We understand how managing multiple pieces of media one by one can become a challenge, Channels help overcome this with a seamless and intuitive approach to strategizing how and when to display your media. You can learn more by reading ScreenCloud's blog post on "The Power of Using Digital Signage Channels for Your Audience" here.
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Please note, if you're having any challenges while using Channels then click here to view ScreenCloud's Channel Troubleshooting Guide.

Channels function similarly to a TV channel, giving you the ability to group and organize content in a meaningful way, by theme, usage, department, topic, or any other way you'd like.

This is useful for digital signage in the following scenarios:

For instance, an organization creates a channel that has different playlists or pieces of media scheduled to run on certain days of the week. The channel can also be divided into zones (i.e. split sections of your screen) layouts so that one section of the screen can display Playlist A, while the other part of the screen displays Playlist B.

You can also use channels to give every team a voice, for instance, if you have multiple offices you can provide a corporate playlist that each office can add to their own channel, giving them the power to mix content from headquarters with departments or location-specific messaging.

Example A - Location-Based Channels

Example B - Department-Based Channels

Each playlist can also be scheduled to run at specific times and date ranges per zones (i.e. the split sections of the screen). Please note: pre-set templates for zone layouts are available for you to choose from when you set up channels.
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2.1. Get started by visiting the Channels section from the left-hand navigation of your ScreenCloud account.

2.2. Select Create New Channel to select a template, enter a name for your channel, and then click Continue.

​2.3. Next, you will be able to choose between landscape (by default) or portrait mode. This also depends on whether the hardware you're using to run ScreenCloud's digital signage app supports both landscape and/or portrait mode. If you'd like to review which devices support switching between orientation modes with ScreenCloud, please click here. Click Create Channel once you've decided on your channel's orientation.

​2.4. Your Channel is now created, and you can add content or adjust its zone layouts! However, before we move on to those steps, you might want to change the channel's cover photo to an image or perhaps another color. Click Settings and the edit or pencil icon of the channels cover image under Change Cover.

​i) Image: Upload an image with the many file management services available, or directly from your computer. You will then be prompted to crop the image to fit the channel cover dimensions size. You can refer to ScreenCloud's supported file types for more information on image files supported here if you have any trouble uploading an image.

ii) Color: Use the color-selector tool to pick a color to represent the channel.

​2.5. When you are happy with your image or color for your Channel cover, simply click X. Your new Channel is now ready for some content! Please continue below to learn about all the ways you can organize and display content with your channel and for your screens.

There are a handful of useful features and tools you can use here to begin building, testing, and sharing your channels. Continue below to learn all about these options

To learn how to take over any of your screens with a channel immediately, please visit here for instructions on casting channels using ScreenCloud.

When you first create your channel, you're greeted on screen with a prompt to "Add Content" along with the settings panel on the right-hand side of your screen. Click on "Add Content" to access the Media Picker.

Media picker: using the media picker, you can select between any of the playlists, media you've uploaded, links/websites added, or apps that have been installed on your ScreenCloud account. This gives you the ability to select any range of content you'd like.

Toggle between Playlists, Media, Links & Apps in the sidebar to choose which content to upload.

You can set up content to run on specific a specific day, time, or date range you'd like.

i) Schedule days, times, or a date range: For any content you've imported from the media picker you can customize specific ranges for how and when the content displays. By default, the content is set to "Every day", you can click on this area to use the channel scheduling tool.

Any days of the week that are shaded in blue indicate what has been selected for when the content is scheduled to play.

Any days of the week displayed or selected by clicking the day you'd like to turn off from displaying on the screen will display in white.

After sorting which days of the week for your content, you can set up if you'd like the content to also display at a specific set of time(s) or date ranges. You can set this up by entering new time slots. Please note, depending on your web browser region locale that the time slots will display differently. For example, EN-US will display the clock in AM/PM and the date format is MM-DD-YYYY. EN-UK will display in 24-hour military time and the date format is DD-MM-YYYY.

