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K-12 Superintendent, reformed IT guy, educator, 1:1 evangelist, life long learner, father, husband, geek, ex self-propelled field artillery turret mechanic, GCT, CCTO, INFP

Chrome Sign Builder – Poor Man’s Digital Signage

March 29, 2015

I’ve been looking for an easy to use, free (or low cost) digital signage solution since forever. Back in the Le Grand days, Danny Silva hacked together AppleTVs and iTunes to create digital signage for our school. For the past several months, I’ve been playing with RiseVision and chromeboxes. I had it to the point of being able to display a RiseVision template but found trying to get the content into the template frustrating. Friday I did a search for “Chromebox digital signage” and found Google Sign Builder! Sign Builder is an App for Chrome devices that can display URLs and Youtube Videos and best of all, it’s all controlled through the Admin panel. There is a Schedule app that creates a txt file with the schedule and resources defined which is then uploaded through the admin panel and pushed to the chromeboxes that have the Sign app installed.

It’s very slick and easy. I was able to get everything setup in less than a hour of fiddling and had a Google Sheet auto-looping in about 5 minutes. The hardest part of the whole thing was finding the Schedule Builder app, because it didn’t show up in the Chrome Web Store. Simon Miller (@LeadEdTech) got ahead of me by adding a YouTube video to his schedule and is now playing with the refresh. I’ll be experimenting with that on Monday.

So far, it looks like this is the solution I’ve been looking for. A shared Google Sheet per site will allow users to easily update their own content. If we need to push a district notice, it’s as easy as updating the schedule for each Sub Org (assuming policy refresh works). I can’t wait to play some more on Monday.

Here’s how I got started:

Steps

Setup a Device Sub Org and put your Chromebox into it. I called ours Kiosk. I plan to create a Kiosk Sub Org for each site. The schedule, and therefore the content displayed on the screen, is applied at the Sub Org level.
Deploy Chrome Sign Builder as an Auto-Launch Kiosk app for your Kiosk Device Sub Org.
Create and Publish a Google Sheet. I created a Kiosk User that I can use to create sheets with and then share out to each site/department.
Build and Upload a Schedule. You’ll need this link to get the Scheduling App since it doesn’t show up in the Chrome Web Store yet.
Reboot your Chromebox to force the policy to take effect (I was too impatient to wait on policy refresh)

Posted in Digital Signage, Small School Big Tech

61 responses to “Chrome Sign Builder – Poor Man’s Digital Signage”

Max

April 2, 2015

Hi,

Do you have the link to the Google Sign Builder app ? It seems Chrome store cannot find it ?

Thx

Reply
1. Max
  
  April 2, 2015
  
  Just found it:
  
  https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-sign/odjaaghiehpobimgdjjfofmablbaleem
  
  :-)
  
  Reply
2. Andrew T Schwab
  
  April 2, 2015
  
  It’s in my blog post
  
  Reply
3. TrNY
  
  December 29, 2015
  
  Any help or info on setting this up on a single device such as Chromebit with out a Google for work account?
  
  Thx
  
  Reply
  1. Ryan Orilio
    
    May 11, 2016
    
    You need Google managed accounts to use this with the admin console. That’s what allows you to schedule the kiosk app.
Randy

April 8, 2015

I have been working on this to just try to get the app installed in the Google Apps Admin. I do not see anything about Kiosk or forcing anything into Kiosk. I guess I just do not know where to look. I have my digital signage OU, I think there is a big step that I am missing. Any help would be most appreciated.

Reply
Ian

April 10, 2015

I’m having the same issue as Randy. I’ve found the App Management page but am unable to locate or load Chrome Sign Builder. Not sure how to find it. There seems to be no URL search and keyword searching in the store isnt working.

