ScreenCloud Meet the Team App Guide

Please note, if you are using the older version of ScreenCloud (signage.screencloud.com) you can download the alternative Meet the Team guide here.

What’s your approach to keeping employees up to speed with expanding departments and growing teams? Whether you’re looking to showcase just professional photos and information for employees in your company or want to spruce up employee engagement by sharing personal interests from your team members, Meet the Team app is an ideal solution.

ScreenCloud’s Meet the Team app is a simple, yet powerful HR tool for displaying employee information, hobbies, interests, and birthdays. It works by logging in with your Google account and using a Google Sheet to give you the flexibility to add any information about your team across digital signage screens. You can use unique customization options such as themes, celebration balloons to display on a birthday and add greeting messages.

Here’s how it works:

1. Select and install ScreenCloud’s Meet the Team app

1.1. Get started by logging into your ScreenCloud account here and choosing the ScreenCloud App Store from the left-hand menu.

1.2. By searching “Meet the Team” you can find the Meet the Team app and choose the “Install app” button to add a new instance.

2. Log in to Google

2.1. Next, select “Login” to log into your Google account.

2.2. Sign in with your Google account and follow the prompts to allow ScreenCloud Apps to access your Google account. Please note, this will only allow ScreenCloud to view your Google spreadsheets while using the app.

2.3. Once signed in successfully, you will be redirected back to ScreenCloud where you will see a green check-mark next to the login button. This verifies you’re logged in successfully.

3. Set up your Google Sheet

3.1. Once you’ve allowed access to your Google account, you’ll need to create a copy of our example spreadsheet template in your Google Drive. Please visit the spreadsheet URL we have provided for you below.

Click here to view our Meet the Team app template.

Please note, you can create your own custom Google Sheet, but you must follow the exact format of our template. The app also will not work properly if the sheet tab name is named anything other than "Sheet1" or any of the headers (e.g. Display Name, Picture URL, Job Title, etc) are changed/removed from the sheet. You'll receive a message that the sheet must be refreshed in a few minutes if any changes to the sheet tab name or headers are made to the template. We recommend simply making a copy of our template and editing it with your information as you see fit.

• Navigate to the upper left-hand corner and click on “File”.
• Click on the “Make a copy” option.

• Name your spreadsheet and click on “Folder”, then click “My Drive” for the file to save on your Google Drive.

Click okay, you can now edit and access the spreadsheet in your Google Drive.

Please refer to our notes for setting up your Meet the Team spreadsheet:

• The maximum number of characters for quotes is 255.
• The recommended image sizing is 170x170 pixels.
• Please note, to add photos you must use a direct public link for the pictures to load into the Meet the Team app. For example, we recommend using websites such as https://imgbb.com/ or https://pixabay.com/. You can upload your images to these free services then use a direct sharing option for photos in your spreadsheet. The images would have a .png or .jpg string at the end, such as https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2017/02/23/13/05/profile-2092113_960_720.png. You can use many different free pictures hosting services with direct links to the images.
• For reference, Google Photos are not able to be used due to a safety and security policy enforced by Google which disables the photos to be embedded on third-party websites. As an alternative, we recommend searching for free image hosting websites (e.g. such as https://www.pixabay.com) and creating an account to manage your photos. You can use the public-facing URLs for your image uploads in our spreadsheet template to showcase your team photos.

3.2. Next, copy and paste your spreadsheet URL into the “Google Sheets URL” section for the Meet the Team app.

4. Configure your Meet the Team app

Next, customize your Meet the Team app settings:

i) Card display duration: control how long a piece of content shows on screen before displaying the next one on your sheet.

ii) Birthday celebrations: turn this on to display balloons for a team member’s birthday. You can set this up by filling out the “Date of Birth” column on the copied google sheet template for each corresponding employee. For example, if someone’s birthday is on January 1, 1983, you would input 01/01/1983 in the column.

Please note, the column must be formatted as “dates” in your Google Sheet for this feature to work. We recommend using our template as it will have this configured for you to start using.

iii) Work anniversary celebration: turn this on to display balloons during a team member’s work anniversary date. You can set this up by filling out the “Start Date” column on the copied google sheet template for each corresponding employee. For example, if someone’s start date is on January 1, 2019, you would input 01/01/2019 in the column.

Please note, the column must be formatted as “dates” in your Google Sheet for this feature to work. We recommend using our template as it will have this configured for you to start using.

iv) Greeting text: add a short greeting text that will appear on the screen. Please note, the limit is 25 characters.

v) Upload a logo: upload a company logo or brand your Meet the team app with any image you'd like in the corner of your screen.

You also have the option to create your own custom theme. To create a custom theme, check out our guide on how to use the App Theme Editor.

5. Preview your Meet the Team app

Once you’ve added the Meet the Team app you have the opportunity to preview it before it gets added to your screens.

Click ‘Preview’ and a popup will display the Meet the Team app.

6. Add Meet the Team app to your Channel or Playlist

Once you have configured your Meet the team app it can be easily added to a Channel or Playlist to be played on screen. 

Simply select “Add Content” to open the Media Picker and under Apps, you will see all of your app instances, ready to be installed. You can also view ways you can set content on your digital screens using ScreenCloud by clicking here.

Frequently asked questions:

How often will the app pull in updates from the spreadsheet?

When connected to a WiFi network, the app will pull in updates from the spreadsheet every 12 hours. Refreshing the screen from within signage will force it to pull in updates straight away.

What is the maximum character limit for quotes?

The maximum number of characters for the quote is 255.

Can I use this in a ticker-tape zone area?

Yes, the Meet The Team app is compatible with a ticker-tape zone. Regardless of which style you choose, the ticker-tape version will use the style example below:

Can I use this in a sidebar zone layout?

Yes, the Meet The Team app is compatible with a sidebar zone layout. Regardless of which style you choose, the sidebar zone version will use the style example below:

I have added Department data to the spreadsheet, why am I not seeing it in Meet the Team?

Department data will not be displayed, however, it will be used in future releases of Meet The Team to allow users to filter their data to only display from a particular department. This will ensure the ability to make the content more relevant to the screen audience.

Why are some of my images displaying a placeholder image instead of my supplied image?

This can happen if there is either no URL supplied for the Picture URL column or if the URL is invalid. The image in the URL should be publicly available.

Can I use any image URLs to display our teams' photos?

We recommend the images are sized to 170x170 pixels and you must use a public-facing and direct image URL. For example, you can share images you have public permissions for on your Google Sheet from websites such as Pixabay, Imgbb, and more. Any private photos or links that will not display a photo directly will not work properly.

I have changed the Card Display Duration but this has not changed the speed of the ticker tape, why?

The Card Display Duration setting does not apply to the ticker tape zone.

Can I display celebration balloons if an employee has the same birthday as their start date?

Currently, the app will only work by picking up only one of these features at one time. You can only place either the birth date or start date, they will not work together and may conflict with showing celebration praise on the app.

My sheet is giving an error that says "please refresh in a few minutes", how can I fix this?

If you see this error message, allow the app to refresh the new content if you've just added a lot of new photos and/or text, additionally, make sure your sheet tab name is "Sheet1". Your sheet will not connect properly with the app if you're using a sheet tab name that does not match the requirement from our template.

For further questions, please contact support@screencloud.com with details.