What is most important to you when choosing a service? No matter if it’s retail, hospitality, manufacturing, marketplaces, digital services, or SaaS - consumers usually find themselves looking for qualities such as brand recognition, good customer service, product consistency, and even security. Though, a critical checkbox for using online services in 2021 is the development and investment for enhanced security solutions.

Cybersecurity is a pivotal focus for many businesses and enterprise organizations. As this trend continues to rise while the workforce and companies transition towards emerging opportunities for remote-based employment, keeping your company data secure from threats or vulnerabilities is key. ScreenCloud offers a solution to help keep your data protection top of mind using ScreenCloud Dashboards. 

ScreenCloud Dashboards is a cloud offering that allows you to display private or password-protected web pages to your digital screens in minutes, using a secure service to keep your data safe at all times. ScreenCloud Dashboards work by taking a snapshot of your data in real-time to display it live. This feature is useful to:

Display dashboards and webpages with basic authentication (user ID/password) 

Show content past a login, such as graphics, notices, or data hosted on a webpage

Use private or sensitive information without any hassle securing your company data

Minimize data risks or regulatory impacts with a GDPR and policy-compliant system

Please follow the setup guide below for information and setup instructions for ScreenCloud Dashboards. This feature is an add-on and must be activated to your ScreenCloud account, please visit the following form to submit a request to use ScreenCloud Dashboards.

1. What is the “ScreenCloud Dashboards” feature?

ScreenCloud Dashboards simply allow you to add password-protected or iframe-restricted websites behind credentials to display on your digital screens. This is done on the back-end of our ScreenCloud service using an extension that captures the data in real-time to display your webpage. This extension can be downloaded to a Google Chrome web browser called “ScreenCloud - ScreenCloud Dashboards Recorder”. 

For instance, if you wanted to display a private dashboard from a service such as Trello, you can use the ScreenCloud Dashboards Recorder extension on your browser. This tool records your steps and the webpage can display to your digital screens without storing your browser data. Please note, the tool is not required for public or non-private web pages which can be added using the Links section of your account.

2. Which services are currently supported?

ScreenCloud Dashboards currently supports the following services:

Looker Studio (Formerly Google Data Studio)

PowerBi (Use the dedicated Microsoft Power BI app)

Zendesk (You can also use the Zendesk Reports app)

We encourage you to try your private dashboard or link, if you have any challenges connecting your service then please reach out to support@screencloud.com with information regarding your company and the webpage link you would like to display on your digital screens. Our team can help check if the page is compatible with our ScreenCloud Dashboards feature, or can be explored as a supported service.

3. How do I set up a dashboard or secure site?

To get started, ScreenCloud Dashboards must be activated on your ScreenCloud account to see the Dashboards section from the left-hand navigation. If you’re unable to access this or have not activated the feature, please visit the ScreenCloud Dashboard request form here.

ScreenCloud Dashboards are a premium add-on feature that allows you to display sites with iFrame restrictions, or requires a login. You can trial the feature during a fourteen-day period and can learn more about ScreenCloud’s pricing tiers by clicking here.

3.1. Download the ScreenCloud Dashboard Recorder to a Chrome Browser

This feature requires the use of a Google Chrome Web browser. Please visit here to download the Chrome browser to your desktop or PC. Please note that your Google Chrome browser must at least be version 87. 

3.2. Once you’ve installed Google Chrome, please open the browser and visit the Chrome Extension Web Store.

3.3. It is required to download the ScreenCloud Dashboards recorder for this feature. You can search for this in the Chrome Store, or click here to add ScreenCloud Dashboards recorder on your Google Chrome browser. 

3.4. Verify and add the extension to your browser by selecting Add to Chrome. You’ll receive a confirmation message once the extension is successfully installed as shown below. Please note, if your browser is locked-down due to work or private restrictions you may need to contact your administrator to help allow access to the extension (i.e. if you’re using a work-based Google account that does not have the ability to manage or download extensions). 

3.5. After the extension is installed to your browser, you can visit your ScreenCloud account and select the Dashboards option from your left-hand navigation.

3.6. Next, get started by clicking New Dashboard or Setup your first Dashboard. 

You will be reminded and prompted to download the ScreenCloud Dashboard chrome extension if you have not yet added this to your browser.

3.7. Enable “Allow in Incognito Mode”

Next, a pop-up window will display with instructions for getting started with ScreenCloud Dashboards. This requires the installation of the Chrome Web Browser Extension and ScreenCloud also advises you to use Incognito Mode as it prevents existing sessions, cookies, or settings from altering your journey in any way. As advised, you can click on the link to open your ScreenCloud Dashboard recorder settings and enable it to run on in Incognito Mode. 

Once you’re done selecting this setting, you can return to the setup window and select Don’t show this again if you prefer to no longer see the reminder. Click Continue.

