Digital Signage, Korbyt Best Practices and Recommendations
- Tags | Tagging
- Unit Content, Layout, and Playlist Management
- Layouts | Design
- Playlists | Clever Playlists
- Users | User Management
- Couriers
Tags | Tagging
Tagging is when you add words or phrases as metadata to Content (Media, Layouts) and Players. Tags are used for keeping your content organized, making it searchable, automating content distribution, and grouping Players.
Service Recommendations
Once a tag is entered into the system, it is visible to all users and can be added to any object that can use a tag attribute. We strongly recommend using a unit-specific acronym at the front of all tags created by your unit so that they are unique to your unit.
Example: University Housing might start all tags with 'hsg-' or Campus Recreation might use 'dcr-'. This would create tags such as 'hsg-allsigns' and 'dcr-allsigns' that would be unique to the unit.
It is highly discouraged to use non-specific tags such as 'menu', 'signs' or 'ads', which are non-specific and could lead to confusion among the various units that are using Korbyt.
Korbyt support pages related to tags/tagging:
https://kb.korbyt.com/faq/what-are-tags-used-for/
https://kb.korbyt.com/article/tagging-in-korbyt/
Unit Content, Layout, and Playlist Management
A folder structure has been built inside of Media Manager, Layouts, and Playlists for each unit to store and organize their digital signage items.
Service Recommendations
Like Tags, we encourage using a unit naming structure for your content added to Media Manager as well as for naming your Layouts and Playlists. For example, naming your Playlist 'University Housing Events Playlist' or the Layout 'University Housing EMS Layout' are descriptive and allow for easy identification of the unit utilizing the playlist and layout. Simply using 'Events Playlist' or 'EMS Layout' could be confusing, especially multiple groups have playlists or layouts related to displaying similar event information.
Layouts | Design
Layouts, similar to 'templates', are the canvas or design of a digital sign.
Service Recommendations
It is encouraged to follow all university brand guidelines with the design of your digital signs. For more information, please see https://brand.illinois.edu/.
Depending on your design requirements and comfort with design applications, starting with a 'wireframe' as your background image may assist in your signage layouts. A wireframe can act as the background image with the dimensions and layout of your sign are predefined and laid out how you want it to look. Using that image as the background, you could then use the builder tool to add layers such as playlists, time/date, weather, etc. that sit above that wireframe background.
For an example, please see: Wireframe and designed digital sign. In this example, Date, Time, Weather, and a Playlist (of rotating images) are overlayed on top of predefined regions on the background image.
Playlists | Clever Playlists
When creating playlists, it is best practice to select the +Add Clever Playlist option. This option is the most robust as it allows for playlists to include content based on dynamic information, such as folders, tags and other attributes. It also allows for statically selecting existing images, HTML pages, and layouts.
Users | User Management
Users and user groups are imported into Korbyt Anywhere via group membership in the Illinois domain. This is necessary in order for users of the system to login via single sign-on with the campus credentials. After a user is imported into the system, the user role is assigned.
Service Recommendations
Submit new user requests and removals to the digital signage service using the request form or via email sent to digitalsignage@illinois.edu
Couriers
With couriers, a unit can sync content between the Media Library and a cloud service such as Microsoft OneDrive. This allows for adding or removing content from the Media Library without having to log in to the Korbyt Anywhere platform. Couriers would also allow for a sync method for data files (such as a CSV file) that are actively being edited to be imported into the Media Library.
Service Recommendations
We strongly recommend using a service account (i.e., not using your own account/credentials) to store and authenticate if you plan to use couriers. To this end, we recommend the use of Microsoft OneDrive as Box does not allow for a service account to access Box.
For more information on configuring and using couriers, please see this knowledge base article.