Workflow Summary
The following steps summarize the overall workflow to create menus and display that content on a TV. This process is completely done in Cisco Vision Director.
Dynamic Menu Board —Themes Tab
1. To access the DMB application from Cisco Vision Director, click More > Dynamic Menu Board (Figure 1).
2. Click Themes tab.
3. Create a new theme or copy an existing one. Use the Action icons (in red box).
4. Configure the theme attributes.
5. Specify the menu content, as applicable.
6. Save the theme.
Figure 1 Dynamic Menu Board Interface in Cisco Vision Director
Configuration > Data Integration
7. Click Configuration > Data Integration.
8. Create a data source with type Menu Theme (Figure 2).
Figure 2 Create Menu Theme Data Source
9. In the Data Integration interface Configuration tab on the right panel, enter the Theme Name where you want menu information to come from. Also, change the polling interval as necessary. Normally, a minimum of 30 seconds is sufficient in most cases (Figure 3).
Figure 3 Add Menu Theme Information and Polling Interval
10. Click Save.
11. Click Field Mapping tab, drag and drop the input fields that you want to use in the menu board display onto the Output Field. When all fields have been selected, save the data source (Figure 4).
Figure 4 Data Source Field Mapping
12. Deploy the newly created menu theme data source (Figure 5).
Figure 5 Deploy the New Data Source
13. Restart the data integration application.
14. Once the integration application starts, you will see data being populated. You can click on the blue text under the Data preview column to examine that data being received.
Asset Library Interface
18. From the Asset Library menu, select Playlist on the left panel.
19. Create a new playlist (Figure 7).
20. Configure the playlist attributes.
21. Add the DMB widget you created above to the playlist.
22. Save the playlist.
Figure 7 Create a Playlist in Library
How to Create and Update Dynamic Menu Boards
This section includes the following tasks:
■Copying an Existing Theme (recommended)
■Creating a New Theme (optional)
■Specifying Menu Content (required)
■Modifying the Attributes of a Menu Theme (optional)
■Managing User Access to Themes (optional)
Copying an Existing Theme
Once you create an appealing theme successfully, make a copy of it. Open the copy to make menu board changes, thereby preserving your baseline theme.
Restrictions
Consider the following restrictions before you copy a theme:
■You cannot change the layout of a copied theme.
■You cannot make any changes to the store selection in a copied theme. If a store has already been selected in the original theme, then that store will be specified for the copied theme and cannot be changed. If no store has been selected, then you cannot assign a store.
Procedure
To copy an existing theme:
1. Log into Cisco Vision Director as an administrator or concessionaire.
2. Click More > Dynamic Menu Board.
3. Click Themes.
4. Select the name of the theme that you want to copy.
5. From the action icons above the list of themes, click the Copy Theme icon (Figure 8).
Figure 8 Copy Theme Icon
6. When the Copy Theme dialog box opens, change one or more of the following fields (Figure 9):
Figure 9 Copy Theme Dialog Box
■ Name — Required.
■ Description —Optional.
■ Currency format —Determines how a Price field is displayed on a menu board. Click the arrow to open the drop-down list box to select the desired format for displaying prices on the menu. The default is Do not format. Note: Price formatting can be done in the Widget Designer.
■ Background image—(Optional). Click the arrow to open the drop-down list box to select the desired image.
Note: All images currently stored in the Asset Library default directory are available in the drop-down list. The image must have been imported first, before it is available here. For more information, see Working with Images.
Note: If you select a new background image, be aware that the format of your menu will be determined by the layout for the default theme that you copied. See Appendix A: DMB Default Menu Theme Reference for the detailed characteristics of the menu themes and layouts to be sure that your background graphic fits with the predefined columns, headers, and items for that layout.
7. Click OK.
From here, follow the Workflow Summary to:
■Create a new data source for the copied Theme and deploy it.
■Create a DMB widget. The Widget Designer provides a live preview of the menu board.
Creating a New Theme
You can create a new theme based on the supported layouts that are predefined in Widget Designer.
Prerequisites
Before you create a new theme, be sure that any new images have been uploaded to the Asset Library.
Procedure
To create a new theme:
1. Log into Cisco Vision Director as an administrator or concessionaire.
2. Click More > Dynamic Menu Board.
3. Click the Themes tab.
4. From the action icons, click Add (+ icon) to create a new theme (Figure 10).
Figure 10 New Theme Icon
5. In the New Theme dialog box (Figure 11), complete the following information for the new menu theme:
Figure 11 New Theme Dialog Box
■ Name — Required.
