Calendar widgets

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This page is about the calendar data-driven widgets included into Elementi 2017 and later. For previous versions, see the links below.

Introduction

Elementi software features 250+ widgets, a dozen of which are designed to work with your everyday calendar tool – be it Microsoft Outlook, Office 365, Google Calendar etc. Elementi widgets are a simple way to easily connect your calendar data to a digital signage display that anyone can manage: a dedicated technical person or an assistant. Simply updating the calendar you use on a daily basis will update the content displayed on the screen.

Use the Elementi calendar widgets for any industry sector and across any organization size – from a startup to a large corporation. Here are just a few examples of how you can put your calendar widget to use at best:

  • Hospitality
    If you are running a hotel, an events company or a travel agency, a calendar widget can help you: promote hotel services, guide events’ attendees, inform about locally organized events.
  • Corporate
    Empower your employees and streamline your day-to-day dynamics by: displaying meeting room availability, keeping track of project deadlines, reminding staff about birthdays, promoting internal and community events.
  • Education
    Use the Elementi calendar widgets to: display upcoming visits, events and ceremonies from your yearly calendar, inform students and staff about upcoming sports activities, promote special events and parent-teacher meetings to public, staff, and students.
  • Healthcare
    When lives are on the line, making use of time efficiently and effectively matters most. Use the Elementi calendar widgets to: inform patients and staff about doctors’ availability, display information about upcoming medical procedures at specific locations, reduce perceived waiting time by showing upcoming patient scheduled appointments.

Getting started

Getting started is easy; download Elementi software, launch it and create away! Just follow the 4 quick steps below:

  1. Get Elementi.
  2. Open Elementi and on the main window, click on the "Widgets" tab.
  3. Scroll down and open the "Calendars" folder. Pick a widget.
  4. Include that widget into your content and configure it.

Calendar widgets

Elementi software comes with several calendar widgets accessible from "Widgets" tab within the Browse panel of the Elementi GUI.

Calendar widgets
  • Events
    Display the calendar events in a ready to use predefined layout.
  • Monthly Events
    Display all the calendar events of the current month, grouped by day, using a ready to use predefined layout.
  • Weekly Events
    Display all the calendar events of the current week, grouped by day, using a ready to use predefined layout.
  • Text Bar
    Displays text content using a fixed number of lines and applying a bottom-to-top & line-by-line scrolling effect whenever the entire text doesn't fit into the widget area.
  • Text Ticker
    Displays text content using a continuous horizontal scrolling effect. The font size is adjusted automatically for the text to fit into the widget area.
  • Text Roll
    Displays text content using a continuous vertical scrolling effect. The font size is adjusted automatically for the selected number of lines to fit into the predefined area.
  • Slideshow
    Displays slides composed of text & media layers, which are automatically filled out with data retrieved from the calendar. The slides are displayed one after another, with or without a transition effect in between, similarly to a playlist.
  • Horizontal Table, Vertical Table, Table
    Displays slides composed of multiple cells of text & media layers, which are automatically filled out with data retrieved from the calendar. The slides are displayed one after another, with or without a transition effect in between, similarly to a playlist.
  • Daily Events
    Displays a limited number of events, grouped by weekday of up to a maximum 10 consecutive days - by default, up to three events for the next three days, including today, are shown.
Note Note:
The support for displaying event image attachments has been added in DSOS 4.7.5 and Elementi 2021 Update 9.

Events

Events widget

The "Events" widget allows you to display a set of events in a configurable table layout.

Events widget properties

The following properties, found under "Properties" tab, can be used to customize the widget:

  • Data
    Click the Data Feed Properties button to open the Data Properties dialog and set up the data source.
  • Locale
    Select the locale used for displaying dates and numbers.
  • Slide duration
    Enter the number of seconds each slide is displayed on the screen.
  • Transition
    Click on the Transition Properties button to select a transition effect and its properties.
  • Looping
    Select whether the widget ends after the last slide or loops to the first one.
  • Number of rows
    Enter the number of rows of data to display on a single slide.
  • Number of columns
    Enter the number of columns of data to display on a single slide.
  • Delay per cell
    Enter the number of seconds to wait before displaying the next cell of data.

Monthly Events

Monthly Events widget

The "Monthly Events" widget let you display all the event of the current month, grouped by day.

