If your organization needs to set an asset to be shown on your screen at a specific date and time or for a period of time, the Live and Expire feature may be of interest to you.
When Live and Expire is set up on an asset, that asset will only be shown during the period of time defined as live. When it is out of the defined live period, the asset will be skipped during content playback. You can also set it to repeat as well. These assets can be pushed directly to your screens, or put in any Playlist or Schedule and they will behave the same.
Let's get started.
When to Use Live and Expire
Live and Expire are extremely useful for setting up promotions or content in advance, and time-gating that same content to go away after a certain period of time.
There are numerous examples you can use, but the most simple and basic would be to set up a holiday promotion.
Let's assume you want to define your business' Christmas season as December 1st through 25th. With Live and Expire, you can prepare Christmas-themed assets or promotional material well in advance, then schedule it to "go live" December 1st. Then you can schedule it to automatically expire December 25th. This fully automates the process and saves you or your team from having to remember to upload or delete these contents on these days.
Setting Up Live and Expire
First, go to Files/Assets and create an asset. Then, hover over it to expose the Three Dots icon.
Click this to get a series of menu options. Choose Set Asset to Live/Expire.
You can also multi-select your assets and set the live/ expire. Select your assets, then click the Set Live/Expire button below.
Either way, the Set Asset to Live/Expire menu will pop up:
- Type - One time: You can set your asset to live / expire at one time
-
Live Time - Choose between Live Immediately or schedule when it goes live with Schedule.
- Live Immediately - The asset is immediately available and will display if already deployed within a schedule, playlist or directly assigned to a screen.
- Schedule - Set a date and time for the asset to be available for use within schedules or playlists. This will shift the UI
-
Expire Time
- Non Expiring - The asset is always available after going live and will continue to display if the asset is already deployed within an existing schedule, playlist or directly assigned to a screen.
- Expire At - Set a date and time for the asset to default to be unavailable after expiration. In order for future re-use, you must re-enter a new Live At date in the future.
- Timezone - Set the appropriate time zone that relates to the asset status.
- Delete Option - Checking the box will delete the asset after expiration.
Once you've set these options, a Reset button will appear - hit this to clear all Live/Expire settings.
If you've chosen Schedule as your type, you will have slightly different options:
- Type - Schedule: You can set it live in the schedule
- Schedule - Create the schedule for your asset live/ expire. It lets you create an event in your calendar.
- Timezone - Set the appropriate time zone that relates to the asset status.
Now, hit Save. Once the Live/Expire status setup is complete, the asset will indicate when it's scheduled to go live and if it was previously set to expire.
These assets can be added to any Playlist or Schedule just as a normal asset would.
NOTE |
| This asset status change does not immediately affect existing playlists or schedules where the asset has been previously been placed. |
Playlist and Schedule Behavior
When a Playlist or Schedule has expired assets, you'll see a banner at the top letting you know how many items are expired. Clicking this banner will provide a complete breakdown of these items, like so:
Playlist:
Schedule:
This provides:
- The asset's location in the playlist (item position) or schedule (event date)
- Type of asset (video, image, app, playlist, etc.)
- The ability to delete the item from the Playlist or Schedule to keep it clean easily.
That's all!
If you have any additional questions, concerns or any feedback about OptiSigns, feel free to reach out to our support team at support@optisigns.com