Sharing FAQ

What is Sharing?

Sharing is a property that can be added to any media, playlist or hardware.

The owner of any items can assign other members as ‘shared’. The members can co-manage the shared items together (view, edit, copy or publish).

Why use Sharing?

Use sharing to co-manage a device, a playlist, or a media item. Sharing is used where responsibility for managing a screen and / or what’s displayed on it might be distributed across many people.

The co-managers could be in the same organization (two people on the same Marketing team) or across organizations (an advertiser working with a screen owner).

Common organizational scenarios are ones where one group is responsible for the physical hardware (the IT dept), another group for the branded look and feel of what’s on the network of screens (Marketing), and finally another group for the content of individual screens or media items (location managers).

When would you share Media?

Users would share media when:

• they want their media published to a playlist they don’t have access to – so they share the media with the playlist owner and ask them to publish it
• they want approval on a design from their boss or a brand-owner
• they want another user to be able to copy their efforts as a starting point for their own design
• they want to co-manage separate zones of a single item. For example, a local manager shares a menu with Marketing so that they could update the logo as needed
• they want to co-manage specific details on the item, for example the prices on a menu board that change over time
• they want to share the same set of responsibilities amongst many team members. For example, “Anyone in our group should be able to update this menu.”

When would you share a Playlist?

Users would share a playlist when:

• they want to co-manage which items are added / removed from the playlist. For example, Marketing wants to add logo stings and org wide messages, while allowing local managers to add their own local content.
• they want to co-manage the look and feel of a playlist like layout and theme between individuals or groups
• they want others to be able to preview at a glance what’s playing on remote TVs
• they want to share the same set of responsibilities amongst many team members. For example, “Any one of our shift managers should be able to add / remove media from that playlist.”

When would you share Hardware?

Users would share hardware when:

• they want centralized billing on their devices, but want distributed management responsibility
• they want others to have the ability to monitor and manage the device
• they want others to be able to assign new playlists for the device
• they want others to be able to set up a new device (assign location, news, weather, etc)
• they want to share the same set of responsibilities amongst many team members in the same working group. For example, “Any of our IT staff should be able to monitor that device.”

Sharing Example 1 – Single location

Bob and Doug work together at a cafe. Bob set up a ScreenScape screen so their cafe could have a digital menu. Bob creates a menu from a ScreenScape template and publishes it to their screen.

On his days off Bob wants Doug to be able to make edits to the daily special. Bob shares the media item for the daily special with Doug. When Doug logs in to his own ScreenScape account, he can see the shared item. When he makes edits to the daily special, his changes appear on the cafe screen.

Sharing Example 2 – Two locations

Bob and Doug are friends who each run their own restaurant.

Bob set up a ScreenScape screen so he could have a digital menu. Bob creates a menu from a ScreenScape template and publishes it to his screen.

Doug sees the menu and asks Bob how he did it. Bob tells him about ScreenScape. Doug signs up and buys his own ScreenScape device.

Bob shares his menu with Doug. Doug makes a copy and changes the colors, logo and prices. He publishes his copy to his own screen.

Sharing Example 3 – Simple Advertising

Bob runs the digital menu for his cafe using ScreenScape.

Susan is an advertiser who wants to advertise on Bob’s screen.

Susan has her own ScreenScape account. She creates her ads as media items and shares them with Bob. Bob adds them to his playlist.

Sharing Example 4 – 10 locations with central management

A retail chain has 10 stores. Each store has 1 screen. Each screen is powered by 1 ScreenScape device.

An IT person purchases all 10 devices from ScreenScape. Monthly billing for all 10 devices is centralized to the IT person’s ScreenScape account. They are the “owner” of the devices. Only accounts that own devices are billed by ScreenScape; accounts that don’t own devices have no cost.

There are 5 members of the central Marketing team. Each have their own independent ScreenScape accounts (no cost).

The IT person owns the devices, but Marketing controls what’s played on them. So the IT person shares the devices with the 5 Marketing users. The IT dept can share the devices they own to as many other users as they see fit, at no additional cost.

The Marketing users create 1..10 playlists and add the playlists to each of the shared devices. If they want all 10 devices to play exactly the same content, they could use 1 playlist and assign it to all devices; or they could have 1 independent playlist per device.

They share the playlists with each other as they choose. They can all add/remove media on their shared playlists.

They could also choose to share individual media items with each other to co-manage media items.

With this approach the Marketing team is able to control what’s played on the screens without direct involvement from IT. Meanwhile IT can still monitor the devices and manage technical changes as needed. As members join or leave the Marketing team the IT person, as the central “owner” of the devices, can still get involved in order to add/remove shared device access.

Sharing Example 5 – 10 locations with local managers

Imagine the previous example (#4), but with local store managers at each retail location. Each local manager wants to co-manage what’s on their screen – but just for their single location, and only for some content. For example, they need to make frequent adjustments to localized prices, but don’t want to touch the logos and branding. Meanwhile Marketing still wants some measure of centralized control to guarantee adherence to branding guidelines.

With Sharing there are several ways to cover this requirement. The method used will come down to an organizational choice on how much control a local manager should have over their local screens. In each scenario the local managers would sign up to ScreenScape with their own accounts (no cost).

Some example scenarios with local managers would be:

Central control

• Local managers use templates to create their own media, and share that media with their central Marketing team.
• The central Marketing user would review the media, perhaps edit it to meet brand guidelines
• The central Marketing user and add it to the local playlist when approved.

Medium control

• Local managers request a central Marketing user to share the individual menu item with them.
• The local manager could then save edits to that single item (and only that item).

Light control

• Local managers request a central Marketing use to share the playlist assigned to their location.
• Marketing would do this if they wanted to permit a more open scenario.
• This scenario would allow the store manager to add / remove media on the playlist without prior approval from Marketing.
• Marketing would retain control over who was shared the local playlists

Open ended

• Local managers request the IT owner to share access to the device used at their location.
• The local users could then add/remove their own playlists to the device and monitor the device itself.

Decentralized

• The most permissive model would be for the local managers to buy their own devices from ScreenScape
• They would share with other members of their organization access to their devices, playlists or media items as appropriate