TV Dashboards Best Practices & Troubleshooting Tips

Table of contents:

TV dashboards often need a little adjustment to work and look their best on screen.

This guide covers simple best practices for setting them up in Fugo, along with a few checks to run if something is not displaying or refreshing as expected.

Before connecting the dashboard, make sure you know what kind of login flow it uses. Some dashboards use a standard username and password, while others rely on Google, Microsoft, SSO, or MFA.

Knowing this up front makes it easier to complete setup and troubleshoot authentication errors later.

For secure dashboards, a dedicated service account is usually the most reliable option. In most cases, we recommend using a service account with read-only access and TOTP-based 2FA enabled.

It helps avoid interruptions caused by password changes, employee access changes, or prompts tied to a personal user account.

If the dashboard account uses two-factor authentication, it must be configured to use time-based one-time passwords (TOTP).

Fugo’s TV Dashboards feature currently only supports TOTP for 2FA. Other methods - such as push notifications, SMS codes, or hardware keys - will interrupt the login flow and prevent the dashboard from refreshing reliably.

Some dashboard platforms restrict access by IP address or only allow logins from approved networks. If that applies to your setup, make sure Fugo will be allowed to access the dashboard before you begin configuration.

If your organization uses network restrictions, firewalls, or VPNs, you may need to allowlist the domains and services Fugo uses in order for dashboards to load correctly.

Before setting a refresh interval in Fugo, check how often the source data actually changes.

Fugo displays dashboards by loading the dashboard URL and capturing a screenshot of what appears on the page. Each refresh interval tells Fugo when to reopen the dashboard and capture a new screenshot.

If the underlying data only updates every every hour, for example, there is no benefit in capturing screenshots more frequently than that.

Most dashboards are designed for desktop viewing. That’s normal.

In many cases, you can make the dashboard work better for screens inside Fugo by adjusting the capture size, cropping the view, or building a cleaner layout in Design Studio.

We'll cover this below.

Set the screenshot refresh interval to something sensible for the dashboard from the dashboard's Home tab:

If the dashboard feels too tall or too dense, start by changing the aspect ratio of the capture dimensions first from the dashboard's Settings tab:

Once the dashboard is being captured in a better shape, it is much easier to fine-tune the view later in the Design Studio.

The Scroll setting can help with long dashboards, but it works best as a small adjustment:

In many cases, adjusting the capture dimesions and cropping the dashboard in Design Studio will produce a cleaner result.

If screenshots are capturing loading spinners, incomplete content, or partially rendered data, increase the Pause setting so Fugo waits longer before taking the screenshot:

Some dashboards are more resource-intensive than others. If a dashboard is struggling to render reliably, try increasing the Memory setting:

If the dashboard platform is sensitive to repeated login attempts, enabling Re-use cookies can help maintain access between captures:

If your dashboard includes sidebars, filters, navigation, or extra whitespace, add it to a Studio slide and crop out the parts you do not want to show. This is one of the easiest ways to make a dashboard look cleaner on screen:

If a single dashboard has too much content to display clearly, break it into multiple views. You can place the same dashboard on multiple slides and crop different sections on each one. Or mix and match sections from different dashboards:

A TV screen should not try to show everything at once. It is usually better to show fewer charts clearly than to squeeze an entire dashboard into one view.

If the dashboard does not connect successfully, common causes include:

If setup fails, first confirm that the dashboard URL, credentials, and login flow all work outside Fugo.

During setup, it is also best to avoid password manager auto-fill and use a fresh private/incognito session so the full login flow is visible.

Dashboards only continue updating when they are published to a screen through an active playlist. If a dashboard is not refreshing, this is one of the first things to check.

Open the dashboard’s Playlist tab to confirm it has been assigned to an active screen:

A green status usually means the dashboard is connected and updating correctly. A red status indicates an error and should be investigated:

If a dashboard was working and then stops updating, check whether:

Sometimes a dashboard stops working because the source platform has changed its login flow, page structure, or permissions.

If the dashboard opens differently than it did during setup, the connection may need to be updated.

If you need more control over refresh timing or want dashboard access to stay within your own environment, on-prem dashboards may be a better fit than cloud rendering:

🔗 Learn more about on premise dashboards

If a dashboard is not displaying or refreshing as expected, check the following:

This guide is still being updated. If you don't see your issue or you’re still having issues after following this guide, please don’t hesitate to drop a message to our support team at support@fugo.ai - they’re always happy to help!