Oak Screens – Oak Digital Workplace

Screens extends your Oak intranet to workplace TVs and shared displays, helping you reach employees wherever they are. Rather than creating content specifically for digital signage, Screens uses the same Areas and publishing workflow you already use in Oak.

This guide explains how to make the most of Screens as an internal communications channel. You'll learn how content is organised, how to configure Screens Homepages and how to create engaging displays for different locations across your organisation.

Screens is currently in beta. If you would like to demo the full version before setting it up, visit the Screens Beta Programme in the Oak Community site (previously the Customer Advisory Board). Here you can trial it, find resources, and influence what comes next.

IT: For more information on configuring and linking screens, check out our setup guide for IT teams.

Before you begin

Confirm two things with your IT team:

⚠️ Your devices must be installed and linked to Oak first. Screens will not display anything until each device has been set up and linked to an Area in your Oak environment. If you are not sure whether this has been done, check with IT before going any further. Everything in this guide assumes those devices are already in place and linked
You should also know which Areas exist in your environment and who owns them, because the Area a device is linked to is what decides the content on that display. Don’t know how to link an area to a device? Check out our IT setup and configuration guide.

Understand how Screens works

Every Screens device is linked to an Area within Oak. That Area determines the content shown on the display.

When content is published to an assigned Area, eligible content automatically appears on any linked displays. As content changes, displays update automatically without requiring any manual intervention.

Note: There is no separate content library to manage. Because Screens uses your existing Areas, permissions and publishing workflow, you publish content once. Nothing needs to be recreated or reformatted for signage.

Device states

Each device shows a status chip so you can see at a glance what it is doing.

State	What it means	What to do
Live	The device is connected and actively displaying content.	Nothing. This is the normal state.
Offline	The device is currently unreachable, for example if the display has been switched off or disconnected. Playback automatically resumes once the device reconnects.	Nothing if it is expected, such as a screen switched off overnight. If it stays offline during working hours, ask your site contact or IT to check the display.
Scheduled	The device has an active display schedule. Hovering over the status shows details of the upcoming schedule, including the configured start and end time.	Hover to confirm the schedule is running when you expect it to.

When a device is offline, a warning also appears beneath the status chip confirming that playback will resume once the device reconnects. Offline isn't always a fault; plenty of displays are switched off outside working hours, so an offline chip in the evening is expected behaviour rather than a problem. What matters is a device that stays offline whilst the site is open.

Top tip: Use the states as a quick weekly audit. Running an eye down the device list takes a few seconds and catches the two most common signage problems early - a screen that has quietly stopped working, and a campaign schedule that is not running when you thought it was.

Plan your displays

Before configuring a display, think about who will be viewing it and what information they need. Different locations often benefit from different content. Rather than displaying everything everywhere, tailor each display to the audience that regularly passes it.

Reception	Company news, events
Office	Company news, events, Moments (Included in MVP but not in BETA)
Warehouse or factory	Operational updates, safety information, policies, processes
Break room	News, Moments (Included in MVP but not in BETA), videos
Retail back office	Operational communications, promotions, company updates

Top tip: Think about dwell time, not just location. Someone walking past a reception screen has a few seconds. Someone sitting in a break room has several minutes. Dwell time should shape how much content you show and how long each item stays on screen.

Content responsibility

A screen is a public display. Anyone walking past sees what is on it, so treat an Area linked to a screen as visible to everyone in that space, not just the people who would normally have access to it in Oak.

Oak is not responsible for sensitive information being seen by unauthorised personnel. Before you link or publish, make sure the Area only contains content that is safe to show openly in that location. If you need to take a display down quickly, for example while sensitive content is live elsewhere in the Area, pause it rather than leaving it running.

Configure a Screens Homepage

Every Area has its own Screens Homepage, which controls how content is displayed on associated screens. You must be a homepage manager to access the Screen’s homepage in the area.

To find the Screens homepage, go to the area and select the page options (three vertical tops in the top-right corner), followed by Manage Homepages. Here you will find the Screens homepage, where you can configure:

Include child Areas

Include content published within sub-Areas as well as the parent Area. This is useful when creating company-wide displays that should surface content from multiple departments.

Note: Child Areas can flood a display. On a large intranet, including every sub-Area can push relevant local content out of the carousel. If a display starts to feel generic, switch this off and link the device to a more specific Area instead.

