Playlists are collections of assets that play in a looped sequence when published to media players. They are the primary means of delivering content to screens via the scheduling grid.
Qompose has four main playlist types, and in this article, we'll walk you through each one along with how they work and how to create them.
Types of Playlist
Playlist - this is a standard sequence of assets that, by default, plays in a loop in the order they appear (from top to bottom). This playlist type can be dragged directly onto the scheduling grid to publish to your chosen media players.
Advertising Playlist - not to be mistaken for the dedicated Advertising Module in Qompose, an Advertising Playlist allows you to define an exact number of slots along with a specific ad/slot and campaign duration. The playlist then automatically injects your ads amongst your other scheduling according to rules that you define. See Advertising Playlists for more information.
Note: depending on how you set your rules for your Advertising Playlist, this content may not play in a sequence when scheduled.
Trigger Playlist - this special type of playlist only pushes its content to the screen at the moment at which a trigger condition is true, rather than this being a scheduled slot where the playlist plays, it's an interrupt. This is mapped to data sources from Data Feeds, and allows you to use external data to control your content distribution. See Trigger Playlists for more information.
Takeover Playlist - this is a playlist that automatically schedules at a pre-defined interval. For example, you want a playlist of content to trigger every 30 minutes within a specific window of time. Takeover playlists trigger interrupting any other schedules, and then your screens fall back to whatever other schedules they have published.
How to create a new Playlist (any type)
From the Playlists panel in the user interface, click the + Playlists button, and then choose your desired playlist type from the drop-down menu.
You can also create playlists by right-clicking in the Playlists panel and then selecting your desired playlist from the drop-down.
Upon choosing the type of playlist you want to create, the settings side panel will appear, which differs slightly depending on the playlist type you have chosen.
Creating a Playlist
From the Playlists panel in the user interface, click the + Playlists button
Select Add Playlist from the drop-down menu
Give your playlist a name
Click Save Settings
Upon completing the steps above, your newly-created Playlist will appear in the Playlists panel within the user interface.
Playback Options
In the Playback Options section, you have some additional (optional) settings you can set for your playlist, including:
Color: allows you to choose a visual HEX colour to accompany your playlist amongst your Playlist library
Give Priority To: controls whether a playlist's scheduled end time or its currently-playing content takes precedence when the schedule wants to move on — by default it's given to the schedule, so a playlist scheduled in the grid will respect its end time and cut over on time, but if you switch that priority to the media instead, whatever's currently playing is allowed to finish in full before the next playlist starts, even if that runs past its scheduled end time.
Max duration (min): allows you to limit a playlist's total duration to a specific time. Upon adding an asset (or a sum of assets) that causes the duration to exceed the time set, an error message will pop up and this will be prevented.
Max number of content: allows you to restrict the number of assets that can be added to the playlist.
Mute Audio: allows you to mute all audio across the entire playlist
Shuffle: allows you to shuffle the playback order of the assets within the playlist
Creating an Advertising Playlist
From the Playlists panel in the user interface, click the + Playlists button
Select Add Advertising Playlist from the drop-down menu
Give your playlist a name
Set a duration for your ads (this will determine the total length of each slot to be added to your Advertising playlist)
Select how many slots you want to appear in your playlist
The Campaign Duration will be auto generated based on the values entered in steps 2 and 3
Click Save Settings
Upon completing the steps above, your newly-created Playlist will appear in the Playlists panel within the user interface.
Creating an Trigger Playlist
From the Playlists panel in the user interface, click the + Playlists button
Select Add Trigger Playlist from the drop-down menu
Give your playlist a name
Click Save Settings
Upon completing the steps above, your newly-created Playlist will appear in the Playlists panel (with the Triggers flag selected) within the user interface.
Setting the Trigger Conditions
Whilst creating your playlist, click the Playback Rules tab to configure the Trigger Conditions for your Trigger Playlist:
Click Add Group to begin adding a group of conditions
Choose your Data Feed to append the trigger condition to your chosen data set, and set your condition parameters using the drop-down menus in the columns across the table
You can add multiple condition groups by simply clicking + Add Group once again
Clicking the ⋮ button allows you either save all of your chosen conditions to be recalled at a later point, or to recall an existing set of previously-created trigger conditions (if they exist)
Click Save Settings once you're finished
Upon completion of the steps above, your playlist will trigger only when your content displayed
Creating a Takeover Playlist
From the Playlists panel in the user interface, click the + Playlists button
Select Add Advertising Playlist from the drop-down menu
Give your playlist a name
Choose an interval for your Takeover playlist, this impacts the frequency at which this playlist automatically triggers and takes over any other schedules on your player
Click Save Settings
Upon completing the steps above, your newly-created Playlist will appear in the Playlists panel within the user interface.