GET STARTED
CONTACT US – 319-294-6671
Using Digital Signage for Emergency Messaging

Using Digital Signage for Emergency Messaging

digital-signage-school-emergency-messagingNatural disasters, security breaches, and fires cause major damage to businesses. While not every business will experience these dangerous situations, it’s important that all are prepared for the worst.  Emergency planning and management is critical. Business owners are responsible for the safety and well-being of their employees and customers.

Businesses are using digital signage for emergency messaging, notifying everyone at a moment’s notice, saving time, and even lives. Integrating alerts into digital signage has become law in many states. Along with locking doors and limiting access to buildings, the alert systems are a natural fit to keep people safe.

Hurricanes and Other Natural Disasters

Hurricanes devastate the coastal communities, leveling buildings and causing power outages for hundreds of thousands of people. While the damage will take years to repair, and many businesses will be reeling from the impact of the hurricane, physical safety of individuals will always take precedence over property.

Digital signage is an excellent tool for emergency messaging, because it allows businesses to alert customers and employees to impending danger. Digital signage also deploys vital information after storms have hit. Employees access content from cell phones, keeping up on the latest reports of damage and company news/updates. 

Businesses and schools need a plan to keep everyone safe in the event of natural disasters, like Hurricane Ian. Once a plan is in place to keep everyone safe, the next consideration to be made in an emergency plan should be to preserve property. When it comes to weather-proofing digital signage, one key step, which may seem counterintuitive, is to leave the displays on. While we might think we should turn them off, or even unplug them, experts recommend leaving digital signage running. This is because the internal fans will continue to run, which slows the accumulation of condensation within the device.

LEARN MORE about preparing digital signage for hurricanes.

Alerting Software Integration

Digital Signage for AlertsWhen disasters strike, every second counts. Through the integration of alerting software, digital signage displays emergency messaging instantaneously. Businesses save time and headache with a one click solution, displaying alerts on thousands of screens in seconds. Emergency messaging is tailored to each business and each specific situation.

For example, a school may use digital signage to set up one emergency message for a lockdown situation, a second for inclement weather, and a third for a fire in the building. Whatever the case, emergency messaging is easily customizable and effortlessly deployed.

LEARN MORE about triggering emergency messaging  for digital signage.

Key Candidates for Digital Emergency Messaging

Having a plan in place for various emergencies is key for virtually all businesses, but it’s specifically crucial for certain industries.

For schools and hospitals, digital signage is an essential tool for emergency messaging. These types of businesses are responsible for people who are more vulnerable, considering that they work with children and elderly populations. It’s imperative that their emergency plans are air tight, and that staff are able to react quickly and calmly. With the push of a button they can deploy emergency messaging to Arreya channels, taking over the content at a moments notice. When time is critical, alerting is easy.

Digital signage displays precise instructions for emergency messaging, giving instructions on what to do, where to go, and even what parts of the building are dangerous. Staff are able to take control of emergency situations more quickly and effectively as a result.

Keeping Stakeholders Safe Outside your Four Walls 

While the safety of customers and employees on location is of great concern, it’s also important to keep them safe after they leave. Businesses have more remote employees now than ever, and they need the ability to alert them to dangerous situations during working hours.

Digital signage software deploys emergency alerts to any device with internet access, not just the screens in the office. If inclement weather like a tornado or a hurricane is impending for an area where employees are located, digital signage software integrates with alert software to automatically alert everyone.

Replacing Outdated Emergency Messaging 

While sirens are useful for alerting multiple people at once, they provide little context as to where the danger is coming from or what to do to stay safe. Digital signage brings emergency messaging up to date, giving context to dangerous situations. Instead of bringing distress and panic like traditional alarms or sirens, digital signage provides clear instructions on where to go and what to do, no matter the situation. Maps and rendezvous points are displayed in the event of a fire, and directions to basements, bathrooms, and sturdy structures are provided for tornado warnings. In the case of a hurricane, like Hurricane Ian, digital signage displays evacuation routes and doppler radar.

LEARN MORE about the future of emergency messaging.

Preparing for the Worst

While we all hope we never have to deal with an emergency situation, and maybe we’d even prefer not to think about it, emergency planning is key to avoiding disasters. By using digital signage for emergency messaging, business owners are protecting their most valuable asset: their people. Replacing damaged property is expensive and inconvenient, but generally, everything is replaceable. Investing time and resources into an emergency plan is well worth it, and digital signage is a valuable tool in any emergency plan. Digital signage provides vital information designed to save lives through emergency messaging.

