Stricter Password Policies

In Release 6.1, Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director users must set stronger passwords. When setting a new password, use the following rules:

■Must have at least 1 lower case character (a-z).

■Must have at least 1 upper case character (A-Z).

■Must have at least 1 numerical character (0-9).

■Must have at least 1 special character. Special characters are @ # $ %

■Must be 8-20 characters.

■Must not contain any of the following characters: space tab newline linefeed backslash (\).

■Must not contain a character sequence from a predefined list maintained in a dictionary.

Figure 1 Log in Screen

New Default Passwords

There is a default web UI administrator user password and there is a DMP administrator password. The new default password for both is:

C-V1$i0n

Passwords after Upgrading

When upgrading an existing installation, existing passwords are kept.

Passwords after Fresh Install

Role: Administrator

After fresh install, the default administrator user is prompted to change the password on the first login. Starting with Release 6.1, the new password must adhere to the password policies or the password is rejected.

Note : Known defect: the new DMP admin password doesn’t work. Use the old default DMP admin password (Cisco123) on fresh installs.

DMP Admin Password

The default password for fresh install is C-V1$i0n. When changing your password, if you do not choose a valid password, the error message indicates which rule is inviolate. But during a full installation the password isn’t reset. Use the password from the registry.

Library (Main Menu)

When you log into Cisco Vision Director, the Library serves as the entry point to different application interfaces that are used to perform a variety of tasks. Hover over the icons in the top banner. The launching point is the Library interface which displays a list view of the assets (content) (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Cisco Vision Director Library Screen

The Cisco Vision Director Library (Main Menu) is a web-based portal that is the central point of operation for the following five areas:

■Library—Manipulate and Upload all assets/content (images, videos, widgets, channels, and external content), create playlists, add tags to content, and organize your content into folders.

■Device Management—Control your devices and TVs, set channels, filter/search for channels, Power On and Off devices, Refresh the set criteria for the TVs and Reboot devices.

■Script Control—Stage new event scripts. Centrally control the display of emergency or delay signage for designated areas. Change content “ad hoc” on displays during such things as a touchdown or home run.

■Event Management—Schedule and set the scripts to whichever devices you choose, whenever you choose.

■Designer—Widget and Template designer to help you create snappy content to display to devices.

Using the Library

The Library allows you to import and manage content, create event scripts, schedule events, and edit screen templates and widgets. It provides an interface for certain administrative tasks such as configuring channels for luxury suites, configuring devices (Cisco DMPs, Cisco IP Phones, third-party remotes, video displays), staging content, and collecting proof of play data—just to name a few.

These options are available to the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director Administrator, Content Manager, and Event (and venue) Operator roles.

The enhanced Library UI now contains:

■Adjusting bars to size the panels (available in playlist interface)

■Click an asset (content) or playlist to see the detail panel

■Upload, List View and Trash icons in detail panel

■Down-sized the thumbnails for better visibility (accessible from Gridview)

■Size, Last Modified, Duration and Resolution columns to give you greater granularity for your assets

■Drag and drop tagged content to a playlist

Figure 3 Adjusting the Library Screen While in Playlist Detail View

To see more metadata on your content:

1. Click Asset Info at the top of the right panel (Figure 3). The metadata appears for the content you chose (Figure 4).

2. Preview your content.

Figure 4 Metadata for an Asset (Content)

Device Management (formerly Command Center Monitoring)

Device Management shows at-a-glance device status information for media players and their attached TV displays during an event. Select the TV/monitor icon for access.

Figure 5 Accessing Device Management

Device Management (CCM) Application Highlights

■Is accessible from the Library screen.

■Supports multi-venue site selection.

■Polls media players every 120 seconds (default) and auto-refreshes the monitoring display.

■Supports different ways to view device status.

■Allows you to select media players that you want to monitor by group/zone or search by Location Name, Description, IP or MAC address.

■Allows you to filter the selected device list by several criteria, such as by DMP state or media player model, among others.

■Provides button for Administrator to restart a media player.

TIP: From Release 6.0, you can use the wildcard “%” to search for partial phrases or names in Device Management.

Script Control

Script Control is our next big migration to an HTML-based UI (Figure 9). This is the place to stage and run fabulous playlists to engage your audiences and make your venues pop. Here are some highlights of the UI updates:

■Global navigation from the Main Menu to Script Control.

■Added customizable color schemes for your UI experience.

■Added hover on rows, right click to drop-down Action Boxes, and tons of new “State of my Stuff” icons.

■Improved search and filter for your scripts.

■Stage “Icons” telling you the precise instance of your scripts.

