Focus Areas

Focus areas simplify the interface for a job. You pick which parts of Screen Manager a role actually needs, and everything else disappears from that user's navigation and editors.

A café manager who only uploads a daily offer and sets when it plays does not need Layouts, Zones, Tag-based playlists, Campaigns, Sync walls or Data Sources. With a focus area, they simply never see them — they sign in and land on the two or three pages their job is about.

Focus areas do not restrict access. They only decide what is shown. What a user is allowed to do is decided by the permissions on their user role, exactly as before. See Focus areas vs. permissions.

When to use a focus area

Focus areas are a good fit when:

• The app does more than the job needs. New users are overwhelmed by menu entries and playlist-editor tabs that are irrelevant to them.
• You have distinct job profiles — content editors, screen technicians, marketing, kitchen/menu staff — and each one lives in a different corner of the product.
• You want people to land where they work. A focus area can set the page a user sees first after signing in.
• You are rolling out to non-technical staff (branch managers, shop assistants) and want training to be "here are your three screens", not a tour of the whole product.

You do not need a focus area when a role already covers a small surface, or when the people using it are administrators who need everything.

How it works in a nutshell

1. An account admin creates a focus area in My Organization → Focus Areas and ticks the parts of the app it keeps visible.
2. The focus area is assigned to one or more user roles.
3. Every user with that role sees a reduced interface: only the ticked navigation entries, playlist-editor tabs and sections.
4. Optionally the focus area defines a landing page, so those users start on the page that matters to them.
5. Roles without a focus area are unaffected — they keep the full interface.

A role can carry several focus areas. The user then sees the union of them: anything ticked in any of the assigned focus areas stays visible.

What can be hidden

Navigation

EntryNotesScreensPlaylistsMediaScenesAppsTagsSchedulesSensor AnalyticsMenu Boardswith its own tabs: Menu boards, Meal Templates, Custom PictogramsCustomer FeedbackProof of PlayData Sources

Playlist editor

ElementNotesGeneral tabwith its sections: Aspect ratio & media fit, Audience targeting (AI triggers), Playlist tags, Sync wall settingsLayout tab (zones)Tag-based tabCampaign tab

Integration pages (Sensor Analytics, Menu Boards, Customer Feedback, Proof of Play, Data Sources) are individually selectable. When a focus area picks any of them, they are promoted to top-level menu entries instead of sitting inside the Integrations fly-out — a focused user should not have to open a sub-menu to reach the single page their job needs.

Step 1 — Create a focus area

1. Go to My Organization → Focus Areas.
2. Click Create Focus Area.
3. Give it a Name (required) and an optional Description — this is what admins see when assigning it to a role, so describe the job, e.g. "Branch manager — daily offers".
4. Optionally pick a Start from a template (see below). It fills in the selection, which you can then adjust.
5. Tick everything this job needs in Navigation and Playlist editor.
6. Optionally choose a Lands on page.
7. Save.

At least one element must be ticked — an empty focus area cannot be saved.

Templates

Templates are only a starting point; nothing links back to them afterwards, so you can change the selection freely.

TemplateWhat it turns onContent & SchedulingPlaylists, Media, Scenes, Schedules + the playlist General tab with Aspect ratio & media fit. Lands on Playlists.Screen OperationsScreens and Schedules. Lands on Screens.Advanced Playlist DesignPlaylists, Apps, Tags + all playlist editor tabs and General sections. Lands on Playlists.Integrations & DataSensor Analytics, Menu Boards (all tabs), Customer Feedback, Proof of Play, Data Sources. Lands on Data Sources.

The nesting rules

The picker is a checkbox tree, and it mirrors how the app renders:

• Ticking a parent ticks everything below it. A page whose every tab is hidden would render empty, so that is never the default.
• Unticking a parent clears its children, so nothing orphaned is stored.
• Unticking the last child unticks the parent too — a menu entry that opens a page with nothing on it is worse than no entry at all.
• A child's checkbox stays disabled while its parent is unticked.

The landing page

Lands on is optional. Leave it on Default and users keep the normal destination after signing in.

Only pages this focus area actually shows can be picked, and if you later untick that page the landing choice is cleared automatically — a focus area can never send a user to a page it hides.

When a role has several focus areas, the first one that declares a landing page wins, in the order the role lists them.

Step 2 — Assign it to a user role

Focus areas do nothing until a role uses them.

On a new role — in My Organization → User Roles → Create role, pick the focus areas in the Focus areas section of the form.

On an existing role — open My Organization → User Roles, find the role and click Focus areas. Tick or untick, then Save.

Changes take effect for those users on their next page load.

