Playlists and scheduling: control what plays, where, and when

One library for every kind of content

Your content library holds everything a screen can show: videos, images, web pages, text, and the menus you create in the Menu Builder. Upload video and image files straight from the dashboard — they're stored in the cloud and delivered to your screens automatically, with no USB sticks and no file servers to maintain.

Playlists put your content in order

A playlist is an ordered sequence of content items — for example: menu board, promo video, image special, back to menu. You control the order and each item's place in the rotation. Assign the playlist to one screen or to many, and every screen plays the same sequence. Change the playlist once and every screen using it updates.

Schedules decide when each playlist plays

Time-based scheduling assigns playlists to specific days and times. That's how one screen runs your whole week without anyone touching it:

• Breakfast content weekday mornings, brunch content on weekends
• A happy-hour playlist that starts at 4 p.m. and ends at 7
• Seasonal promotions that start and stop on the dates you choose

Menu boards get an extra layer with dayparting — automatic breakfast/lunch/dinner/late-night transitions built into the menu itself.

Push updates without visiting a single screen

Every screen checks in with the platform on a regular heartbeat, and updates you make in the dashboard are delivered to the device automatically — including a push-on-demand for when you want new content live right now. The dashboard tracks each push, shows you when a device has an update queued and waiting, and keeps a history of what was pushed, when, and by whom.

Screens that keep playing when the internet doesn't

The player app downloads playlist videos and images to local storage and keeps its cache in sync with a manifest from the server — stale files are cleared, missing ones are fetched. Because content plays from the device, a router reboot or an ISP hiccup doesn't take your menu board down. You can also clear a device's cache remotely from the dashboard and have it re-download the current playlist fresh.

Know what every screen is doing

Each screen reports online/offline status and a last-seen timestamp, updated live in the dashboard. If a TV loses power or network, you see it — before a customer tells you the board is dark.

Scheduling strategies that pay off

Scheduling isn't just automation — it's targeting. The same screen is worth more when what it plays matches who is looking at it:

• Sell to the daypart. Coffee and pastries in the morning rotation, lunch combos at noon, appetizers and drinks in the evening. Nobody buys breakfast at 8 p.m.
• Use the week's rhythm. A Tuesday-special playlist that only exists on Tuesdays beats a generic loop with a "Tuesday only!" slide playing all week.
• Give promotions a hard stop. Schedule the end date when you schedule the start — expired offers on screen are the digital equivalent of a faded poster.
• Keep rotations short. A tight loop of current content outperforms a long loop where the good stuff appears once every ten minutes.

From upload to on-screen: the whole lifecycle

The workflow stays the same whether you run one screen or a network: upload the content from the dashboard (it's stored in the cloud automatically), arrange it into a playlist, schedule the playlist to days and times, and assign it to screens. From there the platform does the delivery — devices fetch and cache the files, play the rotation, and report back that they're alive. When the content changes, you change it in exactly one place.

A day in the life of one well-scheduled screen

Here's what a single TV behind a café counter can do without anyone touching it: at open, the breakfast menu board comes up via dayparting. Mid-morning, the playlist rotates in a short video promoting the loyalty program. At 11, the board switches to the lunch menu, with a combo-deal slide in the rotation. In the afternoon lull, an events slide and a catering promo take more of the loop. At 5, dinner takes over, and the late-night menu follows. Every transition happened on schedule; the owner's only involvement this week was 86'ing a sold-out pastry from their phone.