■At a glance, you see: the script name, the status, when it was started, a description, the running state, the venue name, and if you want it in the Proof of Play record. All these rows are editable on hover or right click.

■Added dragging/reordering the columns, resizing everything to maximize real estate on your screen, and columns are even collapsible.

Here’s the new screen for managing scripts (Figure 6).

Figure 6 Script Control > Script Details

More information on scripts is covered later in this document.

Event Management

The Scheduler application provides a calendar-based script scheduling function that you access from the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director Main Menu > Event Management.

Note : The Scheduler Application is only available to Administrator and Event Operator roles.

The application opens a calendar that allows you to perform the following tasks:

■Schedule a single occurrence or recurring event series in advance.

■Modify and/or cancel a single occurrence, recurring event series, or an occurrence within a recurring event series.

■Automate the start and stop of an event script.

■Define event script parameters when scheduling an event script.

■View scheduled event scripts by day, week, and month.

■Schedule a state within a script.

Figure 7 Schedule a Script

Designer

The updated Designer interface is the gateway for creating your displays in regions with interesting and engaging ads, tickers, menus, videos and graphics.

This interface is now fully searchable, sortable, and scalable, shows the resolution values of each of your templates, and shows if it is locked with a padlock icon. For more detailed information on using the widgets or templates, see Working with Screen Templates in Cisco Vision Director.

Figure 8 Designer Interface—Widgets and Templates

Tools (Gear Icon)

Use the Tools drop-down menu to access the following options (Figure 9):

■Management Dashboard—Provides a comprehensive interface for managing and monitoring the services and status of the DMPs, TVs, the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director Server, and DMP-to-switch connections for your deployment. This is a very full-featured portion of the UI.

■Control Panel—Provides comprehensive interface for setting up device and venue controls for content display in Zones&Groups, Channels, Devices, Suites, Triggers, Proof of Play and Data Integration. Each of these tabs has a multitude of options to aid in your venue experience.

■Dynamic Menu Boards—Provides dynamic control of the content on menu boards in the concession stands during an event.

Figure 9 Tools (Gear icon) on the Main Menu (Library)

■Turn TVs Off—Provides for quick control and to power off the TVs.

■Manage Software—Provide interface to upgrade to the latest software or Service Pack, download the latest language packs available, control the fonts you use, and manage the DMP and Data Integration certificates.

■System State Report—Provides easy capture and export of system state data for the Cisco Vision Director server. This information can be sent to a remote support engineer to help troubleshoot any issues that occur with the system.

Management Dashboard Application

Using the Management Dashboard, you can:

■View status, configure settings, and send commands to devices to keep your network up and properly running

■Upload versions of firmware for automated distribution to DMPs

■Quickly identify issues that need your attention by observing alert icons that provide at-a-glance device status

■Mouse over an alert icon to see a tool tip with suggestions for how to resolve the issue

Additionally, detailed status for devices and monitored services is easily accessible from the Management Dashboard interface to help you pinpoint and troubleshoot issues occurring on the network.

Note : Not all commands or display areas apply to all media players; some features are unique to media player type. Some areas of the Management Dashboard might not report the information for a particular device. Figure 10 shows the Management Dashboard.

Figure 10 Management Dashboard Interface

Layout of the Management Dashboard

Figure 11 shows the six primary panels available in the dashboard.

Figure 11 Areas of the Management Dashboard

Table 1 provides a breakdown of what each panel displays.

Management Dashboard Drawers

Selecting and expanding a Management Dashboard drawer is generally how you begin working with and navigating the Management Dashboard interface. Figure 12 shows the set of drawers available in the Management Dashboard.

Figure 12 Dashboard Drawers

Each drawer opens a group of related commands and options for monitoring, configuring, and managing the operation of Cisco Vision hardware and software components.

Control Panel Application

This interface is the powerhouse for configuring your venue zone by zone, group by group, and location by location. You can set up channels, all your devices like TV and IP phones, triggers, and ingest data. Figure 13 shows the Setup tab UI options.

Figure 13 Control Panel Setup

Here are the tab highlights of the Control Panel:

■Users—Shows all the users and their level of accessibility.

■Zones & Groups—Sets the Zone and Group names in the venue “areas” so you can track and organize what devices are connected to what TV displays.

■Channels—Sets the channel names, master channel list, and channel guides for your devices. You choose the source type of Video Stream, External URL, or HDMI-In. You set the channel name and number here.

■Devices—Add, edit, import and export devices to your venue set up. Devices can be configured by Locations and DMPs, Location-DMP Mapping, IP Phones, Local Control, and Display Specifications.

■Suites—Set up the suites of your venues to ensure an engaged experience.

