Difference between revisions of "SmartLink"

Revision as of 11:21, 30 May 2016

The SmartLink module allows you to send lighting control commands to the SmartLink system, allowing you to have default lighting schedules for faces, as well as lighting control schedules for campaigns.

Initial Setup

Go to Tools-Options-SmartLink.

From this screen you can enter the license information that allows you to connect to the SmartLink system. You can enter your license key (provided by OutdoorLink), along with the specified User id and password. You can test your connection by clicking the Test button to ensure the information has been successfully entered.

Next, set up the default light schedule you wish to apply to faces in Ad Manager. Note this will only take effect if you have specified the SmartLink details for the Face, but have not supplied a light schedule to follow.

Once you have entered the appropriate information, click OK.

Creating Light Schedules

Go to the SmartLink Folder in the Tree View and open the SmartLink folder. Click All Light Schedules. In the List view, right click and choose New.

From here you can specify details for the schedule by define on/off times to light your faces. Use the Schedule type combo box to choose whether the schedule has no lights, one periods or two periods of lighting. Specify the on and off times for the period(s) of lighting. Give the schedule a meaningful name and code. Finally, click Save to create the schedule.

Assigning Light Schedules to Faces

When assigning a light schedule to a Face, you can either do this one face at a time, or multiple faces at a time.

Single Face

To update a single face with a lighting schedule, go to the Face and go to the SmartLink tab. From this tab you can mark the face as having its lighting controlled by SmartLink. After you have done this, you can select the default light schedule to apply to this Face. If you leave the Light Schedule blank, the Default schedule set under Tools-Options will be used.

The next step is to identify the Plant, Structure and Panel information provided by OutdoorLink for this Face. Once this information has been entered, click Save. Please note that if this information is not entered correctly, Ad Manager will not be able to send the lighting schedule information to the SmartLink controller.

Multiple Faces at a Time

If you wish to update multiple faces at a time, highlight the faces, right click and select Update Light Schedule. You can click the check box below SmartLink Enabled and change the value to "Yes" and you can specify the default light schedule for these faces. If you leave the Light Schedule blank, the Default schedule set under Tools-Options will be used.

Please note that after you have updated these faces via this tool, you will still need to visit each face to enter its SmartLink credentials as described under the Single Face methodology.

Assigning Light Schedules to Subcontracts

Ad Manager allows you to specify a specific light schedule to use for a campaign, if desired.

If you wish to use this feature, open the Subcontract and click on the SmartLink tab. Select the light schedule to be applied to all SmartLink controlled faces on this Subcontract. This lighting schedule will override the default schedule. If a light schedule is not applied to a Subcontract, the default schedule for each Face will be used. Click Save after you have selected the desired schedule.

If you wish to update multiple Subcontracts with the same lighting schedule, highlight the Subcontracts in a List View, right click and select Update Light Schedule. Click the check box, choose the desired light schedule, then click OK.

Publishing Light Schedules to SmartLink

When publishing light schedules to SmartLink using Ad Manager, you have 2 options available from a dialog before publishing:

"Turn off lights if the posting end date has passed". Ad Manager will send an OFF lightschedule if the EndsOn date of the active posting is today or earlier.

"Force - send all lightschedule(s) even if they have not changed". Ad Manager keeps track of the last lightschedule that has been published for the face and will only publish to SmartLink when there is a change in the lightschedule. Check this box to force-publish the schedule. It is useful if you believe changes have been made directly through the SmartLink website and you need to re-sync Ad Manager's cache.

Select desired options and click Ok to proceed. A progress dialog opens showing publishing details for each face and on completion, a summary of the results. Additionally, the results of all SmartLink publishing are output to a log file. Check your AppData folder for Dot2Dot\SmartLink Add-in\Logs\SmartLinkPublisher-yyyy-mm-dd.log file.

Manual Publishing

Full Schedule: If you wish to send all lighting schedules to SmartLink immediately, go to Tools-SmartLink-Publish Schedules to SmartLink.

Face(s): You can publish the lightschedule for a single face or a selection of faces. While viewing the details of the Face, choose Tools-Publish Schedule to SmartLink. If viewing a list of faces, select one or more faces and choose Publish Schedule to SmartLink from the Tools menu or from the right-click context menu.

Subcontract: You can publish the lightschedule for the contracted faces of a subcontract. While viewing the details of the Subcontract, choose Tools-Publish Schedule to SmartLink. If viewing a list of subcontracts, select one and choose Publish Schedule to SmartLink from the Tools menu or from the right-click context menu.

Scheduled Publishing

A scheduled task can be configured to run daily to update light schedules after your day's postings have been entered into Ad Manager as completed. A configuration xml file is used to specify publishing options.