APP Overview

WorldVDS Communicator is a digital signage/corporate APP that enables companies to create enhanced video and animation communication and interactivity with users directly into Microsoft Teams.

It works as a Microsoft Teams TAB , allowing content managers to create broadcasts and users to view them.

It also includes animations, widgets, videos and images for a very easy setup, and a framework that allows companies to create their own Widgets for customized experience.

APP Player view

Play Now window

The Play Now window displays the Broadcast playlist of the Department assigned to you, created in the Settings tab.

If you click on a notification the Play Now tab will be opened and the slide corresponding to the notification will be displayed.

Navigate Broadcast content

You can navigate through the contents of a playlist by clicking the Burger Menu and then choosing the desired content:

No playlist window

If you get this message there is no Broadcast or playlist created to your Department.

No license window

If you get this message you don´t have an application license assigned, please contact your Teams Administrator to assign you a license.

Settings Option: Broadcast management

No role to manage contents

If this message pops up:

You don´t have permissions to manage contents, you will have to ask for a Role of Content Manager or Global Admin to the Admin of your tenant or Teams Admin

Create a Broadcast emission

The Broadcast is the base of your communication. You can create a Broadcast to include all users of your Tenant or you can segment users into departments and then create a Broadcast for the department.

To create a new Broadcast just click the plus button on the Broadcasts page of the Settings tab:

Select name and Department

To create the Broadcast, fill out the form by selecting a Broadcast name and a department from the combo box. You can only create one Broadcast per department.

The importance of a department

The department is a very important option as it helps you to segment your communicationFor example, if you want to communicate certain messages to a set of users, you can assign a department to those users and then create a Broadcast in that department. Only the users on that department will see the contents you publish on that Broadcast

Edit a Broadcast emission

Preview carousel and user info

From the Broadcast menu you can see all the Broadcasts you created, displayed as a list of cards with the following information:

1. Image carousel of playlist contents
2. Carousel navigation
3. Broadcast name
4. Broadcast users summary:

1. Number of users in this Broadcast department that are currently on the Play Now tab
2. Total number of users in this Broadcast department.
3. This Broadcast department

Click to edit

To edit the Broadcast just click the name or the carousel

Change Broadcast settings

To change the Broadcast Settings, name or department, click the Broadcast name or carousel, then in the new page click the three dots menu on the breadcrumb to open the Context Menu, then click Settings:

A form will be displayed with the Broadcast Settings:

Fill out the form with the desired information and click save to finish.

Bear in mind that you can only have one Broadcast per department. If you choose a department with a Broadcast already created an error message will appear. Also, the name of the Broadcast must be unique.

Broadcast Dashboard

The Broadcast Dashboard gives you a quick overview of all information in a Broadcast

1. The playlist: the element where we manage our content in order to be displayed to the users of the Broadcast department
2. Active Users: a graphic showing the unique users that opened the application in the last 30 days
3. Teams Notifications: the last notifications created to be displayed to this Broadcast users.

Broadcast Dashboard: Playlist

Summary

The playlist is a Broadcast element where we put the contents to be displayed to the users. A playlist can be divided into areas and each area has a set of contents to be displayed.

Create a single zone playlist

To create a playlist just click the Create Playlist button on the Broadcast Dashboard

In the next screen you can choose the playlist resolution and the zones, let´s focus on a single zone playlist for now.

First you choose the resolution of the playlist. You can choose between:

1. HD (1280x720)
2. Full HD (1920x1080)
3. Custom resolution

The resolution is important because it will set the aspect ratio of the content to be displayed. You can use HD or Full HD resolutions if you have 16:9 content, or you can customize the resolution if you have content with different aspect ratios. For example, if you want to display content to users that use Teams on mobile phones you can create a Broadcast department with those users and then create a playlist with an aspect ratio of 9:16 (Vertical) to better display the content.

After choosing the resolution and since we are focusing on single zone playlists, just click the "Create" button on the bottom of the page to create the playlist. Once the playlist is created you should go back to the Broadcast Dashboard:

To start managing the contents of the playlist just click the "Manage Playlist" button. To change the resolution and edit zones click "Edit Styles".

Create a multiple zone playlist

A multiple zone playlist can show several contents at the same time in independent divided zones. For example, if you want to create a dashboard to show different information in a divided screen or if you want to get a small zone to display scrolling messages.

To create a multiple zone playlist choose a predefined layout:

or you can customize by adding the zones you want by clicking on the "Add screen zone" button

The zones have the following properties:

• Position
• x
• y
• Size
• width
• height

You can fill the form with the desired values or drag and resize the zones on the right

The zones are transparent, you can overlap zones and put a PNG transparent image in a zone to create a watermark effect, for example.

