Easily integrate real-time data feeds into your content
Improve your digital signage content by using real-time data feeds. These feeds constantly update live data, effectively grabbing and keeping viewers’ attention.
Include real-time data like weather forecasts, traffic reports, and business news in your digital signage templates. This encourages viewers to regularly look at your displays, increasing the chances of them engaging with your corporate messages.
Navori simplifies the integration of live data sources with its easy-to-use tool called Data Feed Manager. It is a standard feature included in the Navori Digital Signage Platform. The Data Feed Manager makes it simple to input and display various data feeds, including RSS, Media RSS, XML, Server Feed, Google Calendar, Microsoft Exchange Calendar, Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Effortlessly integrate any type of data into your template layouts using QL’s Template and Ticker Designer apps. These apps provide simple drag-and-drop tools that let you showcase real-time content, such as company news, meeting room schedules, upcoming events, and business dashboards. You can also create digital menu boards with information from external databases or directly from QL Server.
Real-time data feeds
Real-time digital signage data feeds play an important role as external sources of information and graphics. Trusted third-party data providers or your company’s databases can derive these feeds. QL Templates offer two versatile formats that make the display of data a breeze. Firstly, customizable transition effects accompany individual cells, showcasing records sequentially. Secondly, data can be efficiently arranged in organized table formats with columns and rows.
QL Templates effortlessly handle the formatting based on your specifications. The continuous updating of information ensures up-to-date data without the need for manual intervention. This streamlined process keeps your audience engaged by keeping your content fresh.
How to use media rss, xml, social media and calendar data feeds?
Traditional use of real-time data feeds involves adding live data elements into content templates. Today, content managers using QL Digital Signage Software are also able to leverage their data feeds in order to automate their digital signage workflows and content decisions:
You can use data feeds to activate any content based on live events using stored values and rules you create.
You can also use data feeds to trigger one or multiple media items based on live events using stored values and rules you create.
Live data feed refresh protocols and architecture
Data Pull: Users set QL Player’s data refresh rate for all RSS, XML, social media, and calendar feeds.
Data Push: QL Players receive QL server data feed updates whenever a user modifies the data using the QL Data Feed Manager or when a third-party application modifies the data via the QL API.
Why use QL server feeds?
QL Server feeds eliminate the need for digital signage players to make calls to third-party data providers, particularly when those providers are external to your system’s network. Furthermore, any changes made are promptly broadcasted to all your players.
Users can leverage QL Mobile to instantly publish photos and post messages to any QL Player. This feature offers significant advantages for retail stores and Quick-Service Restaurants (QSRs).
The server actively pushes data to the players whenever there is a modification. It ensures that these updates are delivered in real-time, specifically to the players that need the updated data.
You assign variables to each player via a unique technical profile and enter the information that QL’s Data Feed Manager will use to recreate the data source’s URL. So, if variable 1 assigned to a player contains the location’s longitude data, that information will appear in the URL where the [1] variable appears.
The Data Feed Manager will reconstitute each location’s full URL using each variable’s content, creating a unique URL for each location. This is a fully dynamic process. You only need to write the URL with each variable replacing the data for each location. For example, [1] for longitude, [2] for latitude, [3] for the temperature scale, and so on.
The data source, which can be any web service or server, must generate XML feeds that match the variables you created so each QL Player can reconstitute their own unique URL.
Users have the ability to define rules that determine whether specific content can be displayed on the screen, based on values obtained from external data feeds. QL’s rule-based programming feature supports multiple operators, allowing users to create complex scenarios for content playback. Multiple rules can also be combined for enhanced customization.
If the content is included in a scheduled playlist and the data rules are met, the content will be shown on the screen alongside other scheduled content. However, if the scenario does not meet the criteria, the content will stop playing while the remaining items in the playlist continue to play.
Using API vs. user interface to update a QL server feed?
Users who develop their code for more advanced digital signage applications can utilize the QL API. This is particularly beneficial for handling complex scenarios that cannot be accommodated by QL’s rule-based logic.
The QL API is also valuable for managing extensive data sets or automating various processes by bypassing the QL Content Manager user interface. For additional information, please refer to the QL Server API Documentation.
How to trigger content based on data value?
You can use the same method to display content based on a data feed as you do when showing content in a playlist. Simply put the content in QL’s Trigger folder, and the rule-based programming feature will act as a trigger. When the rule is true, the assigned content will be shown on the screens instead of the scheduled playlist. The content will continue playing as long as the condition remains true. However, once the condition becomes false, the content will disappear, and the scheduled playlist will resume.
For instance, if there is an alert from a fire alarm system in the data feed, QL Player will automatically display an evacuation notice on the screen. You can assign different messages for various situations such as fire, flooding, or wind damage.
