Fusion:Programs

Introduction

A Fusion Program is a sequential playlist of media items. To have your content displayed on the screen, you need to create and activate a Program first. You can have as many programs as you want within Fusion, but only one of them can be visible on the screen at any given time - the Active Program.

You can create several programs in advance and simply activate one of them when needed. For instance, you can create the Program for next week, month year etc. or the evacuation instructions program to be displayed only on emergency situations.

Programs management

Programs management

Programs are managed from the Programs section, accessible by clicking on the item with the same name from the top menu.

The following actions are available:

• Program creation;
• Program activation;
• Program editing;
• Program deletion;
• Program scheduling.

Notes:

• The actions above are available according to the user's role. For instance, an user with Scheduler or Editor role can only activate Programs.
• You can edit the Active Program or manage all the Programs directly from the entry page of Fusion (after logging in) by clicking on (the "Go" button) inside the corresponding box.

Program creation

Program creation

To create a Program within Fusion, follow these steps:

1. Click on "Programs" link on the top menu.
2. Click on the "New" button.
3. Set the default duration (using hh:mm:ss format) for the entire Program. This acts as a minimum duration for any new item added to the Program.
4. Drag & drop media items (images, videos, hypermedia projects, playlists or slides) from the tab(s) on the right-side pane into the Program playlist at the desired position.
   • You can also use the left-arrow button next to the media item to place it at the end of the Program list.
   • A Program can contain only a limited number of items due to browsers' limitation regarding the maximum length of an HTTP call - this limit is around 99 items when the default names are used for the items (e.g., Media 1, Media 2 etc.), but it can be less if longer names are used. If you hit this limit, simply group some of the media items into one or more playlists.
5. If needed, change the duration of a particular item from the Program or its order (with the up / down icons or the drag & drop functionality).
6. Once done, click on the "Save" button.
7. Enter a name (maximum 20 characters) for the Program in the "New Program" pop-up and then click on the "Save" button.

Program activation

To activate a Program, click on (the "Activate" button) corresponding to that Program.

The Active Program will repeat itself until changed or another program is activated.

Program editing

To modify an existing Program, follow these steps:

1. Click on (the "Edit" button) corresponding to the Program you want to modify. This will open a new page.
2. Edit the Program. (See Program creation section above.)
3. Once done, click on the Save button to record the changes or the Copy button to save the modified Program under a different name.

Program deletion

To delete an existing Program, click on (the "Delete" button) corresponding to the Program you want to delete.

Note that the Active Program cannot be deleted.

Scheduling

Program Scheduling

Fusion includes a scheduling mechanism that allows you to define for each media element inside your program(s), time-related conditions to mark when the media is valid to be displayed, as following:

• Under "Dates": enter the starting date, the ending date or both.
• Under "Times": enter the starting hour, the ending hour or both.
• Under "Days": select the day(s) of the week.

With Fusion scheduling, you cannot really set the exact date and time when to star playing a media since this depends on all the media that precede it in the Program list and their specific validity. For this purpose, it's better to use a Hypermedia project created with Elementi / HMD.

• You can still use Fusion scheduling to define when that project is valid to be played.

Although the user can manually activate different programs at any time, currently there's no way to schedule the activation of programs.

Setting the schedule

To schedule any of the media items from your Program, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Programs menu.
2. Click on (the "Edit" button) next to the Program you want to modify.
3. Click on the Scheduling button (next to the Program name). You will see the "Dates", "Time" and "Days" columns for each media from the list.
4. Define the condition(s) for your media element(s). The media will be displayed only if each defined condition is met.
   • You can set one, two or all three conditions to mark when the media is valid to be displayed, however these conditions are verified individually, not as a group.
     • For instance, setting intervals for both dates and hours doesn't create a combined interval from starting hour of starting date until ending hour of ending date.
   • Both intervals (dates and hours) must be valid (ascending order), otherwise the condition will fail and the media will not be displayed at all.
   • Leaving all the days of the week unselected has the same effect as selecting all of them (e.g. the condition will be evaluated to true all the time).
5. You can click on the Apply button to go back to the Program editing view (in case you want to modify something else); otherwise go to the next step.
6. Save your changes by clicking on the Save button.

The scheduling conditions will be taken into account once the current Program has finished playing and loops at the beginning of the list.

Note:

• To temporarily "hide" a media without removing it from the Program list, you can:
  1. set the start date in the future or the end date in the past for that element;
  2. make a copy of the complete program, delete that element and activate the lighter program (the complete program can be reactivated when needed).