Contents will adapt to zones. In the case of videos and images they can be distorted if the aspect ratio is very different from the zone. Widgets will adapt in a responsive way.

Upload and manage files

WorldVDS Communicator supports the following types of files:

• Images
• JPEG
• PNG
• GIF
• Video
• MP4
• MOV (will be converted to MP4)
• AVI (will be converted to MP4)

Files are managed from the File Manager which can be accessed from the Manage Playlist page in the Broadcast Dashboard. Once you click this button it will lead you to the following page:

The area on the right is where you can choose contents to add to your playlist:

• My Files: your uploaded files
• Widgets: a Library of widgets ready to use on your playlist
• Gallery: Stock images and videos free to use

In the My Files area we can see 3 main buttons:

• Upload files: upload files directly to your root directory
• File Manager: open File Manager to manage your files and folders and to upload your files
• Search: search your files to quickly find and add to your playlist

To upload files click the "Upload files" button right below My Files:

A upload dialog will pop up:

You can queue files to upload by clicking the "Add files" button and add multiple files from your computer, or you can simply drag and drop files directly from your computer into this popup. Once the files are added, a list of files will be displayed. Unsupported file types will be discarded and won´t be added to this list:

Once you are ready to upload hit the "Start Upload" button to start the upload process:

Once the upload process is complete the files will be marked in green:

You can close this popup and the files will be available at the root of My Files:

On this popup you can manage all of your files, on the left you can create folders and subfolders, on the right the contents of the selected folder are displayed. You can create the structure of folders you want:

You can rename and delete folders. When you delete a folder all its contents will also be deleted.

On the right side of the File Manager the files of a folder are displayed in a table view. The following options are available:

• Upload Files: upload files to this folder
• Download from: some external services to download contents, currently only Youtube is available
• Create Image: create an image with an included image editor
• Delete: delete selected files
• Refresh files: refresh the current folder files

You can reorder the files by clicking the header of the table. You can select one or multiple files to manage:

Once selected you can delete those files by hitting the Delete button. You can also move the selected files to another folder by grabbing the gray handle next to the select box and dragging to the left into the desired folder:

By clicking the file name you can see the details of that particular file such as name, type and time, and also Preview the file:

Back to the file list you can also download files individually by clicking the download button and if the file is an Image you can also Edit it Once you click the Edit button, the Image Editor will be opened with the Image:

The following tools are available:

• Open Overlay Image: open a new image from your computer and add it as a layer to the current image
• Save: save the new image to your files
• Filters: apply image filters to the Image
• Resize: Resize image to a new size, an option to maintain aspect ratio is available
• Crop: Crop image
• Transform: Rotate, Mirror and free transform
• Draw: Draw on top of the image, choose color of drawing, brush type and brush size
• Text: write text on top of the image by choosing color and font
• Shapes: Draw shapes on top of the image
• Stickers: apply a selection of stickers to the image
• Frame: add a frame to the image, color and size options are available
• Corners: apply rounded corners to image by choosing the border radius
• Background: fill the background with a color

Populate playlist with files

Once you uploaded the first files to My Files you can now add those files to the playlist zone. The My Files area shows the same structure of folders you created in the File Manager. You can navigate the folders by clicking on the desired folder; to go back you can click on the breadcrumb navigation:

You can also choose the order by, direction of order and the display style of the files, list or grid.

To add a file to a playlist zone you can simply drag the file from My Files to the active zone:

Once you drag the file to the playlist zone a new element is created, we call this element a Slide:

You can drag as many files you want to create a sequence of slides:

Once you drag the files to create a slide, the slide is created in the Offline state in order to edit properties before you publish. Once the slide is ready to publish simply click the toggle button to turn it Online

Online slides will appear in green and Offline slides will appear in red:

Widgets and templates

In addition to Images and Videos you can choose Widgets from the Widgets area. Widgets are small animated templates that let you create content in a very fast way. Widgets have a set of options and predefined animations that allow you to cut short in the production of contents and focus on your message.

Widgets are accessible from the Widgets area in the Manage Playlist screen:

They are divided into categories to facilitate its management.

