DSA Digital Signage

What happened?

The Division of Student Affairs (DSA) has migrated its digital signage back-end service from servers hosted by Student Affairs IT (DoIT) to servers hosted by TAMU IT.

Why?

DSA has had digital signage for many years and has been an active participant on the campus Digital Signage Steering Committee (DSSC). In early 2014, DSA digital signage was migrated from a legacy platform to a new Four Winds International (FWI) platform hosted by DoIT. Since then, the DSSC has also standardized on FWI as the primary digital signage platform for campus and implemented a campus FWI shared service, hosted by TAMU IT. This shared service allows for combined licensing buying power, thus lowering the licensing cost for digital signage. Moving to the FWI shared service has been strategically planned by Technology Services – Student Affairs since it was fully implemented. Now that both the Technology Services – Student Affairs and TAMU IT FWI platforms are at the same version level, it was the ideal time to migrate.

When?

All DSA departments were migrated between August 15-26, 2016.

What should I know?

  • There was no disruption to the content displayed on the digital signs during the migration
  • Being on the campus FWI platform has the benefit of sharing content across campus with non-DSA content managers
  • The FWI software is functionally identical between the two platforms
  • Using the campus FWI platform does require the use of different username/password credentials
  • Content from DSA Events (events.tamu.edu) can still be utilized on the campus FWI platform
  • Technology Services – Student Affairs still provides support for ordering and setting up digital signage players
  • Technology Services – Student Affairs still deploys the FWI software to DSA workstations
  • Technology Services – Student Affairs will coordinate issues pertaining to FWI username/password credentials

What if I need help?