■Triggers—Configure the input and output triggers here.

■Proof of Play—Generate a Proof of Play report here for your sponsors.

■Data Integration—Deploy or Undeploy the data sources you created.

Dynamic Menu Boards Application

The Dynamic Menu Board (DMB) Application is a custom application within Cisco Vision Director that allows you to add your own content for display in a particular menu theme and layout. The default configuration of the DMB application provides sample menu themes. You can copy a sample theme to create menus of your own items that will use the predefined format and layout of that theme. The DMB menu themes support background graphics and both textual and graphical content depending on the predefined format for the selected theme and layout.

You can add content to a menu independently, or you can link to content that are already defined in Cisco or Point of Sale (POS) samples in Cisco Vision Director. The benefit of linking to content in a store is that you can make a change within the store, such as hiding a menu item or changing its price, and populate the change across all menus that are appropriately configured with a link to that item.

For a summary of these menu board creation methods, see Menu Board Content. Figure 14 shows the interface.

Figure 14 Dynamic Menu Boards UI

Turn TVs Off Application

With so many TVs in each Cisco Vision deployment, it is important that all TVs are turned off when not in use. The Turn TVs Off application allows an Operator or Administrator to control the power to all TVs within one or more zones, or across the entire venue. Only authorized users can access the Turn TVs Off application (Figure 15).

Figure 15 TVs Off Interface

The Turn TVs Off application provides the following functionality:

■Administrators can define which TVs (which zones) are to be controlled by the Turn TVs Off custom application.

■Administrators can exclude certain TVs, for example those in the back offices, from being controlled by the Turn TVs Off application.

■A non-IT person, for example the security guard, can access the portal to turn off the TVs (as defined by the Administrator).

■Email notifications can be sent to a configurable list of email addresses whenever the portal is used to turn TVs off.

When the Turn TVs Off button is clicked from the Main Menu:

■Commands to turn the TVs off are sent to the DMPs attached to all TVs in the configured zones.

■An email notification is sent to a pre-defined set of users.

■The change in TV status is logged in Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director.

Manage Software Application

The Manage Software application (Figure 16) is used only by the Administrator to:

■Upgrade Cisco Vision Director software

■Install language packs for user interface (UI) localization.

■Install custom fonts

■Install certificates

Figure 16 Manage Software Interface

For more information about how to use the Manage Software application, see the Cisco Vision Software Installation and Upgrade Guide: Dynamic Signage Director, Release 6.1.

System State Report Application

The System State Report application (Figure 17) enables easy capture and export of system state data for the Cisco Vision Director server. This information can be sent to a remote support engineer to help troubleshoot any issues that occur with the system.

Figure 17 System State Report Interface

For more information, see the System State Reports module of the Cisco Vision Administration Guide, Dynamic Signage Director, 6.1.

Event Trigger API

Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director supports an HTTP-based Representational State Transfer (REST) API that a software or hardware contact closure source can use to trigger one or more actions by the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software.

For more information about support for external input triggers, see the Configuring Cisco Vision Director for External Triggers guide and the Enhanced Triggers on Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director 6.0. Event Trigger API is not supported by Cisco Technical Assistance Center personnel.

Note : If you want to control external triggers from a software application, you can contact your Cisco Systems representative to obtain the Event Trigger API that is made available by special agreement. “TriggerSVD” is an example of a third-party demo application for the Event Trigger API on iOS (supporting Apple iTouch, iPhone, and iPad products) and is available as a free download from the iTunes store.

Media Planner Import API

Cisco Vision Director supports the Media Planner Import API that is used to import external, third-party generated playlists. The API can be used to support automatic updates to an already imported playlist that has been placed in a script, or an external playlist can be manually imported.

The Media Planner API supports the following features:

Import Playlist Functionality

■Automatically creates playlist and populates it with existing content.

■Automatically links missing content to playlist after each missing content item is uploaded.

■Updates to playlists tied to a script that have all content items requires no human intervention.

Special User Interface Indications

■Imported playlist are easily identifiable as “external playlist.”

■Indicates playlist with missing content.

■Warn user when trying to assign a missing content playlist to template.

■Warn user when starting a script with missing content playlist.

Proof of Play Addition

■Works in the same way as a manually created playlist, but with more granularity.

■Automatic insertion of Proof of Play (POP) tag for each time slot play.

User Interface Example

The API automatically creates the playlist, which you can easily identify by an icon that tags it as an external playlist source (Figure 18).

Figure 18 External Playlists in Control Panel Content Screen

The playlist is populated with existing content in Cisco Vision Director and you are alerted to any missing content in the playlist. The missing content item is identified with a question mark. Once you import any missing content, it is automatically linked to the external playlist.

