Note: This guide will walk you through the basics of what the Fugo TV Dashboards feature is and how to set up your dashboards for display on screen. If you’re looking for set up instructions, you can skip to section 3 - How do I display my dashboards on screen?
Still using a DIY method for displaying your dashboards on TV screens?
If you’ve ever been tasked with getting your business dashboards up on your workplace TVs, you’ve probably tried a method that goes something like this:
You connect a Mac mini or PC to a screen, then launch your dashboard in a browser after login. Then repeat these steps every time the dashboard session expires or the player is restarted or updated. You won’t hear us tsk tsk-ing. Until now, there really hasn’t been an easier or better solution. But here are 3 reasons this DIY method for displaying TV dashboards won’t cut it:
It’s unsecure: Your media players can be hacked, as they run outdated browsers with missing security patches, or hijacked, as they are exposed to high footfall areas.
It’s unreliable: Most dashboards are memory intensive and trying to put them on screens can cause inconsistent playback and rendering or even crash a player.
It’s not scalable: Displaying your dashboards this way requires expensive hardware and time-consuming manual maintenance interventions from the staff. And most businesses don’t have unlimited user seats for each department or branch to have their own TV dashboard using login credentials.
But there is a better way.
Fugo TV Dashboards is a feature of our digital signage CMS that allows you to display password-protected business dashboards and web pages to your workplace TV screens, using a secure service to keep your data safe at all times.
1. How does it work?
We use a Chrome browser extension that captures real-time screenshots of the data you want to display live on screen without storing your browser data.
The extension records your steps as you log in to the URL of your choice (such as Tableau, for example) and navigate to the dashboard you want to display. Fugo then renders an auto-updating snapshot of your dashboard for you to preview and then publish to screen.
Note: You will need to use Chrome browser for this as our TV Dashboard feature does not yet work with other browsers.
2. Which dashboard services do we support?
Fugo should work with most dashboard services, but these are the ones we've tested and currently support:
*Looker can be displayed via our dedicated integration as well.
We encourage you to try your preferred dashboard or link! If you’re unable to connect your service then please reach out to support@fugo.ai. Our team can help check if it’s compatible with our TV Dashboards feature or can be explored as a supported service.
3. How do I display my dashboards on screen?
3.1 Log into your Fugo Account. If you don’t have an account yet, you can start your 14-day free trial here.
Note: TV Dashboards are a part of Fugo's Business Plan. During your free trial you can create one dashboard. To create any more, you will need to upgrade your plan.
3.2 Make sure your screen(s) are connected to Fugo CMS. If you haven’t connected your screen(s) yet, you can find the instructions for that here.
3.3 Click Dashboards in the top navigation bar to go to your Dashboard library. If you have not created any dashboards yet, this page will be empty.
3.4 Click Create Dashboard to get started.
3.5 This will take you to the New Dashboard recorder page where you will follow the instructions to capture and preview your dashboard before publishing it to screen.
3.6 First, you’ll need to enter the target URL of your dashboard tool in the URL field and click Go. For this example, we’ll be using Looker.
Note: In the side panel to the right you will see instructions, as well as the steps that are being recorded inside your dashboard service account.
3.7 If you are creating a TV dashboard for the first time, you will be prompted to configure your Chrome browser to allow our recorder to run in incognito mode. If you’ve done this before you can skip this step and move on to step 3.8. If this is your first time creating a TV dashboard, just follow the instructions as you are prompted in the CMS (the following steps 3.7.1 - 3.7.4 will cover those instructions.)
3.7.1 You will need to install the Fugo Dashboard Recorder Chrome Extension. You will see a little blue checkmark on this step once you complete it.
3.7.2 Now you’ll need to enable Incognito Mode in your Chrome browser. This will make sure that the Fugo TV Dashboard Recorder will only operate in Incognito mode, stopping any extension or external sessions interfering with the step recording. Click Navigate to settings to do that.
3.7.3 You will be directed to the extension settings. Find the Allow Incognito section and make sure you enable it.
3.7.4 When you’re done, you will have your two checks and you’ll be ready to continue creating your dashboard.
3.8 A pop-up window will appear which prompts you to log into the service you’d like to use.
Note: We recommend you to set up a least-privileged user for your account.
If you have Single Sign On (SSO) set up with your account, the recorder will work automatically without any additional configuration. However, if you use 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) then you will need to input your 2FA key in the recorder. You can find those instructions here.
3.9 Once you’re signed in to your service, you can browse through and select the exact dashboard, web page, or data you’d like to show from within your account. You will notice how your clicks are reflected in the right-hand side pane, logging a chronological history of your steps taken throughout the recording process.
💡 You might also notice that the dashboard recorder is in 1920×1080 resolution. This is the default resolution that should match your digital signage screen resolution. We plan to add other resolutions in the near future, but please get in touch with us if you need to add a different resolution now.
3.10 Once you’ve reached your destination and navigated to the dashboard you’d like to display, click Capture Dashboard and this will capture the entire screen and display it on your digital signage.
If you want to publish only one portion of your dashboard, you can click on the Camera icon and hover over the portion you’d like to capture.
💡 Tip: You have to be a bit careful when selecting a portion of the page using the camera icon: it might not always be intuitive. Essentially, you will need to hover over the HTML element that represents the portion. We are still working on a better way to implement capturing dashboard portions in the future. If this is a priority for you, please get in touch with us at support@fugo.ai
3.11 The recorder will now close and take you back to the Fugo dashboard window. Here you will see an animated icon while your dashboard preview loads.
In a few seconds you will see the preview dashboard snapshot the way it will be displayed on your screens. Please note that preview may take several seconds or minutes to load depending on the data and the service you are using - some dashboards use a lot of computing power and will take a bit longer to load.
The dashboard preview shows if the service correctly replayed your steps and created a correct snapshot of your dashboards.
💡 Tip: If you see an error message you can read the reason for the error and see the screenshot of the last step where the recording process failed.
3.12 If you are happy with the preview, you can either click Save to publish your dashboard later, or you can click Publish to push it to screen.
You can publish it directly by choosing a screen, screen group, channel, or playlist to publish to.
If you have any additional questions or feedback on using the Dashboards feature, please feel free to reach out to our support team at support@fugo.ai. We’re always happy and quick to help!
Happy publishing!