When scheduling content, you can set certain items or playlists as a priority, which will have them override any other scheduled content during that same time. This is useful if there's a specific piece of content of importance on the channel you're looking to display at selected times. For example, this could be useful for holiday messages or important notices.

Once the content is set as a priority, it will trigger a red status indicator to keep you notified of this as a reminder that it'll be the content displayed for any dates or times booked for the content to run.

Please note, that setting multiple pieces of priority content will cause all of the content to play chronologically from your channel and override playing other content set at the same time. For instance, if you set an MP4 video to play for five minutes at a specific time (e.g. 8 am-815 am) but have other priority content to play at the same time then the system will play all of the content in sequential order. The feature works by playing through all of the priority content set at the same time, it is also possible to run out of time before reaching the target content depending on the time allotted in your schedule.

As you schedule your content, you also can arrange the order within, where you can select to either randomize or sequence your content playback. This requires that the content is first set within a playlist, and this can be set in your channel.
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Please see Dynamic Play: Randomize or sequence the order of your content in your playlist to learn more.

Under the Choose Layout window, you can now select from pre-set templates available and click "Select" to set this to your Channel.

Please note: not all of the services from ScreenCloud's App Store have the ability to automatically resize or work in smaller/altered zone layouts that aren't full-screen. To learn more click here to view which apps are supported in different zone layout options.
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If you select Customize, you'll be greeted by a CSS custom code editor that can be edited to adjust the pixel sizing of your zone layout. To learn how to use this feature to create your own zone layout, please see ScreenCloud CSS & Zone Layout Guide.

Once you select a zone layout, you can switch between the zones while editing your channel to assign specific media to that section of your screen. For example, if I've selected a two-zone layout, I can switch between them respectively to edit and add content using the media picker (e.g. Zone 1 to edit one portion of the screen, Zone 2 to start editing the other portion of the screen).

Visit the right-hand channel tool and select the "Settings" option.

From here, you can change the cover template of your channel. This prompts you to select a color or upload an image you'd like to use as the display cover for your channel.

You can also theme and brand your channel by clicking on "Theme" and selecting any you've created from themes. Please visit our instructions for the version two platform on how to theme or brand your digital signage content here.

You can also set a channel as the default display for screens that are newly added to your account. Please note that only the owner and administrators of a ScreenCloud account can do this under the organization page.

To duplicate a channel, click the copy or duplicate button, depicted as two squares, as seen below.

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This will take you to the new channel immediately, with the new channel having a name preceded by "Copy of", for example, "Copy of (channel name)". Other than the name change, the channel will contain all of the same content, scheduling, and settings.
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Please note, when creating a duplicate of a collaborative shared channel (A channel shared from another space with the "Can Play and Add Local Content" setting), the duplicate channel will only exist as long as the original channel also does. For more information on this, please see Sharing Channels Between Spaces.

Requires a second space in your account.
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To duplicate a Channel to another Space, you can select the Duplicate to Another Space option as you select the copy or duplicate icon.

Simply choose which Space or Spaces you'd like to duplicate it to, and click Continue.

A temporary Channel will appear in the current space as the task is performed, but this will disappear as soon as the task is complete. Please note that this may take some time.

Once complete, you will notice new media in your other space.

The duplicated channel will contain names such as:

For content within, such as Playlists and apps, they will instead be named:

For media, such as image, video, and document files, these will keep their original name, but they will be located in a newly created folder according to how they were copied.

The same rule applies if you are duplicating a Playlist as well.

Once you've set up your content and schedules in your channel, you can select the play icon at the top right corner of the channel tools to preview how the content displays live. You can also access the "Preview" while hovering over any of your channels while visiting the "Channels" section of your account.

Please note, that the preview feature only displays what is scheduled to display on the screen at the time set up. If some of your content is scheduled for a week, you won't see this in the Channel preview until that time has been reached. You can also preview any content in the media section individually.

The previewer also gives you information on the type of content is displayed at the bottom of the screen. In this example, it's displaying "Office Clock" and categorizing it from the app store as a reference.