Monthly Events widget properties

The following properties, found under "Properties" tab, can be used to customize the widget:

  • Data / Data source
    Click on the Data Properties button to edit the properties related to the data source from where the items are retrieved.
  • Locale
    Select the locale used for displaying dates and numbers.
  • Slide duration
    Enter the number of seconds each slide is displayed on the screen.
  • Transition
    Click on the Transition Properties button to select a transition effect and its properties.
  • Looping
    Select whether the widget ends after the last slide or loops to the first one.
  • Number of columns
    Enter the number of columns of data to display on a single slide.
  • Number of events
    Enter the maximum number of events to display for each column.
  • Days: Events
    Enter the maximum number of events to display for a given day.
  • Days: Slide duration
    If there are more than the above number of event for a single day, enter the number of seconds each group of events is displayed on the screen. This number should be inferior to the overall slide duration for all the events to be displayed.
  • Headers: Show header
    Select whether the widget has a header or not.
  • Headers: Text
    Select the text of the header to be displayed.

Weekly Events

Weekly Events widget

The "Weekly Events" widget let you display all the event of the current week, grouped by day.

Weekly Events widget properties

The following properties, found under "Properties" tab, can be used to customize the widget:

  • Data / Data source
    Click on the Data Properties button to edit the properties related to the data source from where the items are retrieved.
  • Locale
    Select the locale used for displaying dates and numbers.
  • Slide duration
    Enter the number of seconds each slide is displayed on the screen.
  • Transition
    Click on the Transition Properties button to select a transition effect and its properties.
  • Looping
    Select whether the widget ends after the last slide or loops to the first one.
  • Number of columns
    Enter the number of columns of data to display on a single slide.
  • Number of events
    Enter the maximum number of events to display for each column.
  • Days: Events
    Enter the maximum number of events to display for a given day.
  • Days: Slide duration
    If there are more than the above number of event for a single day, enter the number of seconds each group of events is displayed on the screen. This number should be inferior to the overall slide duration for all the events to be displayed.
  • Headers: Show header
    Select whether the widget has a header or not.
  • Headers: Text
    Select the text of the header to be displayed.

Configuration

Each of the widgets above can be customized using the options provided under "Properties" tab - for more details, see the dedicated page of each widget type, linked above.

Data source setup

To edit the properties related to the data source, click the Data Properties button. This opens the "Data Properties" dialog, which offers different parameters depending on the selected data source type (further called channel).

Calendar widgets - ICS file channel

Here are the parameters that are common to all channels:

  • Channel
    Select the calendar data source type between: ICS File (default), Google Calendar, Outlook Online, Facebook Events
  • Max count
    Enter the maximum number of events to be kept from the data set (starting from the first row).
  • Refresh
    Specify the period (5m, 10m, ... , 24h) after which the widget should try to automatically refresh the data. You can also enter this as a number followed by s (implicit), m or h; the minimum refresh value is 10 seconds for ICS channel and 60 seconds for the others. This is useful when the widget is running in a loop.
    Select "When document opens" when the widget is periodically opened from an external document (playlist, layout etc.) and automatic data refresh is not needed.
  • Starts
    Specify the starting date and time for the data to be displayed. No events before this date will be included in the final data set. The following options are possible:
    • Date
      Specify an absolute date / time for filtering the data.
    • Relative
      Select a date relative to the moment when the calendar data is parsed, such as: "Now", "Today", "Yesterday", "This Monday", "Current Month", "Last Year" etc.
    • Custom
      Specify a starting date using a custom date string. This option is only available in Elementi X.
  • Ends
    Specify the ending date / time for the data to be displayed. No events after this date will be included in the final data set. The following options are possible:
    • Date
      Specify an absolute end date / time.
    • Relative
      Select a date relative to the moment when the data is parsed, such as: "Now", "Today", "Tomorrow", This Sunday", "Current Month", "Next Year" etc.
    • Duration
      Specify a duration relative to the starting time specified under "From".
    • Custom
      Enter an ending date using a custom date string. This option is only available in Elementi X.
    • Indefinite
      Select this when the end date doesn't matter.
Note Notes:

ICS file channel

The ICS calendar files are plain-text files containing calendaring and scheduling information using the iCalendar data format - a standard for calendar data exchange, such as events, meetings, tasks etc. Most calendar tools, like Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Apple Calendar (formerly iCal), IBM Lotus Notes, Yahoo! Calendar etc., are able to export the data as iCalendar (.ics) file.

When the channel option is set to "ICS File", the "Data Properties" dialog offers the above parameters, plus

  • URI
    Enter the URI to the ICS file - this can be a relative path into the project or a remote HTTP(S) address.

Google calendar channel

Google Calendar is a time-management web and mobile application created by Google.