Reply
1. Andrew T Schwab
  
  April 11, 2015
  
  Chrome Sign Builder Install – Step #4
  
  Reply
Rick

April 14, 2015

I was wondering if you could explain how you got video to autoplay. Was it playing on it’s own. I found that if I added as part of a slide in a presentation it would not play automatically.
I too have played with Rise vision. I found it a pretty simple to use. I like how the video works in it and the fact that you could turn audio off on the video. They did a great job by doing a hangout and demoing what can be done.
I realize Chrome sign builder is new but most places today do give some documentation and or videos on how to use such a product successfully. I think that’s a huge over site on releasing this. Risevision took about 2 hours to learn ( because of their video) and I have already invested 4 hours in this with not the same quality of presentation displayed. I still have lots to learn about this product but from simplistic point of view I think Rise Vision is a lot better thought out product. No admin needed other than to push the kiosk app. I think that’s pretty cool. In a school district every school has their own person doing signage and to know none of them will ever need admin to work with the product is a huge plus.
My thought may change later…so we will see

Reply
1. Andrew T Schwab
  
  April 18, 2015
  
  Rather than add a Video as a presentation you can add a Youtube video directly with a URL. Then it should auto play. Or that is what I believe Simon Miller (https://twitter.com/LeadEdTech) found out. I haven’t had time to play with it since getting the Slide presentation to play.
  
  Reply
William Cormode

June 23, 2015

If I am understanding correctly I could mount a TV and connect a Chromebox to it and then go through the steps that you described? Would a Chromebook work?

Could this also be used to force a presentation onto every chromebook that is running or would they have to switch to the kiosk app?

I am in the beginning stages of setting up digital signage at a new school and I was horrified by the cost of a server and players. This would be amazing if it works because we are already a GAFE and Chromebook school.

Reply
Bruce Richardson

July 2, 2015

I’m trying to do something similar. Annoyingly it seems that the video controls only work for Youtube, not for videos hosted on Drive. Also the Youtube adds pop up on the video as it is streaming.

Reply
1. Andrew T Schwab
  
  July 2, 2015
  
  Can’t you turn off adds on your own YouTube videos?
  
  Reply
  1. Bruce Richardson
    
    July 2, 2015
    
    Good point, I was just testing with a NASA video. It would still be nice to share from Drive.
Jeff Waite

July 2, 2015

Did you ever get a chance to play with a refresh policy? Are you guys using a google presentation for any of your signage locations?

I need digital signage that an average user can develop content for, and google signage seems to be a great (reasonably priced) solution as they can essentially edit a ‘slideshow’ with the content they want. The biggest downsides I’ve found so far is content refresh seems broken for me, and if you embed a video in a slide it doesn’t autoplay and I can’t find a way to force it to. Seems pretty half-baked compared to risevision but i’m afraid risevision is too complicated for my users.

Reply
1. Andrew T Schwab
  
  September 11, 2015
  
  I’ve set the Chromebox to reset nightly. That reloads the Google Slides every night. Haven’t messed around with the video yet.
  
  Reply
jgreenlinger

August 7, 2015

RiseVision becomes costly (as I have just found out) so I am scrambling to get this ging. Thanks, Andrew, for showng the steps to deploy. Now for the fun part- figuring out how to replicate the signage I had in Rise Vision in Chrome sign builder…..

Reply
1. Jeff Waite
  
  August 7, 2015
  
  There are far less features in CSB, so hopefully your RiseVision signage was simple. May I ask, what has made RiseVision become so costly for you?
  
  Reply
  1. jgreenlinger
    
    August 10, 2015
    
    something that was free now charges monthly per site. we have 11 sites so the costs would have gone up quickly
pinnells

August 31, 2015

Any idea what the “Collections” are for?

Reply
1. Andrew T Schwab
  
  September 11, 2015
  
  Nope.
  
  Reply
2. Jeff Waite
  
  September 14, 2015
  
  I was told by a google implementation partner (Cloud Sherpas) that collections “Do nothing”. This was who google sent me to when I started asking questions about their platform– so about as close to out of google’s mouth as I think you can get.
  
  Take that as you will.
  
  Reply
3. cshaft
  
  March 8, 2018
  
  You can upload your content there then when typing in your URL you’ll be able to pull it up by name.
  
  Reply
William Cormode

September 29, 2015

Are the zones just what they sound like? Can you show 4 things at once on the same screen?

Also, how do you embed a video in a google slide? I put one in but it advances the slide before it even loads. How do you make a specific slide wait longer than the others?

Reply
1. Jeff Waite
  
  October 5, 2015
  
  There is no way that I’ve found (or that Cloud Sherpas know of) to give each individual slide their own duration. It is global for the slideshow and each slide gets the same.
  