Example of a Widget:

Example of a Corporate News Widget with Image, Title and Text. Options to choose all colors are also available

Populate playlist with widgets

The process to add Widgets to a playlist is similar to the process of adding files, just click the Widgets area, navigate through the categories, choose the Widget and simply drag and drop to the playlist zone:

After you drag to the playlist zone a slide will be created with the Offline status:

You can drag as many Widgets you want and you can mix Images, Videos and Widgets

The first tab corresponds to the settings form where you can set Name, Description, Volume, Time and Status. Filetype, Creation Date and Modification date are also displayed

On the second tab we get a preview of the slide:

The third refers to the slide schedule, that is covered further ahead

If the slide is a Widget you get an additional option to edit Widget data:

By clicking this option you get access to a new tab on the Settings popup:

In this tab, Slide Advanced, we can edit all Widget data; this data differs from Widget to Widget and can be edited on the right form. Once you fill out the form you can preview the Widget by clicking the P review button or save right away by clicking the Save button.

Widget data can also include files, images or videos; this files can be picked from My Files.This Widget, for example, has an image as a parameter:

To select an image click the choose file button as shown above; once you click the button a popup will show for you to choose the desired file:

You can Search or navigate through the folders to find the desired file. Grayed out files cannot be chosen, the Widget field determines the type of file that can be chosen, if we can choose an image or a video. To select the desired file click it and then click ok to confirm and close the popup.

You can now Save or Preview the Widget data and you get a final preview:

The Save as TemplateButton lets you save the Widget data as a template to use later, allowing you to save some recurrent data to avoid changing it all the time. Once you Save as Template the template will be available from the Widgets area in the Templates folder:

Once you drag and drop the template into the playlist zone a slide will be created and all the widget data saved in the template will be imported.

Change order of slides

To change the order of the slides simply grab the order number of the slide:

and drag it to the desired position:

Once you choose the desired position drop it and the order will be saved:

Use schedule on slides

Slide Schedule is a powerful tool that lets you schedule contents to be displayed, schedule ahead in time, schedule an end date for the content to be displayed and choose the recurrence to display a content.

To access the slide schedule just click the Schedule button of a Slide:

A popup will show with a calendar in the current month:

1. Navigate back through Months, Weeks or Years
2. Navigate forward through Months, Weeks or Years
3. Month View
4. Week View
5. List all schedules of the year

To create a Schedule click on a day, a new popup will appear with a form to fill out all the information needed:

1. Name to identify the schedule
2. Color to better identify the schedule in a calendar if you have several schedules
3. Date of the schedule start
4. Date of the schedule end
5. Choose if the content plays all day
6. Type of repeat, in the case of no repeat schedule will be valid until the End Date

If we unmark the all day option we get two new fields:

In these new fields we choose the start time and end time in which the schedule will be valid

If we change the type of repeat we also get new options:

The End of repeat, if we want to set an end date for the recurrence, leave in blank to set infinite recurrence. And in the case of Daily repeat we can choose the days where the schedule will be valid.

To save the Schedule just click "Ok", the popup will be closed and the created schedule will be shown in the calendar:

You can click the schedule and a context menu will appear:

• Options: lets you edit the schedule settings
• Remove: Remove the schedule

After you create the schedule, an icon indicating that the slide has a schedule will be displayed on the slide:

Statistics

Statistics per slide are available within the Slide Settings:

Click the "View stats for this slide" link and the stats page will appear:

In this page you can customize the time frame to view the stats and then you can also export the report to CSV, Excel and PDF

Broadcast dashboard: Active users

Active users chart

>

The Active Users chart shows the number of users that accessed the application per day in the last month

Active Users detail

The Active Users Detail shows the same graphic and a table that shows the following information per User:

• The user name and e-mail
• The last platform used to access the App
• The status, green if the user is currently accessing the App on the Play Now tab, red if the user isn´t viewing the App
• Playing: indicates the current slide being watched by the user
• Last Sync: last time the user accessed the App on the Play Now tab

Broadcast dashboard: Notifications

What is a notification?

A notification is a message sent to user amplitudenet.jmachadoices, desktop and mobile. This is a very powerful tool to alert all users in your tenant to new content.

Users will see the activity on their feed so it´s almost impossible for them not to view the new communication you have for them.

Try not to send more than one notification per day as it may overload users and decrease efficiency. Always connect the notification to the relevant slide (video , widget) if you are using schedules make sure when notification is sent the schedule in the content is available.

Notification list

1. Display the number of users affected that will receive new notifications. This number is influenced by the department selected for this broadcast and the number of licensed users in that department. Refer to the Users & Licenses configuration if you find this number not to be expected.
2. This button creates a new notification
3. These buttons are active only when a new notification is selected, click on the first column of a notification in the list to activate these options
4. Reloads data on the list so you can see progress on the notification list
5. Shows the state of the notification. There are 4 states:

1. Stand by- This notification is paused and will never be sent unless you change the state to Send on Schedule
2. Send on Schedule- The notification is waiting for Schedule to be sent to the users; you can´t edit this notification anymore but you can delete it before it gets sent.
3. Processing- notification is being processed; the process may take a few minutes depending on your tenant size.
4. Processed- notification is already sent to users. User Sent and User pool shows number of users affected by the notification

1. Process percentage
2. Timezone refers to the dates of the notification. Creation date, schedule date and processed date are all related to this time zone, so if you are in a different time zone you must calculate the time difference.

