What is a digital signage CMS, and what should you check before you buy one?

What a digital signage CMS does

CMS stands for content management system. In digital signage, it is the console that sits between the people who make content and the screens that show it. A media player at each screen receives the content and plays it, and the CMS tells the player what to play and when.

Without a CMS, files tend to travel on USB sticks and by email, and head office cannot be sure which version a branch is showing. A signage CMS does four jobs: design, schedule, publish and monitor. Products differ in how well each job fits the way your team works.

Nexus Signage covers all four in one console. Teams design, schedule and publish content to screens across every location, and see what each screen is playing.

Design: templates, brand and screen shapes

Screens come in different shapes, and content made for a landscape screen rarely works on a portrait one. Check whether people outside the design team can start from a template instead of a blank canvas.

Nexus Signage provides templates and a visual designer for landscape, portrait or custom canvas sizes. Opening a template creates an editable copy, so the original in the gallery stays unchanged. Organisations can add their own templates for their teams to start from. Each save creates a version, and the version history lists them for review. For Arabic content, the font picker offers Arabic-ready fonts for right-to-left text.

Schedule: playlists and time slots

Most screen content belongs to a time slot. A breakfast menu plays in the morning, and a campaign runs for one month. A schedule sets this in advance, so nobody has to change screens by hand.

In Nexus Signage, playlists set the timing of each item and can be previewed before they are published. Schedules run by date range, weekday and daily play time. Calendar and timeline views show what is scheduled, and overlapping items are flagged.

Publish: groups, tags and permissions

Across many sites, publishing screen by screen does not scale. Look for a way to target a whole region, site type or department at once. Also check that the people who create content can be kept separate from the people who publish it.

Nexus Signage publishes to single screens or whole groups, and organises screens by group, tag and map. Predefined and custom roles mean that people who create content need not be the people who publish it.

Monitor: knowing what each screen is showing

A dark screen, or one still showing last month's offer, is easy to miss from head office. Your team should be able to see each screen's status without visiting the site.

In list, grid or map view, Nexus Signage shows every screen's live or offline state and its current content. If a screen loses its internet connection, it keeps playing the content it last received.

Questions for IT: players, deployment and scope

IT teams usually ask which players the software runs on, where it is hosted, and what is outside its scope.

Nexus Signage runs on Android, Windows, Samsung Tizen and LG webOS players, and in a web browser. The exact models and operating system versions are confirmed for your estate. You choose cloud or on-premises deployment for Nexus Signage, and we confirm the deployment design with your IT team. Nexus Signage manages each display as a screen; multi-panel video-wall playback is not part of the scope we present.

Before you choose: a short checklist

• Build one real piece of content in each screen shape you use.
• Schedule a week of content and see how overlaps are shown.
• Publish to a group of screens, and confirm who is allowed to do it.
• Disconnect a test screen and check what it plays.
• Ask IT to confirm the player hardware and the deployment option.
• Agree in writing what is outside the scope before you sign.