Use play until done for a Presentation in a Schedule

Play until done is a feature you can use when you have two or more Presentations in the playlist of a Schedule. It controls when the Schedule should stop playing one Presentation and start playing the next item in the Schedule’s playlist (the next item could be another Presentation or a URL). It is not required for Schedules that only have one Presentation in them.

When the Play Until Done option is checked for a Presentation, the Schedule will play that Presentation until all the content in the Placeholder item that you designated as the “Play Until Done Placeholder” has played. Then it will move to the next item in its playlist.

Example

A great example of when the Play Until Done feature comes in handy is if you have a Schedule that contains a main Presentation, and another Presentation that contains a two videos that you want the Schedule to play every 15 minutes. Setting this up is a two step process:

STEP 1: Check the Play Until Done option for a Presentation in a Schedule

Add the Main Presentation to the Schedule and set its duration for 900 seconds (i.e., 15 minutes). Now, add the Video Presentation, and check the Play Until Done option for it. Then, assign the appropriate Displays and save the Schedule.

STEP 2: Select a Placeholder in the Presentation to be the “Play Until Done” Placeholder

This functionality relies on the “Play Until Done” or PUD Placeholder, which is a setting you can assign to any of the Placeholders in your Presentation. The PUD Placeholder tells the Schedule that once the content it contains has been shown, the Presentation is done and the Schedule can show the next Presentation in it’s playlist.

NOTE: The content items in the Placeholder you select as the PUD Placeholder must have a Duration assigned to them in the Placeholder's Properties for this feature to function correctly (see Duration field highlighted in image below). For example, if your PUD Placeholder contains only one image and you do not assign a Duration to it, Play Until Done will not function correctly, i.e., the Image Placeholder will not tell the Schedule that the Presentation is done. 

If a PUD Placeholder is NOT selected in the Presentation, Rise Vision will automatically pick the first placeholder in the list as the PUD Placeholder. So in this example, you would select the second video as the Play Until Done Placeholder for the Video Presentation. That would tell the Schedule that after the second video plays, the Presentation is finished and the Schedule can play the next Presentation in the list, which, in this case, would be the Main Presentation. If you did not select a Play Until Done Placeholder in the Video Presentation, the Schedule would have moved to the next Presentation after it played the first video and the second video it contains would not have been shown.

With the above setup, the Schedule will play the Main Presentation for 15 minutes, then the Video Presentation will play until the second video, which is designated as the Play Until Done Placeholder, finishes and then it will loop back and play the Main Presentation again.

STEP 1: Check the "Play Until Done" option for a Presentation in a Schedule

You check this option on the Presentation Properties dialog on the Schedules page. You can access the Presentation Properties for a Presentation one of two ways:

1. If your Schedule already contains all the Presentations you are using: On the Schedules page, click on the name of the Presentation you want to set up with the Play Until Done option. The Presentation Properties dialog will open.
2. If you need to add the Presentation to the Schedule: On the Schedules page, click the Add Playlist Item button, then select Presentation. Select the Presentation you want to add. The Presentation Properties dialog will open.

STEP 2: Select a Placeholder in the Presentation to be the "Play Until Done Placeholder"

You check this option on the Presentations page.

1. On the Presentations page, open the Presentation for which you checked the Play Until Done option for in the Schedule.
2. Click on the name of the Presentation. This opens the Presentation Properties dialog.
3. Scroll down to the Play Until Done Placeholder field, and click the drop-down arrow to select a Placeholder.
   
4. Click Apply.