3 questions to answer when determining roles and access

Managing a signage network is not something you have to do on your own. And really? If you want it to be successful it's best to have a team ready to fulfill the different tasks and share responsibilities. A team where all experts come together and who will make sure the investment in signage pays off. 

Within a signage team, there's often a supervisor who needs to make sure every team member fulfills their role and the project is moving forward. Then, it's up to IT to manage the hardware and software and make sure the system is and stays smoothly up and running. Last but not least, you have important content managers who are there for strategy, creators for content design, and publicists. 

MagicINFO is built to work together but with respect for every user's own tasks. Therefore, it offers extensive organization and user management capabilities. Here are 3 questions that can help you how to deal with the hierarchical structure within MagicINFO and to create users. 

if you'd like to know more about the different aspects that have to be taken into account to maintain the security of your MagicINFO environment, make sure to read our security pillar page. 

1. What access level does the user need? Is it the entire display network or just a section within?

When you have your signage strategy ready you will know when and where which message should be published. The location and/ or departments can play an important role in deciding who needs which type of access. So to answer this question it's good to know there are two types of overall access levels. 

Server level

This is the most extensive access level. When you have MagicINFO server level, you have unlimited access and are in total control of content, playlists, devices, and users. This level is mostly given to the IT department or just to the one who is responsible for the entire signage project, but should be only given to one who fully understands the software.

Organization level

Within MagicINFO, it's possible to create organization groups. So in the case of an organization with multiple locations or offices in different countries, you can create organization groups per country or region, city, office, or even department. With this, the users only can work within their own organization and don't see the other organizations' content. 

Device group permission

Within organizations, the next level is the device groups. This can be organized in locations, offices, or departments. You can decide on the hierarchical structure. This structure is very important and based on your content strategy. Because these devices affect whether you can publish content to a single display or displays as a group. At this level, users can work in the full MagicINFO account but can only use a specific group of devices to create content for. 

Learn more about how to structure devices by reading this blog.

2. What does the user need to do?

In the introduction, I already mentioned the variations in tasks within a signage team.  MagicINFO allows you to create users and assign specific access to parts of MagicINFO. With this, you limit access and give users just enough to do the work they need to do. Here's an overview of the roles and access level.

• Administrator: Authorized to manage overall matters of their organization
• Content Manager: Authorized to access and manage the content-related menu items
• Content Schedule Manager: Authorized to retrieve and manage content and schedules
• Content Uploader: Authorized to create content and playlists
• Device Manager: Authorized to access and manage the device-related menu items.
• Schedule Editor: Authorized to create and edit content schedules and message schedules.
• Schedule Manager: Authorized to access and manage the schedule-related menu items.
• User Manager: Authorized to access and manage the user-related menu items.

3. Is access to MagicINFO needed?

This might seem like a strange question. But we very often see that tasks are divided and that the overall signage management is managed from the head office and that the daily messages are made locally. Should there be full access to MagicINFO then? Not always. There are various options to create content outside of MagicINFO, such as with a Simple CMS or content, for example, a Powerpoint, on a local disk that is retrieved by MagicINFO and published from that location with a polling interval. That makes MagicINFO suitable for all kinds of user levels and keeps everything that is not necessary to see separate so that users can focus on their core tasks. Asking this question can provide ideas that make the system more user-friendly and even easier and more fun to work with. Which only benefits the sustainability of the use of signage!

Creating new users is not just creating them but also thinking about the what, why, how, and whom. Providing all users with the same role and rights only distracts and makes things unclear regarding who's responsible for what. We can help find out the best device structure and user settings. When you are just starting with MagicINFO Onboarding could be just what you need to get your strategy in MagicINFO.  Structuring devices and user management are some of the fundamental elements of a successful signage implementation.

Good luck!