No matter how professional your Digital Signage looks. No matter how efficient your software, the negative impact of an out of order screen can be devastating to your business. 
The Signage monitor solution is designed to provide you with a complete set of tools you will need to remote support any number of Digital Signage screens installed. in the field. Remote Digital Signage management is achieved by two technologies working together and utilising our 100% available server network which monitors your screens and alerts you in case of problems.
Simply use the System Watchdog to protect your Digital Signage players, and Site Manager on your helpdesk PCs in your operations centre (Head office or NOC).
The Operating System is secured and protected by the System Watchdog with automatic recovery to ensure it is operating 24/7, and a regular heartbeat from your screens is monitored by the network to identify any issues and report them immediately to your team. Using the Site Manager software, your team can access all the information (including audit trails, log files and other information you need to quickly identify issues and resolve them). Integrated tools provide secure remote connections to your Digital Signage for remote desktop control, file transfers and running applications, even when installed behind firewalls or when using mobile (3G/4G/EDGE) technologies.
Unlike most other and possibly better known solutions which started life as remote desktop solutions for home PCs, Signage Monitor has been designed and developed specifically with Digital Signage in mind. For over 10 years, and now operating in more than 18,000 screens worldwide, the Signage Monitor technology is constantly monitoring, maintaining and securing your screens to reduce downtime, reduce operating costs, and therefore guarantee your return on your investment. By instantly informing you of any support issues, your support staff can quickly identify the problems, view historical information to identify the sequence of events leading up to the issue, and then use the secure Remote Access functions to resolve the problems and get your screens operational.
Available as a Software-Plus-Service technology, simply pay for what you need, and ensure your Digital Signage screens are working for you 24/7.
Our Philosophy
Prevention
Residing on the player PCs is the protective System Watchdog application which prevents users from accessing and damaging the Operating System (OS) and application. The operating system is ‘locked down’ to prevent access to data, programs and potential security risks (especially useful for devices which can be accessed by public or staff). Any ‘banned’ programs are prevented from starting and also, pro-active monitoring of key applications, devices and systems ensure that the kiosk remains operational. If an support engineer arrives on-site, this lockdown and security can be quickly unlocked simply by typing a configurable secure key sequence (no password box appears).
Recovery
If anything untoward occurs (e.g. application resource issues, application failures, device failures or impeding failure, etc), this is logged and whenever possible, the System Watchdog will automatically take remedial action to make the system operational again. Programs and key services which fail are automatically restarted or, if this doesn't resolve the issues, the computer is restarted automatically. Interaction with hardware watchdog devices and other supported hardware (e.g. LCD/Plasma screens, etc) is performed by the use of plugins allowing specific devices to be managed. In some circumstances, the player computer can also be configured to automatically repair itself to a prior known working state.
Reporting
To ensure you know what is happening, everything which occurs on every computer in your rollout is logged and sent back to the central server network. This is used against pattern-matching systems to alert the appropriate support staff of anything they wish to know about, via the Web, the software tool (Site Manager), via Email, and via SMS text message. Also, every detail of the player computers are held on the servers to ensure that the support staff can see everything they need to identify the sequence of events leading up to a failure, even if the device itself is uncontactable or has failed.
Support
Built into the system is a tracked remote access system. In the event of an exception occurring, the support staff responsible can take ownership of the ticket raised and then securely remotely connect to the digital sign (either through configurable inbound TCP-ports or via a tunnelling system). If just viewing the screen, support staff can just monitor the operability of the player, or if support is required, they can take control of the player computer remotely (blanking the screen in the process to prevent viewers from seeing the operations), or even transfer files, run remote DOS commands and view connected webcams. If the Digital Signage Monitoring system is used for updating applications or making changes, the changes made can be saved in a script file and the Multicast function allows you to rollout the same changes to multiple computers at a click of a button (with rollback functionality if required).
Management
To allow your support staff to monitor the estate of kiosks and quickly identify and resolve issues, the Site Manager software provides a number of tools which let them do this all within one application. By using this tool, they are able to log into the Server network and, depending upon their access rights, are able to see Digital Signage players they are supporting and responsible for. A variety of useful information is shown for each device, including uptime, memory, HD space, screenshot, audit trail, past tickets, etc. A Built-in ticketing system enables the player status to be managed and tracked against guaranteed SLA times, and previous ticket resolutions can be viewed for knowledge base information and patterns. If using in combination with an existing ticketing system, the system can either use structured Emails, or specific secure interfaces between the systems can be used.
