Content Delegation

The Administrator is in overall system control of the Channel but he/she may delegate control to the subsidiary Administrators (Ad-Hoc Users) of virtually all the areas of the image.

Ad-Hoc users could, for example, be given permission to alter certain text on the screen, the source of news in a ticker, the TV station in a live TV zone, the contents of a PlayList or the times at which certain Layouts should be displayed.

The amount of delegation can vary and is controlled by giving username-password pairs to the Ad-Hoc users:

Delegation	Implementation
None	No username-password pairs are given; HQ has full and total control of the content displayed at the Subsidiary sites.
Ad-Hoc	Username-password pairs with limited (Ad-Hoc) access are given; the Channel Administrator publishes default Schedules and content but expects some or all of these to be overridden on subscribing NTBs by the Ad-Hoc users. There can be a number of different Ad-Hoc users. It is possible, for example, to give control over certain text to one user and other text to a different user and thereby allow a chef to update the dinner menu but have no access to the daily notice, which is administered by a receptionist who has no access to the dinner menu.
Full	Username-password pairs with full access are given; the Subsidiary NTB subscribes to the Channel but users on-site could, in principle, terminate the subscription, use or re-design the content and even re-publish it. Note however that while the NTB remains subscribed to a Channel, it will periodically update itself against the Channel and all of the on-site changes will be lost.

Ad-Hoc delegation is achieved by the Channel Administrator through establishing:

A default Schedule (a set of Diary Entries giving time of day and day of week) and Layouts that may be overridden by an authorised Subsidiary Administrator,
Creating Layouts defining the geometry of Zones on the output displays which cannot be altered by Ad-Hoc users,
Creating PlayLists for the Zones containing special (Ad-Hoc) media items. These are Media items that have a default value (from the Publisher) but are tagged as being replaceable by the Administrator of an authorised Subscribing NTB. Once replaced by local content, the NTB will not overwrite the Subscriber's media with any new media from the Publisher. If the Channel Administrator wants to re-establish its media, he/she can either publish a PlayList that has no Ad-Hoc media items or access the subscribing NTB directly to delete the material.

The seven types of Ad-Hoc media items provided are:

Text - Text typically used to scroll across the screen. Changes made by the Ad-Hoc user are reflected as soon as the currently playing item finishes. This allows information unique to the Subsidiary site to be inserted into the Channel content, such as a visitors welcome message.
RSS News Feed - A user selected RSS news feed. Changes made by the Ad-Hoc user are reflected as soon as the currently playing item finishes. This allows Subsidiary sites to display regional or topical news items other than those being shown on the HQ screen.
TV Channel - A user selected TV Channel. Changes to the TV Channel are reflected immediately. This allows the Subsidiary site to show a TV station of choice rather than the HQ selected one.
Folder Play - A folder of content (images, animations, videos or web-pages) that is shown sequentially or randomly on the screen and can be modified simply be adding or removing files from the folder. Scheduling of the content occurs as soon as the content changes. This allows the Ad-Hoc user to upload unique content to a folder, replacing the default HQ content.
Advance To - A series of markers, known as "Rendezvous Points" can be placed within playlists and by clicking a button, the user can make the playlist jump to the Rendezvous point. This feature can be used to set up an on-demand type programme (amongst others). "Advance to Rendezvous Point" calls are reflected immediately if the playlist in which the Rendezvous points are found is current.
Layout - The entire layout can be switched to one from a pre-defined selection. Changes made by the Ad-Hoc user are reflected immediately if currently playing or when scheduled to appear.
Diary Entries - A set of time-of-day and day-of-week entries defining when the following types of event must occur: changes of Layout, display signal on/off, audio mute and un-mute. This allows the Ad-Hoc user to alter the times that these events need to take place should they differ from those at HQ. If the lunch hour, for example, differs from site to site then the lunch hour event(s) can be scheduled appropriately at each site.

Determine what content delegation is to be applied to the Channel and which users will be responsible for managing the delegated content.

For instruction on how to work with Ad-Hoc media, see the section titled "Ad-Hoc Content" near the end of this document.