Last updated: October 30, 2023 (no changes)
When displaying a web page with Screenly, a user may want the web page to refresh and display updated information. This functionality is important for website that displays changing information, such as transportation timetables, busy calendars, and data dashboards. To get web pages on your Screenly digital sign to update regularly, you will need to set up your playlists in a way that triggers the web page to refresh.
For most web sites, there is no auto-refreshing mechanism built-in, which means that such websites will not update independently when displayed via Screenly. To work around this issue, there are two ways that you can set up your web pages to have them automatically refresh. Please see the two methods below.
(Note: Most online dashboard websites do have an auto-refresh capability built-in, and if that is the case, the following steps are not necessary).
Option 1
For this option, you will need to list your web page as content for your screen multiple times. You will need to list your web page once, list an image (or video) next, and then list the same web page again for a second time. Listing an image with the company logo is the most popular option. Here is one example of this:
Playlist 1
Asset 1: www.mycompanywebsite.com (60 seconds)
Asset 2: companylogo.jpg (30 seconds)
Asset 3: www.mycompanywebsite.com (60 seconds)
Asset 4: companylogo.jpg (30 seconds)
In the above example, the website refreshes about every 90 seconds. However, you can adjust the duration to your liking.
Option 2
For this option, list your web asset twice in a row, and for the second listing, add an HTML query to the end of the URL to make the link somewhat different to the first link. Adding an HTML query will not change how Screenly displays the web page. Here is one example of this:
Playlist 2
Asset 1: www.mycompanywebsite.com (60 seconds)
Asset 2: www.mycompanywebsite.com?screenly=asset1 (60 seconds)
In this example, the website refreshes about every 60 seconds. You can also adjust the duration to your liking.
That's it!