How to Train Your Staff to Use Digital Signage Software Effectively

As your digital signage network grows, the need for management will grow with it. At some point, you’ll find that handling the updates yourself is becoming an inefficient use of your time. It is simpler to assign that task to one or even several employees to ensure smooth operations and efficient management. We’ll run through the most important steps to ensure your employees learn the ropes quickly and properly. This info will help especially if you’re still very new to digital signage! 

Learn the ropes yourself

If you plan on educating or assigning content management responsibilities to your employees, the most important step is to learn the ins and outs of the process yourself. It is very possible you already covered this step, but we’ll go over it briefly for any business which is just now venturing into digital signage. 

For a start, learn the basics of your software: How to upload content to your platform and how to publish it. This is the foundation of content management, as everything else is built upon it. After the basics, begin experimenting with what sort of content you’d like to post, create templates, and a general idea of the content layout you wish to have. 

A topic which is often overlooked by new content creators are file specifications: file formats, dimensions, video codec, frame rates, bit rates. Not every video or image file is created equally. Here at OnSign TV we have prepared a tutorial which gives a brief overview of file specifications to take into account.

With a vision of what you want your digital signage to be, start gathering up the learning material in order to replicate the process of getting familiar with it.

Establish the learning material

Before determining who needs to learn what, make an overview of the information which needs to be given. The preparation stage may involve something as simple as a brief checklist for your employees to go over, or an in-depth learning path happening across weeks of active training.

Maybe you only need your employees to tweak the pricing for your menu boards or sales promos according to your instructions, or update an ad banner. This level of content management won’t require more than noting down the steps to do this.

On the other end, your layout may need updates across dozens of displays with highly time-sensitive new visuals or numbers. This level of content management will require more than a simple list of steps, involving in-depth tutorials. These are typically provided by your digital signage software provider, but it’s important to single out those that are most important, and ensure your employees learn them well! We’ll discuss info on learning databases later.

Assign roles to users

Now that you have established general and specific platform knowledge, it is time to create users on your digital signage account.

There might not be a need to train everyone equally. Some of the learning material should involve the very basics most employees should need to know. For example, what type of files to use, what to do in case of glitches, or at the very least providing a path to who needs to be informed about such errors. 

Assign specific roles to employees, setting priority on specific areas of learning. One person could be in charge of content schedule tweaks at the end of the month, while someone else can take over the designing process for banners or menus. Another role could focus on analyzing analytics and comparing the success and impact of key campaigns.

In smaller setups, fewer people are needed for managing digital signage. In bigger ones, however, roles are a necessity for smooth operations. In your digital signage software, such as OnSign, you can assign roles and permissions to users, ensuring they can only access and modify specific assets on the platform.

Build an information database

Chances are your digital signage software provider will have tutorials available for their users. Such databases try to answer any question a user might have regarding content uploading, publishing, role assignment, or the use of any unique tools the platform may have. Guide employees to these resources to learn on their own as the need for specific information arises.

Also consider building your own database for guidelines on content management specific to your business. Operation schedules, access information, or style guides are just some examples. Your content templates are unique to your branding, and new designers should know the style you have established, ensuring new content remains consistent with the old.

Do regular check-ins

Just because your digital signage software comes with a rich learning database, you shouldn’t just throw a new user into it and forget about them. Hold weekly or monthly check-ins with employees, particularly new ones, to make sure everyone is on the same page. Perhaps someone is doing something incorrectly, not using the same naming convention when uploading content or doing more or less than they should, causing confusion in other departments.

A common problem in using software across an organization are gaps in efficiency. Users often take additional steps when they don’t need to, simply because they’re not familiar with a more efficient way of making a change. 

A great example are your templates. Some users will create brand new images from scratch each time an update needs to be made. Or they’ll remove and publish new campaigns one by one for each display. Meanwhile, a pro will know how to manage hundreds of elements at once with consistency, saving time. Address these points, ask questions, and help employees learn through regular check-ins.

Encourage feedback

A great section to include in your employee check-ins is asking for feedback on any parts of the content management process. Identify which areas are the biggest drain on time and resources. Perhaps the criteria you set for new updates and content are too complex and could be trimmed down without reducing the quality of the content. Some other issues may include an unclear content approval process, too many output formats requiring each their matching content formats, last-minute content changes, overly technical tools for simple results, inconsistencies in branding, or even problems with specific employees.

OnSign has a large database for tutorials, covering every corner of the software and letting users find the road to achieve their goal. For your own procedure, outline which tutorials are most important for your uses. In case you’re not already a user of OnSign, try it out now for free!