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Scheduling Made Simple: Automate Your Display Content with Playlists and Calendars

IntelDisplay Team
#scheduling#playlists#automation#product

Uploading content to a screen is the easy part. The real power of digital signage comes from scheduling — making sure the right content appears on the right screen at the right time, without anyone needing to manually make it happen.

IntelDisplay’s scheduling engine is designed to handle everything from simple “play this all day” setups to complex multi-daypart, multi-location configurations. Here’s how to use it effectively.

Playlists: Your Content Building Blocks

Before you schedule anything, you need playlists. A playlist is an ordered sequence of media items — images, videos, or a mix — that plays in a loop. Think of it as a channel: you build the playlist once, and it repeats until you change it.

Creating a playlist in IntelDisplay is straightforward:

  1. Go to the Playlists section in the management console.
  2. Create a new playlist and give it a descriptive name (e.g., “Morning Promotions” or “Lobby Welcome Loop”).
  3. Add media items from your library. For images, set the display duration for each (e.g., 10 seconds). Videos play for their full length automatically.
  4. Arrange items in your preferred order using drag-and-drop.

You can create unlimited playlists on any plan — there’s no cap on how many you build or how many media items they contain.

Basic Scheduling: One Playlist, Always Playing

The simplest setup is assigning a single playlist to a display. The playlist loops continuously from the moment you assign it. This works well for:

No schedule configuration needed — just assign and go.

Daypart Scheduling: Time-Based Content Rotation

For most businesses, different times of day call for different content. A restaurant shows breakfast items in the morning and lunch items at noon. A retail store promotes flash sales during peak hours and brand content during quiet periods. An office lobby displays meeting schedules during business hours and a welcome message after hours.

IntelDisplay supports recurring scheduling rules that let you define exactly when each playlist plays. You can set:

The system evaluates these rules automatically and switches content at the defined times. No manual intervention required.

Handling Conflicts with Priority

What happens when two schedules overlap? This is a common scenario — for example, a “Holiday Promotion” schedule might overlap with the regular “Daily Specials” schedule during December.

IntelDisplay resolves conflicts using a priority system. Each schedule entry has a priority level, and when multiple schedules are active at the same time, the highest-priority one wins. This means you can layer schedules confidently:

When the high-priority schedule ends, the system automatically falls back to the next applicable schedule. No gaps, no manual switching.

Multi-Display Scheduling

If you manage multiple screens, you can assign different schedules to each display or apply the same schedule across several displays at once. This is managed entirely from the web console — you don’t need to touch the physical devices.

For businesses with screens in different time zones, each display follows its own local time for scheduling. A schedule set to play from 9 AM to 5 PM will respect the local time of each display, regardless of where you are when you create it.

Practical Scheduling Patterns

Here are a few common scheduling setups to get you started:

Restaurant with dayparts: Create four playlists (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Late Night). Set recurring schedules for each daypart with appropriate time windows. Use the overnight span feature for the late-night playlist.

Retail with weekly promotions: Create a “Weekly Deals” playlist that updates each Monday. Schedule it to play during store hours (e.g., 9 AM – 9 PM daily). Set a “Brand Content” playlist as the default for after-hours display.

Corporate lobby: Schedule a “Meeting Room Availability” playlist for business hours and a “Company Brand” playlist for evenings and weekends. Add a high-priority “Event Welcome” playlist for specific dates when visitors are expected.

Let the System Do the Work

The goal of scheduling is to set it and forget it. Once your playlists and schedules are configured, IntelDisplay manages everything automatically. Content switches on time, priorities resolve conflicts, and your displays stay current without daily attention.

Spend your time creating great content, and let the scheduling engine handle the logistics. Get started with IntelDisplay and see how simple automated signage can be.

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