Create a new notification

• State:you must select Stand by, or Send on Schedule, if you choose Send on Schedule and the Schedule is now, or a past date notification will be immediately sent. Make sure you don´t leave the notification in Stand by if you want to send it. Stand by is used only for validation purposes. For example, you may create a Stand by notification and some other Content Manager will make the "Send on Schedule" procedure, validating your content.
• Action: is the first line of the notification as in the image examples, but you may want to use this to refer to the event, eg "New video added", "Participate in the questionnaire", "New chart available"
• Message:is the second line of the message as in the image examples, and you may explain the content you are adding. eg "Summer camp 2022 images", "Questions about productivity", "Sales data from March 2022"
• Punch line: is the call to action and it´s viewed only inside the feed bar as in the image example, you may write something like "Check it now", "Give you answer before June", "Check the info now!"
• Schedule: is the time and date for the notification to be sent, its default value is "NOW" on the date of your computer but you may set it to a future date.
• Timezone: default is your time zone, but this setting will make the schedule date selected before to be in that time zone. So if you want to send a notification at 10:00 New York time you should select America/new_york, if you are in a different timezone.
• Link To Slide: this is very important; you should select the "slide" that this notification refers to, so if you are referring to "Summer Camp" in the notification, for example, you should select the slide "Video Summer camp". If you don´t select this, users will be redirected to the first slide and it will be confusing.

Check notification progress

You can press the reload button as many times as you want to check the progress.

Examples

Corporate news: Create a single zone emission

Create a broadcast width single zone

Steps to create a single zone playlist in a Broadcast:

1. Create a Broadcast from the Broadcasts menu
2. Choose a Broadcast name and a Department
   
3. Inside the BroadcastsDashboard, create a Playlist: click the "Create Playlist" button:
   
4. Choose the resolution:
   
5. Hit the Create button and the playlist will be created
6. Click "Manage Playlist":
   
7. Add files from My Files or Widgets
   

Populate with 4-5 slides with 10-20s

Add some more Files or Widgets and adjust slide time

Generate daily news auto-notifications

1. Create a Schedule to the desired day by clicking the Schedule button
   
2. Create the desired Schedule:
   

1. Go back to Broadcast Dashboard by clicking the breadcrumb link
   
2. Click Manage Notifications
   
3. On the Manage Notifications screen click the "New" button:
   
4. Fill out the popup form with the notification data
   

1. State: select Send on Schedule to schedule the notification
2. Schedule: choose the date and hour of the notification; if you want to send in a different Timezone choose the desired Timezone
3. Link to Slide: choose the same slide that you chose to Schedule,on point 1, above.

1. Hit Create and the Notification will be Created
   

Corporate dashboard: Create a multiple zone news/dashboard

Create a Broadcast with multiple zones

1. Create a Broadcast from the Broadcasts menu
2. Choose a Broadcast name and a Department
   
3. Inside the Broadcasts Dashboard create a Playlist: click the "Create Playlist" button:
   
4. Choose the resolution:
   
5. Add more Zones and adjust size
   
6. Hit the create button and the playlist will be created

Concept of main zone

In a playlist with more than one zone, the concept of the main zone is introduced. When a playlist has more than one zone, the contents are displayed in its zones independently, and to set the duration of the playlist a main zone is needed to control that time; this is the zone that sets the end of the playlist and gives the instruction to do the playlist loop

By default the first zone you create is the main zone, but the main zone can be changed while editing the playlist. If you want to change the main zone, choose the new zone you want to be main:

The zone will open and the zone menu on the top will be available, click the menu, choose "Set this as main zone" and the main zone of the playlist will change:

Use of multiple zone widgets/bars

You can use Widgets in more than one zone at the same time, just drag and drop the Widgets to the zone you want.

Populate main zone

To add files to the main zone simply click the main zone on the "Manage Playlist" screen

Drag and drop Files or Widgets:

Populate secondary zones (bottom bar)

To add Files or Widgets to the other zones, click the Zones tab or choose zone from the zone menu to change to another zone:

Add Files or Widgets to the other zones:

After adding content to all the zones, the playlist will look like this:

Create notifications based on main zone schedule

You can follow the same method from the previous section Generate auto-notifications per day of news