3 Ways To Use Countdown In Digital Signage

3 Ways To Use Countdown In Digital Signage

An Arreya designer shares ideas on how you can use the Countdown Widget in digital signage. She elaborates using this widget for Birthdays, Events, and Holidays as a way to add dynamic content that changes and updates your screen as each minute, hour or day passes. 

Hello my name is Nicole. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a passion for creating. I graduated college at the University of Nebraska-Omaha with a bachelor’s degree in Studio Art and a concentration in Graphic Design. As a Designer at Arreya I look forward to any opportunity to help you design the best digital signage experience.

Using Widgets to Elevate the Digital Signage Experience

Arreya widgets can be easily added into your digital signage presentations and provide that dynamic content that keeps changing or updating. They add an extra element to the page and help bring attention to your slides. A few of my favorite widgets are: QR Code, Slideshow, Countdown, and the Website widget. If I had to pick, the countdown widget would be one of my top three favorites. There are so many different ways you can integrate it into your signage. In a marketing sense you can use the countdown widget to highlight your product by setting a countdown for when a special offer may end or start. It encourages your audience to act on what your offer may be.

Ideas for Using Countdown and Count-up

Things you can COUNTDOWN too are birthdays, holidays, upcoming events, a wedding, or even when a promotion may end. This is a great way of building up the viewers anticipation of that meaningful or important day! It’s not only a countdown app you can also COUNT-UP! Giving you more ways to use this same widget. Now you can track how long your company has been in business, how many accident free days a department is at, or how long an employee has been working.

Birthday countdown digital signage Arreyacountdown widget digital signage arreya1. Recognizing an Individual’s Birthday

For instance if someone’s birthday is coming up you can display the countdown of how many years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and even seconds they have been living. What a thoughtful way to recognize an individual and a neat way to add motion to your signage as well! Adding information or data to your digital signage that is difficult to share anywhere else. Email is not a good way to share employee information. There is no guarantee the right people will get it or read it. Using digital signage for internal employee communications can engage and retain your employees. Because you can pinpoint the information to specific screens, you can be confident the right information is being seen by the correct audience.  

By adding countdowns for birthdays and other personal, fun data to your digital signage, employees are more likely to view the information.

livestream countdown digital signage event Arreya
2. Create Anticipation Using Countdown to an Event

Another example, let’s say you are a sporting facility and you have a big event or game or match or meet coming up. You could use the countdown widget to build anticipation to your viewers/guest and with Arreya you could even add our YouTube widget and display that LIVE event/game/match/meet etc. to your viewers (not to mention that they could view this from anywhere through the Arreya progressive web app). Learn more from our YouTube tutorials about inserting the countdown widget here and adding a youtube live widget here.

digital signage livestream event

To use countdown in digital signage think of any event and you can livestream.  Celebrate weddings or concerts with people who can’t attend. It’s easy for viewers to enjoy your events. No special downloads or access codes, just share. For an easy way to allow viewers to access the livestream, just add a QR code they can scan with their phone or tablet.

Schools can use countdown for events in their digital signage. So many events can be shared that normally would be difficult for parents and grandparents to attend. COVID has limited access to school events, but through Arreya digital signage you can still share important events.

 
new year countdown arreya3. Bring Excitement to the Holidays

We see the countdown widget used the most during the holiday season especially around November and December. People are often hosting holiday parties or events. There are many other holidays throughout the year to add to your digital signage. Getting your viewers to look at your information is the key to successful digital signage content.

countdown digital signage widgetNow you may be stumped on how to design a countdown/count-up presentation. NO WORRIES, we have you covered! Arreya makes it easy by offering free templates for you to integrate into your digital signage. You can add one of our already made countdown templates to your presentation! Arreya christmas countdown digital signage widgetprovides a portrait and landscape orientation for whatever template best fits your screens. You can even customize with your information. Make it personal for employees, students or whomever your audience is and engage your viewers. 

Also, you can add videos, gifs or other feeds to your countdown for dynamic digital signage.

Overall the Countdown Widget Is Perfect To Attract Attention

As you can see, it can be used for any event or special day to recognize or just a fun way to promote things. Really it’s quite simple to integrate and a dynamic touch that updates and will keep your content feeling current and on point. 

Thinking about these examples given, I hope you can come up with ways to use countdown in your digital display. In my time of working in the Arreya Digital Signage Suite I have created a number of templates and the countdown widget is still one of my favorites to design around. Remember there’s a lot of thought and reasoning that goes into creating a design and Arreya is the perfect Digital Signage software to help you easily design informational displays.