  There also doesn’t seem to be a way to make videos auto-play.
  
  The google slides solution is effectively a no-go for implementations that require video.
  
  What are the “zones” you speak of? Is that option in google sign builder or within slides itself?
  
  Reply
  1. William Cormode
    
    October 6, 2015
    
    That’s too bad.
    
    The zones is a chrome builder setting. If you look at the picture at the top of the post it says zone: full screen. You can change that to corners.
  2. Jeff Waite
    
    October 12, 2015
    
    Ahhh, yes, I see it now. I’ve completely glossed over that setting when setting up my signage.
    
    Seems neat in theory but I don’t have an application for it in my situation. Has it proved to be useful for you?
Tim

November 23, 2015

I’ve been struggling with Google Sign Builder mostly because the Google documentation is not for anyone who hasn’t already set it up. I wanted to just run a Slides show for a charity kitchen. I called Google and they didn’t want to help at first but then they called me back and we got it running.
The big problem is – can I make it easily update-able. The elderly office assistant is charged with updating this rules, regs and menu, Slides presentation once a week.
Currently she uses LogMeIn to update a Power Point on an old Windows machine. This computer is misbehaving. So I needed an inexpensive replacement.
So again this has to be easily update-able and it has to be updated remotely even if that remote location is in the same building. I can show her how to go to Gmail>Slides>Kitchen presentation and update times and dates. But beyond that I think she’d get lost. The big problem is that when you change some of the slide contents the Chromebox Sign doesn’t update until the Chromebox is restarted.
Andrew wrote on Sept. 11 that he set the Chromebox to reset nightly. This would kind of solve my issue if it works. I found instructions elsewhere on how this is done on a Google Meeting computer so I went to the same spot for my signage box on my Admin console.
Long story short it seems to allow a reboot every day but it doesn’t say what time. Perhaps I’m in the wrong spot.
If there is another way to get this to auto update I’d appreciate a suggestion.

Reply
1. Anonymous
  
  November 24, 2015
  
  Automatically reload url every _____ seconds is an option in the chrome sign builder when adding new content.
  I’ve set this interval to every 10 minutes and it’s been working fine for us. I also made my slide durations match up with this reload interval.
  
  So 4 slides at 15 sec each = 1 min. So in theory when the 10 minutes hits and it reloads the url is should match up naturally with the slide interval. In our case the reload is so fast most people prolly wouldn’t notice anyway, but your application may vary.
  
  I found the reboot daily option but also couldn’t find where to specify WHEN it would happen. Hasn’t been a problem for us though. (our reboots are less than 15 sec)
  
  But again, YMMV.
  
  Reply
  1. Tim
    
    November 24, 2015
    
    Thank you so much! I didn’t see that option. But then I wasn’t quite sure what URL they were talking about when I first started. I then stumbled on something that said you have to publish the Slides to the web and copy the URL. Geeze I wish Google had better documentation. Thank you!!
    
    Tim
  2. Jeff Waite
    
    November 25, 2015
    
    Yeah, the documentation is abysmal.
    
    Happy to help! Glad you got it working.
Juan Martinez

January 15, 2016

Hi everybody,

I am very interested in this topic as my school has several flat screen tvs that we are using for signage. I have used Publish Google Slides, that automatically update when new content is added, embedded in a Google Site with a chrome add on called easy refresh to get things to work. However, after reading all your posts and several articles on Google Sing Builder there is much more possible.

My question is, do the chrome devices that are connected to the tvs have to be enrolled in the Device Management in the Admin Console in order to get this to work?

Thanks,

Juan Martinez

Reply
Jeff Waite

January 20, 2016

My understanding is that it is possible, but not recommended by most. I don’t think there is anything technically preventing you from doing it with an unmanaged device but I don’t think this config is supported by google.

https://community.risevision.com/rise_vision_inc/topics/chrome-os-support-for-managed-google-devices

I thought I saw instructions from google on how to launch the sign builder app without a management license, but I can’t find it anymore. Maybe I’m making that up.

Reply
Juan Martinez

January 30, 2016

Thanks, Jeff. I will keep you updated.

Reply
Jim Carrillo

April 9, 2016

Gotta check out Chrome Bit. It’s a Chrome Box – on a flash drive. Tiny, MDMI, and Bluetooth Keyboard/mouse. Plug it into a TV, and you have an $89 sign. Don’t forget $30 Google license.