Predefined roles cannot carry a focus area. Roles marked as predefined are shared by every account, so a focus area attached to one would apply to all of them. Create your own role instead — the button is not offered on predefined roles, and the server rejects it as well.

Example use cases

1. Branch manager who only posts the daily offer

The job: upload a picture or short video, drop it into the branch playlist, decide when it plays. Nothing else.

Focus area — "Daily content":

• Navigation: Media, Playlists, Schedules
• Playlist editor: General tab → Aspect ratio & media fit
• Lands on: Playlists

Result: four menu entries instead of a dozen. Opening a playlist shows a single General tab with the display settings — no Layout, no Tag-based, no Campaign, no audience targeting. Start from the Content & Scheduling template and untick Scenes if they should not build scenes.

2. Installation technician

The job: register screens, pair them, check they are online and showing the right thing. They never touch content.

Focus area — "Screen operations":

• Navigation: Screens, Schedules
• Playlist editor: nothing
• Lands on: Screens

Result: they sign in directly on the Screens list. Playlists, Media, Scenes and all integrations are gone from the navigation. This is the Screen Operations template unchanged.

3. Restaurant chain — kitchen/menu staff

The job: keep menu boards accurate — prices, availability, meal templates. They are not marketers and never build playlists.

Focus area — "Menu management":

• Navigation: Menu Boards → Menu boards tab, Meal Templates tab
• Lands on: Menu boards

Result: Menu Boards appears as a top-level menu entry rather than inside the Integrations fly-out, and it opens with only the two tabs they use — Custom Pictograms stays hidden because branding is somebody else's job.

4. Marketing agency running campaigns for a client

The job: build layouts and zones, target screens by tag, run campaigns. They should not be reconfiguring screens or data integrations.

Focus area — "Campaign design":

• Navigation: Playlists, Media, Scenes, Apps, Tags
• Playlist editor: General (all sections), Layout, Tag-based, Campaign
• Lands on: Playlists

Result: the full creative toolset, none of the screen fleet management. Start from Advanced Playlist Design and add Media and Scenes.

5. Analyst who only reads reports

The job: look at proof of play and sensor analytics. Read-only.

Focus area — "Reporting":

• Navigation: Sensor Analytics, Proof of Play
• Lands on: Sensor Analytics

Result: two menu entries, promoted to the top level. Pair this with a role whose permissions are read-only — the focus area removes the clutter, the permissions do the actual restricting.

6. Combining two focus areas on one role

A store supervisor both posts content and checks the screens are alive. Rather than a third bespoke definition, assign "Daily content" and "Screen operations" to the same role. The user sees the union: Media, Playlists, Schedules, Screens — and lands on Playlists, because that focus area is listed first.

This keeps the definitions reusable: fixing "Daily content" once updates every role that includes it.

Focus areas vs. permissions

This distinction matters, so it is worth being explicit:

Permissions (user role)Focus areasPurposeWhat a user is allowed to doWhat a user seesEnforcedServer-side, on every requestInterface onlyBypassableNoYes — a direct URL still opens a hidden pageScopeAccess controlSimplification

A focus area can only ever hide. It can never reveal something the role does not permit. If a role has no permission for Screens, ticking Screens in a focus area changes nothing — the entry still does not appear.

Conversely, a user who types (or bookmarks) the URL of a page their focus area hides will still open it, filtered by their permissions exactly as before. That is by design: focus areas are about a calm interface, not about security.

Never describe a focus area to a customer as restricting access. If something must be off limits, use the role's permissions.

Editing and deleting

Editing a focus area updates every role that uses it, immediately.

Deleting is refused while any role still references it. The error names the roles involved:

Still used by 2 roles: Branch manager, Store supervisor. Remove it from them before deleting.

Detach it from those roles first (User Roles → Focus areas), then delete. This is deliberate — silently unlinking would restore the full interface for those users without anyone noticing.

Troubleshooting

"I ticked a page but the user still doesn't see it." Check the role's permissions. The entry appears only when the role permits it and the focus area shows it.

"A user sees everything despite having a focus area." The interface deliberately falls back to showing everything when a focus area resolves to nothing — for example after all of its assigned focus areas were deleted, or if it only contains elements the current app version no longer knows. A full interface is a better failure than an empty one. Re-check the role's focus areas.

"A page opens empty." Every tab or section inside it is hidden. Tick at least one child, or hide the page entirely. The builder prevents this for new selections, but a definition saved before a change may still have it.

"The Focus Areas page is greyed out." Focus areas follow the same plan gate as user roles (User Roles and Permissions). If that feature is not part of your plan, contact your administrator.