■ Description —Optional.
■ Currency format —Determines how a Price field is displayed on a menu board. Click the arrow to open the drop-down list box to select the desired format for displaying prices on the menu. The default is Do not format. Note: Price formatting can be done in the Widget Designer.
■ Layout —Refer to Appendix A: DMB Default Menu Theme Reference to choose the default layout that you want to base your new menu theme on, or refer to your site’s local reference for any customized layouts that might be installed.
■Create placeholders for headers and items—Recommended. Select the checkbox to specify that temporary labels are shown in the interface to help you identify the configurable elements.
■(Optional) Select Store—Click the arrow to open the drop-down list box to select a store that you want to link items from for this menu.
■(Optional) Select image for background—Click the arrow to open the drop-down list box to select the desired image.
6. Click OK.
Specifying Menu Content
To specify the menu content:
1. On the left side of the Themes screen, select the menu that you want to configure.
2. Do one of the following:
–In the action icons, click Expand to open all levels at once.
–Click the arrows beside the menu theme name to expand the column, header, and item levels individually.
Figure 12 shows an example of a sample theme based on the Burgers 2-column layout.
Figure 12 Expanded Menu Theme Columns, Headers, and Items
3. Refer to Appendix A: DMB Default Menu Theme Reference to look up information about the layout that your theme is using to identify the configurable areas, or refer to documentation at your site for any customized layouts that have been installed on your system.
Figure 13 shows an excerpt of the reference information available that describes the layout details of the Burgers 2-column layout. At its simplest, this layout supports configuration of the Menu item Name and Price fields.
Figure 13 Burgers Layout Theme Reference
Note: Any of the graphics placeholders can also be replaced in a menu theme by uploading new images or selecting from existing images from the Asset Library.
When you copy a default theme, all of the graphics included with that default theme are also copied. When you create a new theme using a default layout, the same format of the default theme applies, but the images are not automatically included. However, you must still assign images to these headers, whether they are the default images from the Asset Library or new images.
For example, notice that the headers for the Burgers layout are implemented as images, not text. Figure 13 shows the menu design with the default header graphics.
4. (Optional) If Headers are supported for your theme and you want to change them, do one of the following:
–If the field is text-based, type a new name in the Name* field.
–If the field is an image, select a new image for the Image field.
5. For Items, specify the attributes that are supported by your layout:
■ Use a store item —Click the arrow to open the drop-down list to select an item from a store.
■ Name* —Configurable for all menu themes.
■ Description —Configurable for a limited number of items in some themes.
■ Description 2
■ Calories —Not supported for any default themes in Cisco Vision Director. Requires a customized widget layout.
■ Price —Configurable for all menu themes.
■ Display on menu —Yes or No. Specify No when you want to hide an item from being displayed.
■ Move up when hidden? —Specifies if the items are readjusted in the display to eliminate the space created by a hidden item.
■ Image —Click the arrow to open the drop-down list box to select a graphic by name from the Asset Library or click Browse to see thumbnail images.
6. Click Save.
Modifying the Attributes of a Menu Theme
To modify the attributes of a menu theme:
1. On the left side of the Themes screen, select the menu that you want to modify.
2. Change the theme attributes as needed.
3. Click Save.
Managing User Access to Themes
You can assign permissions to menu access using the Manage User Access feature.
Prerequisites
The user roles already must be configured in Configuration > Users in Cisco Vision Director.
Procedure
To manage user access to themes:
1. On the left side of the Themes screen, select the menu that you want to modify.
2. Click Manage user access. The Manage user access dialog box appears (Figure 14).
Figure 14 Manage User Access
3. In the Manage user access dialog box, select the users to whom you want to give menu access.
4. Click Save.
You can define all Users under Configuration > Users, but you can only associate venues to Venue Administrators or Venue Operators under the Venues interface. The Users interface is not venue aware.
To enable multiple venues:
1. Click Configuration > System Configuration > Dynamic Signage Director Settings.
2. Click Multiple Venue Configuration from the left panel (Figure 15).
3. Click Edit (pencil icon). The Edit Configuration dialog box appears.
Figure 15 Enable Multiple Venues
To assign users to venues:
1. Click Configuration > Venue.
2. Click the Users tab (Figure 16).
3. The Available Users are visible on the right panel. Use the check boxes to select the users.
4. Click motion arrows to move the selected users to the Assigned Users panel.
5. Click Save.
Figure 16 Assign Users to a Venue
6. Click the Folders tab.
7. Select folders you want those users to have access to and move them using the motion arrows.
8. Click Save.