You can now get started with setting up your dashboard or the secure site in ScreenCloud. For this example, below we are going to use a private dashboard from the service Grafana.

i) Type or enter your URL: begin by pasting the dashboard URL you would like to show data from on your screen. You want to pass through the least possible steps from your login to your Dashboard, so the final dashboard URL is recommend. Next, click Start Recording.

ii) Sign in to your account: A pop-up window will appear which prompts you to log into the service you’d like to use. Please note, ScreenCloud currently supports basic login, Google authentication, and token-based multi-factor authentication. To learn more about supported and unsupported login methods, please see here. 

For instructions on how to set up two-factor, or multi-factor, authentication please click here for ScreenCloud’s guide for configuring two-factor authentication.

iii) Navigate to your dashboard: once you’re signed in to your service, you should land right on your dashboard. If not, you can browse through and select the exact dashboard, web page, or data you’d like to show from within your account. To the left of this, you will notice that the “Actions” bar will automatically log a chronological history of your steps taken throughout the process.

iv) Finish Journey: when you have reached the final destination you would like to display - ScreenCloud advises you to ensure the dashboard or graph is in full-screen mode to have the most optimized display performance. Or, you can select a given segment of your Dashboard by hovering your mouse over until the red dotted rectangle captures the information you need to show. Select the Finish Journey and then Take Snapshot, which will bring you back to the ScreenCloud Dashboard window.

v) Set the Manage Session refresh rate (Recommended): By configuring a refresh rate in ScreenCloud Dashboards, you ensure your data remains live and accurate, preventing interruptions on your digital signage. Please see this article to find out what refresh rate duration you should set for your Dashboard.

vi) Name your dashboard: give your dashboard a unique name to find or reference it easily in your ScreenCloud account at a later time. You can do this by selecting the text editor in the upper-toolbar to change it to anything you’d like.

3.9. Save & Preview your Dashboard: select the Save & Preview button in the upper-right hand corner. This will prompt a message for you to confirm that the setup has been completed for the dashboard. Select Confirm. 

You will now see that your dashboard service will load and render the data. Please note, the preview may take several minutes to load depending on the service or data.

Once the dashboard has fully rendered, it will display and you can close the app. You may now use this ScreenCloud Dashboard on your screens.

3.10. Display your ScreenCloud Dashboard to your digital screens
You can now manage and display the site using any of ScreenCloud’s features available to set content on your digital screens.

Why can't I click the Save & Preview button after I've completed my Dashboard journey?

Check your Dashboard journey steps for any red error messages, and make sure to resolve these as instructed. Once you've cleared all error messages, you will be able to save your Dashboard app.

How can I fix the dashboards journey error "No associated password"?

This usually happens if you input a username that is not matched with a password. If you encounter this error message in red text, hover your mouse over the Dashboard step you need to change, click Expand and then change the Type from Username to Text.

No, Dashboards is not able to display videos, due to the integration only being able to screen capture the site every 5 seconds, which is the minimum refresh rate.

Does Dashboards support HTTP authentication?

No, it does not support HTTP authentication. HTTP authentication is in use if you encounter the following mini Chrome popup.

This depends on the dashboard site that displays the data and whether or not it automatically updates/refreshes its pages once they have been displayed. The Session Refresh Rate for each Dashboard is automatically set to 10 minutes, which can be changed with setup.

If the site has its own refresh rate, what is the recommended duration I should set for the Dashboards?

Select a time interval shorter than your dashboard's session timeout (e.g., if your dashboard times out after 30 minutes, set the refresh rate to 25 minutes). Use the default setting (45 minutes) if unsure. You can learn about the refresh rate of common dashboard sites here.

Can I display internal sites with Dashboards?

​If your organization has an internal site, for example one which is behind a firewall, or accessed via a VPN, then this will not work with Dashboards. Sites need to be accessible via the public internet. However, it might be possible to display your internal link with the Links​​​​​ in Studio and with certain players (Windows or macOS), as long as your paired screen is on the same network that provides this site, and the site does not require inputting login steps.

Grafana, Salesforce, Tableau, Trello, Microsoft Power BI (see our dedicated Microsoft PowerBI app), Looker Studio (previously Google DataStudio), Github, Sentry, JIRA, DataDog (via AWS), Zendesk (Zendesk Reports app), CloudWatch. Other sites and services not mentioned here should also work. We recommend that you review our Dashboard guides to see which types of sites are not supported.

I completed the Dashboard journey and clicked Save & Preview, but my dashboard site still won't load after this.

This might mean that the site access is only accessible on your company's local network, computers and approved IP address. For dashboards to work with your site, you need to allow connection with ScreenCloud's services. Our requests to access your site and dashboard will come from these IP addresses. Please ask your IT team to whitelist the addresses in the linked guide.

How can I set the timezone for my dashboard?

As you set up your Dashboard and complete the login, authentication, and screen capture steps, click the cog icon for Manage Session under Actions to change the timezone setting of the Dashboard. See clear steps here.

Which two step verifications does Dashboards support?

Which authentication types are not supported with Dashboards?

ScreenCloud Dashboards allows you to display login-restricted web pages and private data safely to your digital signage screens.

Display your private dashboards, webpages, and login-required data securely to your digital screens.

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ScreenCloud Dashboards Set Up Guide

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