Reply
1. Ryan Orilio
  
  May 11, 2016
  
  Just set up two chromebits on flat screen’s for signage at my school. Took me about 30 minutes. It’s up and running now, and easy!
  
  Reply
Anonymous

April 9, 2016

I heard a rumour that risvision will stop making their kiosk app and so are telling people to freeze their signage players at Chrome 48
One thing I know is that you can’t stay on 48 forever so I don’t know what people will do later

Reply
Jeff Waite

June 8, 2016

My chrome digital signage displays started offering to “check out the new presenter view”, which is a smallish popup in the bottom left of the screen (where the slideshow controls appear if you plugin a mouse in to the chromebox and wiggle it).

I used the mouse to click the “Got it!” button on the popup yesterday, but it appeared again this morning. This isn’t so bad for me, because we keep a wireless kb/mouse dongle plugged into the chromebox as we also use the display for trainings, but I imagine in the wrong situation clicking “got it” would be quite troublesome (especially since it doesn’t go away forever).

Is anyone seeing this annoying little new popup, and have they found a way to dismiss it permanently?

Reply
Jim

June 10, 2016

I see that pop up and complained to Google about it but was told it can’t be dismissed permanently on a looping slide scheduled to kiosk.

Looking for alternatives but can’t find any that don’t charge monthly fees.

We change our content on a daily basis and plan to deploy to more screens but no way we are going with some of the more expensive alternatives. I’d go back to using Intel compute sticks and publish slide show on Wndows for free before I pay for expensive alternatives.

Reply
1. Jeff Waite
  
  June 14, 2016
  
  They seriously told you it can’t be dismissed? This is their official google digital signage solution, and they can’t turn off this “new feature notice”?!
  
  Who did you talk to? Did they seem like they were actually “in the know” with regards to digital signage?
  
  To tell a customer “sorry, too bad” seems unbelievable. And certainly unacceptable.
  
  Reply
2. Jeff Waite
  
  June 14, 2016
  
  I found the a solution.
  
  For those that don’t need the controls at all, you can hide them by adding &rm=minimal to the URL.
  
  I elaborate more here:
  https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/docs/pros5G-k42Q/n3A1wRQjAQAJ
  
  There is also a way to keep the controls and banish the popup, but it’s not as elegant as it adds the controls permanently to the bottom on the screen on a bar, but this bar uses 50 or so pixels at the bottom of the screen and shrinks your content slightly.
  To do this, you change pub? to embed? in the URL.
  
  But if you don’t need the controls (as I imagine 90% don’t), just use the &rm=minimal to remove the controls altogether.
  
  Reply
3. Jeff Waite
  
  June 20, 2016
  
  I thought I had replied to this already, but I think this blog requires mod approval before any comments are posted. So either I screwed up in posting or the previous post got lost in mix.
  
  In any case, I wanted to let every know that I discovered the solution to this problem and posted about it on the google product forums here:
  https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/docs/pros5G-k42Q/n3A1wRQjAQAJ
  
  In a nutshell, adding &rm=minimal to your URL will hide the controls, which in turn also hides the “try the new presentor view” message.
  
  Reply
S Newsome

August 31, 2016

Hi – Our school just implemented Rise Vision and I don’t find it easy to use. Our main challenge has been using google slides. When you used Rise, did you have trouble finding a solution for updates to show on the published slide show through Google Slides? any help would be appreciated.

Reply
1. William
  
  September 4, 2016
  
  I found rise vision very difficult in the beginning but I love it now. Google slides works great for me. If you want I can give some of the code I used to make it work.
  
  Reply
gbtephlon

September 7, 2016

I messed with risevision briefly and would also be interested in seeing the code that makes this work.

I guess I should spend more time with risevision, because I also found it frustrating to use. If I can embed google slides in a risevision presentation and maintain the ease of collaboration and security slides provides, while gaining additional features not currently possible with google docs, I would be very pleased.