From the top right-hand menu of your channel, you can select "Publish" to finalize and push any changes you've made to a channel live automatically. You can also discard any changes before publishing your channel live to double-check or add/remove any new pieces of content by selecting the downward arrow on the "Publish" button, including the last date and time this channel was published live.

Visit the “Channels” section of your account and click on any of your existing channels. From here, you'll be presented with the Channel Preview. You can click on "Edit Channel" from here to edit the content assigned to your channel and zone layouts.

Custom resolutions give you the ability to customize your resolution parameters. It provides the flexibility to add almost any resolution for your end-display digital signage device. You can learn more about setting up custom resolutions with ScreenCloud by clicking here.

You can control transitions between content for each zone layout you're using for a channel. You can activate this feature while customizing a zone from the right-hand toolbar by turning the "Enable Transition" toggle on. Once this is turned on, you can use the drop-down to select a transition effect, set duration in seconds for the effect, and set a transition color using the color picker tool if you'd like as well.

Please note, if you're using zone layouts then transitions need to be added for each zone. You can do this by using the zone selector to switch between sections of your screen and apply transitions as you see fit. For example, if you're using a two-zone layout (Main + Footer) you would have to switch to the other zone to enable transitions for your content.

You can share any Channels created between Spaces (i.e. a collection of screens, content, and media between teams) that are segmented in your ScreenCloud account. You can do this by clicking on the "Share" icon while viewing, previewing, or editing your channels to set permissions between Spaces (i.e. teams) that can access Channels you've created. You can create a view-only channel or a collaborative share channel that contains content from the original channel, but where the recipient space can also add content.

You can click the "Share" icon wherever available in your "Channels" section to set sharing permissions. Please note, that only account owners and administrators have full rights and privileges to set permissions.

You can also click on the "Share" icon while previewing or editing a channel.

Please see Sharing Channels Between Spaces to learn more.

You can use a hidden zone in Channels to play music while displaying content to your digital screens called "Background Audio". This is useful for playing tunes, audio, and media alongside your content. This feature supports MP3 file uploads or apps (i.e. YouTube, Vimeo) in which you would like to play the audio from in the background of your display.

Please note due to general autoplay policy restrictions on web browsers that the sound might not play automatically while previewing from your account. The audio will play correctly on your screens.

For example, you can click on the drop-down menu to switch between your zones and see that "Background Audio" is available. This allows you to switch between different sections of your screen to set up and schedule content for the zones. While switching to "Background Audio" you can select "Add Content" to begin adding MP4 videos or streaming apps to this zone which will play audio.

You can adjust your channels, and zone sections respectively, to fill or fit images used. For example, you can use the Fill Zone or Fit to Zone feature for scaling how your images display in a zone layout. Please note that this option only displays once you've added content to your channel.

i) Fill Zone: this fills the entire zone layout with an image.

ii) Fit to Zone: this scales the image under the zone and dimensions. As you can see in the image example below, the image is not expanded or stretched to fill the entire zone layout.

If you have set up multi-zone layouts for your channels, you can also set up the full-screen switching feature to change your screen from a split to a single-zone automatically. This is useful if you would like to focus on any content in full-screen mode and then resume playing any of your content in split-screen as scheduled. This is explained in the animation pictured below. To learn more about full-screen switching please click here.

Click the three horizontal dots button to find the Delete Channel option.

Please note if you delete a channel, you'll receive a confirmation notice before you can action the delete.

4.1. Once you've published your changes or finalized the updates for your channel, visit your Screens section.

4.2. Use the drop-down to the right of any screen by selecting to choose a channel you'd like to display. Click "Browse more" to prompt the media picker.

4.3. Select "Channels", then click the channel you'd like to use and press the yellow "Confirm" button to set the channel to your screen.

4.4. The channel is now live on your digital screens!

You can also learn about screen casting here.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully created your first channel in ScreenCloud. Channels are the heart of managing your content across digital screens, allowing you to efficiently schedule, zone, and theme your displays. Now that you have your channel set up, you can start adding content and customizing it to meet your needs. Don’t forget to explore additional features like content scheduling and zone management to get the most out of your channel.