Current proof of play reporting is fully supported for external playlist sources and PoP tags are automatically created for specified sponsor IDs. Any missing content is not included in the PoP report.

For more information about how to use the POS integration with Data Integration, see the Release 6.1: Cisco Vision Director Data Integration Guide.

User Control API

Cisco Vision Director supports the in-suite API, which allows querying as well as sending control information to Cisco Vision Director.

The API supports the following areas:

■HDMI-In Control

■Information Retrieval

■Security

■TV Control

For more information about Local Control APIs, contact your local or Cisco representative for details.

HDMI-In Control

The following API HDMI-In controls are available on the DMPs:

■Start HDMI-In streaming

■Stop HDMI-In streaming

Information Retrieval

The API information capabilities include:

■Query of which suites that can be controlled.

■Query of all players that can be controlled.

■Query of all players with in a suite that can be controlled.

■Query control features that exist within all suites.

■Query control features that exist within a specific suite.

■Query control features that exist for all players.

■Query control features that exist for a specific player.

■Query A/V inputs that exist for all players.

■Query A/V inputs that exist for a specific player.

■Query of closed captioning capabilities of Vision Director.

■Query the channel guide for a specific suite. If a channel is marked as a favorite, the favorite order is included.

■Query the status of all players that can be controlled.

■Query the status of a specific player.

■Detailed HTTP POST response messages in XML.

Security

The API security capabilities include:

■Unique permanent PIN for each suite in order to access and control the devices within.

■Temporary PIN for each suite that changes per event script run, can be displayed on TV. The temporary PIN is changed every day at 4 a.m. (default) based on the default scheduled task in Cisco Vision Director. It also can be changed on demand using the UI.

■Common master PIN for administrative control.

TV Control

The API TV control capabilities include:

■Power on and off of the TV.

■Channel change to a channel within the guide.

■Channel change up or down from the current channel in the guide.

■Channel favorites and favorite order.

■Volume change to a specific value.

■Volume change up or down from current value.

■Mute the audio with a specific on or off.

■Mute and unmute the audio with a toggle.

■Closed caption on with specific CC setting.

■Closed caption off.

■A/V input change with specific input setting.

■Show and hide of the information banner on the TV.

Video Replay

Beginning in Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director Release 5.0, the User Control API is enhanced to support video replay functions on suite TVs using a mobile application.

The API video replay capabilities include:

■Start the replay application.

■Stop the replay application.

■Load the replay application on multiple DMPs or group of DMPs.

■Start playback of the replay video from encoded URL on specified devices.

■Stop playback of the replay video on specified devices.

■Pause playback of currently running replay video.

■Resume playback of currently running replay video.

Administrator Role

Note : This section describes the primary (or central) Administrator role in a Cisco Vision Director system. In Release 5.0, an additional administrative role called the Venue Administrator is introduced. A Venue Administrator has a subset of administrative permissions that are authorized on a per-venue basis.

The primary Administrator role has unrestricted access to the Cisco Vision Director software, and is the only role that can add users and assign RBAC privileges to them. The Administrator role is pre-configured in Cisco Vision Director and cannot be deleted. However, you can change the password. You also can have more than one user assigned with Administrator privileges.

The Cisco Vision Administrator is the person who is responsible for deploying the Cisco Vision solution throughout the venue.

Note : Administrators have global access to all venues in a multi-venue environment. Venue Administrators only have access to those venues for which they are authorized by a primary Cisco Vision Director Administrator.

The primary administrator has sufficient permissions to do all functions and is the only role able to do the following tasks:

■Using the Software Manager to install language packs, fonts, or upgrade software on Cisco Vision Director servers

■Configuring multiple venue support and Cisco Vision Director Remote servers

■Associating objects to venues

■Creating additional users and assigning roles

■Adding devices to Cisco Vision Director

■Configuring local control areas such as luxury suites, back offices, and bars

■Configuring Point of Sale (POS)

■Configuring the Dynamic Menu Board (DMB) application

■Configuring external triggers

■Configuring Device Manager and rebooting DMPs

RBAC Role

Table 2 provides an overview of the roles that can be assigned by the Administrator in Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director.

Note : Venue Administrators and Venue Operators are the only roles that have venue-specific permissions. For more information, see Configuring Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director for Multiple Venue Support in the Cisco Vision Administration Guide: Dynamic Signage Director, 6.1.

Access Summary By Role

Table 3 provides a summary of the areas of access in the Cisco Vision Director software by each user role.

Table 3 Role Access Summary by Functional Area in Cisco Vision Director