Security is a fundamental element to consider when giving access to your personal data and we've created our data-driven widgets with that in mind. To ensure secure access and permission control, without exposing any user credentials, Cockpit must authorize any request for third-party data. For that, you need to do the following:
  1. Create a Cockpit account, if you don't have one.
  2. Register your Elementi license into your Cockpit account.
  3. Add your players into your Cockpit account.
  4. Connect your Google account to your Cockpit account.
See more about secure data access.
"Data Properties" dialog for calendar widgets - Google calendar channel

When the channel option is set to "Google Calendar", the "Data Properties" dialog offers the above parameters, plus

  • Account
    Select one of the connected Google accounts, or click "Connect account..." if none was previously connected.
  • Calendar
    Select the calendar from which to get the events.

Google channel connection

When selecting this channel in the "Data Properties" dialog, your existing Google accounts are automatically retrieved from Cockpit and displayed in the "Account" drop-down box. If you need to connect a new account, follow these steps:

  1. Select "Connect account..." option .
  2. Click the link displayed within the "Connect account..." dialog to open it in a browser.
  3. If you are not signed into your Cockpit account, you are asked to do that.
  4. Cockpit then checks that your Elementi license is registered into your Cockpit account; if not, you are asked to do that.
  5. You are then redirected to the Google website. Log into your account there, if you are not already.
  6. Then, you need to authorize the SpinetiX app to access the specified information of your Google account.
  7. Once done, you are redirected back to Cockpit channels page and you can find your account listed under "Connected Accounts".
  8. Then, return to Elementi and click the "OK" button within the "Connect Account..." dialog.
  9. The list of accounts is refreshed and you can select the new one from the "Account" drop-down box.
Note Notes:

Outlook Online channel

Outlook Online is part of the Microsoft Office suite of applications, servers, and services developed by Microsoft.

Security is a fundamental element to consider when giving access to your personal data and we've created our data-driven widgets with that in mind. To ensure secure access and permission control, without exposing any user credentials, Cockpit must authorize any request for third-party data. For that, you need to do the following:
  1. Create a Cockpit account, if you don't have one.
  2. Register your Elementi license into your Cockpit account.
  3. Add your players into your Cockpit account.
  4. Connect your Outlook Online account to your Cockpit account.
See more about secure data access.
"Data Properties" dialog for calendar widgets - Outlook Online channel

When the channel option is set to "Outlook Online", the "Data Properties" dialog offers the above parameters, plus

  • Account
    Select one of the connected Microsoft online accounts, or click "Connect account..." if none was previously connected.
  • Calendar
    Select the calendar from which to get the events.

Outlook Online channel connection

When selecting this channel in the "Data Properties" dialog, your existing Microsoft accounts are automatically retrieved from Cockpit and displayed in the "Account" drop-down box. If you need to connect a new account, follow these steps:

  1. Select "Connect account..." option .
  2. Click the link displayed within the "Connect account..." dialog to open it in a browser.
  3. If you are not signed into your Cockpit account, you are asked to do that.
  4. Cockpit then checks that your Elementi license is registered into your Cockpit account; if not, you are asked to do that.
  5. You are then redirected to the Microsoft website. Log into your account there, if you are not already.
  6. Then, you need to authorize the SpinetiX app to access the specified information of your Microsoft account.
  7. Once done, you are redirected back to Cockpit channels page and you can find your account listed under "Connected Accounts".
  8. Then, return to Elementi and click the "OK" button within the "Connect Account..." dialog.
  9. The list of accounts is refreshed and you can select the new one from the "Account" drop-down box.
Note Notes:
  • The Microsoft online account can be disconnected at any time from Cockpit from the "Channels" page.
  • The support for event attachments (images) has been added in DSOS 4.7.4 and Elementi 2021 Update 8.

Facebook events channel

Starting with April 4, 2018, Facebook decided to immediately disable some capabilities, which resulted in the lost of the capability to retrieve Facebook events.

Troubleshooting

  • Displaying a calendar takes some time, freezes or even triggers an HMP restart (or safe mode).
    Most probably the calendar file has grown too much and the HMP requires too much time to parse it - if so, the quickest solution is to remove all the past events from the calendar.
  • Multiscreen usage.
    These widgets can only be used on a single screen when creating a multiscreen project; for multiple screens, a data feed widget must be used instead.
  • Publish error in Elementi 2020: Firmware not compatible - Firmware version on the device ( 3.x ) is too old. Version 3.4.8 required.
    The calendar widgets from Elementi 2020 are not compatible with older firmware versions of HMP200, HMP130, and HMP100 players.

See also

This page was last modified on 5 February 2024, at 11:43.