Enable Digital Signage checkbox. This activates the digital signage options.
  2. In the Source URL field, enter the URL of the digital signage feed or source content.
  3. In Start After, select the amount of time after which you want the digital signage feed to start playing.
  4. To the right of the thumbnail preview, select a digital signage display mode. The thumbnail preview will demonstrate a preview of how the digital signage feed will appear on the Solstice display.
    • Full Screen: Signage content is displayed full screen on the Solstice display. No Solstice connection information is shown — users must know Solstice display name or IP address in order to connect.
    • Footer Only: Only the Solstice welcome screen footer is shown over the signage content. Users familiar with Solstice will be able to see the Solstice display name and/or IP address in the footer area in order to connect and share content. The source URL must be viewable within an IFrame.
    • Footer + Overlay: The Solstice welcome screen footer and sidebar overlay are shown on top of digital signage to provide users with full connection instructions and/or room calendar information. The source URL must be viewable within an IFrame.
  5. Click Save.

Some signage providers require you to register each Solstice display playing the digital signage feed as a signage endpoint. Refer to your digital signage content provider's instructions to complete this process as needed.

Mersive is in the process of migrating customer accounts to a version of Solstice Cloud with a rearchitected back end. Users in migrated organizations shouldn't notice much difference, other than Solstice Cloud management working more quickly and smoothly. In particular, management of Solstice Pod configurations with templates should be improved. However, there is one important change Solstice Cloud administrators should take note of:

Solstice administrators for organizations that have been migrated to the new Solstice Cloud management should be aware that the Cloud settings for a Solstice Pod will now take precedence and will overwrite any conflicting settings on the Pod itself.

In the case of a settings mismatch for a Pod between Solstice Cloud and the Pod's own settings, Cloud settings will always "win." The only exception is when a settings change in a Cloud template causes Solstice Cloud to be unable to connect to the Pod. In this case, the settings in that template set will be rolled back to the last working configuration for that Pod. New Pod and template status indicators will alert users when this case has occurred.

  1. In the left sidebar menu of Solstice Cloud, click Manage > Pods.

    The Pod Template Assignments table displays. This table is used to apply templates across your deployment. You can apply a template to multiple Pods at once.

    2. Filter Solstice Pods in your deployment by default categories or categories you have created to apply templates efficiently to similar Pods. Filters allow you to apply templates by criteria such as location or campus, depending on the categories you have created and assigned to Pods.

  2. Select the Pods you want to apply the template to. You can select each Pod's checkbox individually, or select the checkbox in the header row of the table to select all Pods showing in the table.

  3. For each template you want to apply, go to the corresponding template type column (e.g., Welcome Screen). You can view different groups of templates by selecting a template category in the upper right corner of the table.

  4. Select the template with the desired configuration from the drop-down list in the appropriate column for one of the selected Pods. This will apply the template to all the selected Pods in the table.

  5. Click Confirm when to confirm applying the selected template to all selected Pods.
  6. As changes are being applied, the pending changes orange clock icon icon will appear next to the template(s) being applied. Once the changes are applied, the Pod's normal status will resume.
    • If a Pod is offline, any changes made will be applied when the Pod comes back online.
    • [For organizations migrated to the re-architected Solstice Cloud only] If a settings change in a Cloud template causes Solstice Cloud to be unable to connect to the Pod, the Pod's settings for that template will be rolled back to their previous configuration. A failure icon red dot with exclamation mark will show that the template could not be applied.
  7. If a template you applied has any unique-to-Pod settings that need to be applied each Pod individually, a pop-up pane will appear prompting you to enter the needed information for each affected Pod. Once you have completed all of the settings screens, click Save & Close.

In the updated Solstice Cloud architecture, the settings selected for a Solstice Pod in Cloud are checked against the settings on the Pod itself approximately once an hour and upon Pod reboot.

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