Reply
1. William Cormode
  
  September 7, 2016
  
  I use an HTML Widget
  
  The shareable link for a Google Slide looks like this: https://docs.google.com/a/usd341.org/presentation/d/(yourUniqueCode)/edit?usp=sharing
  
  Get rid of the last part: edit?usp=sharing and replace with this: embed?start=true&loop=true&delayms=3000″ frameborder=”0″ width=”678″ height=”418″ allowfullscreen=”true” mozallowfullscreen=”true” webkitallowfullscreen=”true”
  
  start=true makes it start auto
  loop=true makes it start over when it finishes
  delayms=3000 makes each slide last 3000 ms
  Width and Height are self explanatory
  
  This is what the full code looks like in the HTML widget
  
  [googleapps domain="docs" dir="presentation/d/" query="(YourUniqueCode)/embed?start=true&loop=true&delayms=3000" width="678" height="418" /]
  
  Reply
  1. Jeff Waite
    
    September 7, 2016
    
    [googleapps] is clearly shortcode of some sort. Did you have to install a risevision widget to make that work? I didn’t find a google apps widget or anything obvious that would make this shortcode work.
    
    Using your code in an html widget only renders the line of code and nothing else.
Jordy Veldhuizen

October 13, 2016

This was a very helpfull post. I’d like to see more of this!

Reply
Tom

October 17, 2016

Andrew. Do you need a chromebox? or can you just use your computer as org unit?

Reply
Jean-Philippe Encausse

November 4, 2016

Hi, is there tip, best practice to play video hosted in the cloud or on the network that are not on YouTube ?

Reply
unbiasedcouk

November 16, 2016

We use screen.cloud – low cost, great quality!

Reply
promobitech

February 6, 2017

This setup has helped me a lot thank u for sharing.keeo sharing such posts.

Reply
Anonymous

March 7, 2017

Currently I am only able to manage Chrome Sign Builder schedule from the original computer I first set it up with. When I try to sign into another computer (same Google credentials) and manage my schedule, the schedule is blank. What am I missing? Thanks

Reply
Ted Farmer

March 7, 2017

Currently I am only able to manage Chrome Sign Builder schedule from the original computer I first set it up with. When I try to sign into another computer (same Google credentials) and manage my schedule, the schedule is blank. What am I missing? Thanks

Reply
Chris Gehringer

April 5, 2017

Has anyone found a way to use Google Sign Builder without having the chrome device managed?

Reply
wolf

April 8, 2017

Can you show 4 presentations at once on the same screen? I know in a schedule you can set a deafault and then on a time set another presntation. so that gives two but not 4. Also the default has to be full screen I think. How many and what settings do other use. also if you have a youtube video to schedule and it runs for 4:44 secs…how do you fit that in scheduling…thanks for any directions you can give on this. Maybe a shared doc that shows some of your settings would be brillant in here. Thanks again

Reply
Anonymous

August 15, 2017

Anybody find a solution to this – Currently I am only able to manage Chrome Sign Builder schedule from the original computer I first set it up with. When I try to sign into another computer (same Google credentials) and manage my schedule, the schedule is blank. What am I missing? Thanks

Reply
burnsidecricket

August 29, 2017

Great thread with a lot of helpful content. I have set up the chrome bit and testing and working great in kiosk mode with the signage I want – I have set this up at home, Does any know what I happens when I take to an actual site that has a different wireless network? I hope I get prompted when it boots to connect to a wireless network!

Reply
1. Jeff Waite
  
  December 23, 2017
  
  I think you will have to use the special shortcut to interrupt the signage from loading (I think it’s control shift S or control alt S?) and then load into the chrome OS desktop and connect to the new Wi-Fi network. Then restart and let it boot to the signage like normal.
  
  I’m not positive but I don’t think it will prompt to connect any other way.
  
  Reply
Elliot

September 14, 2017

This is a great idea! Currently my school does not allow for managing Devices in G-Suite so I am going to see if I can get the ability to do that. Have been looking for a fairly cheap solution for running signage on 3 separate TVs and this looks the most promising that I’ve seen.

Thanks!

Reply
Rick

September 14, 2017

Chrome sign buider is not working for me right now. I am using a new schedule. My old stuff works. The default slides don’t update, When I do have a schdule content playing when the time is up it does not switch back to the default slides. If when I an setting up a new schdule and input th epulished slide url, then open advance and select hide controls, it breaks teh original url I put in there.

Reply