Maximum content items: Control how many pieces of content appear within the carousel. A smaller number keeps content focused, while larger numbers provide greater variety for displays viewed over longer periods.
Carousel interval: Choose how long each item remains on screen before the carousel advances. Consider how long employees typically have to read the content. Longer articles and image-heavy content often benefit from a slightly longer interval.
QR codes: When enabled, a QR code appears alongside supported content, allowing employees to scan it and continue reading the full article or page on their own device. This makes Screens ideal for promoting longer-form content, such as policies, benefits information, and other resources employees may want to access later.

Play videos in full

Choose whether videos should play in full before the carousel advances, or follow the standard carousel timing. This setting is particularly useful for announcements or campaign videos where watching the full message is important.

Playing videos in full extends the whole loop. A three minute video means everything else on that display waits three minutes longer to come round again. On high-traffic displays where people pass by briefly, standard carousel timing usually reaches more people.
Subtitles are not available during beta. Videos will play without subtitles for now. Subtitle support is planned and will be available at MVP. Until then, bear in mind that shared displays are often muted or sit in noisy areas, so make sure any video you schedule still carries its message visually, and use a QR code to point employees to the full version with audio.

Content types

Choose exactly which content types appear on the display. Depending on your organisation, this may include:

News
Events
Moments (MVP only and not in BETA)
Images
Videos
Files
Policies
Processes
Blog Posts
Audio
Blank Pages
Issues

Selecting only relevant content types helps keep displays focused and engaging.

Default display order

Choose the order in which content appears in the carousel. Six options are available:

Option	What it does
Name Ascending	Alphabetical by title, A to Z
Name Descending	Alphabetical by title, Z to A
Date Published Ascending	Oldest published content first
Date Published Descending	Newest published content first
Last Modified Ascending	Content edited longest ago first
Last Modified Descending	Most recently edited content first

Which one to choose depends on what the display is for. Date Published Descending suits news-led displays, where employees expect the latest announcement first. Date Published Ascending works for content that runs in sequence, such as an event countdown or a campaign released in stages. The Name options are most useful on reference-style displays, for example a warehouse screen cycling through policies and processes, where a predictable order helps people find the item they are looking for.

⚠️ Last Modified ordering can resurface old content. Because it looks at the last edit rather than the publish date, a small correction to a months-old article will push that article to the front of the carousel. If your displays are news-led, Date Published Descending is usually the safer default.

Schedule Your Content

Scheduling allows different content to appear at different times throughout the day, week or month. Some common examples include:

Health and safety campaigns.
Company events.
Seasonal communications.
Office closures.
Recruitment campaigns.
Time-limited announcements.

Rather than manually changing displays, schedules allow content to appear automatically during the required period before returning to normal content once the schedule ends.

Remember: Schedule the end, not just the start. The most common signage problem is content that stays up too long. Setting the end date at the same time as the start date means campaigns retire themselves and nobody has to remember to take them down.

Create Engaging Displays

Screens are designed for quick, glanceable communication. Keep these principles in mind when creating content:

Use short, descriptive headlines.
Choose clear imagery that works well at a distance.
Avoid large amounts of body text.
Use QR codes for content employees may want to read in full later.
Refresh content on screens regularly to keep displays feeling current.
Display only the content types that are relevant to each location.

Employees often only have a few seconds to read content on a shared screen, so it's important to keep messages clear and easy to scan. Avoid displaying long blocks of text, confidential information, or content that relies on audio, especially in noisy environments. This type of content is better suited for your intranet or Microsoft Teams, where employees can view it at their own pace.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	What to check
Content is not appearing on a display	Confirm the content is published to the Area the device is linked to, and that its content type is enabled on that Area's Screens Homepage.
A display feels generic or irrelevant	Turn off Include child Areas, or link the device to a more specific Area.
Content is stale	Check your display ordering on the screen homepage, is it set to last modified?
Items move on before people can read them	Increase the carousel interval, or shorten the content and add a QR code.
Nothing at all is showing	Ask IT to confirm the device is still online and linked to an Area.
All I can see is a holding screen	Confirm there is content in the area that is linked, or the display is not in a ‘paused’ state.
A device shows Offline during working hours	Check with your site contact that the display is switched on and connected. Playback resumes automatically once it reconnects, so no republishing is needed.
Content is not appearing at the right time	Hover over the Scheduled chip to confirm the start and end time match what you intended.

Reporting

Screens reporting is available under Channels in the Reporting dashboard. To view, you must be assigned as a Report Viewer.

Go to Actions > Manage > Site Analytics, then select Channels from the left-hand menu. Here, you can view your most popular channels and total views for each, including Screens.

You can also explore your analytics in more detail by viewing the most popular times of day, as well as views by office or department.

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