Set up a Neat Board as wayfinding signage

A Neat Board is a 50 or 65-inch touchscreen on a wall or a stand. At that size a floor plan is readable from across a lift lobby, which is what makes it the screen to put where people arrive and do not yet know where they are going.

Wayfinding on a Board is two halves. The screen shows the floor — which rooms are free, where they are — and a Wayfinding QR code hands the route to the visitor’s own phone, so the directions walk with them instead of staying on the wall. Routes are calculated from where the Board itself stands, which is why placing it on the floor plan is a step here rather than an afterthought.

What to have ready

• A Neat Board 50 or Neat Board Pro
• A Neat Pulse organisation with the Offision app available to enable
• Mains power at the wall — a Board draws far more than any panel and has no PoE option
• A wall mount or stand. Neither is in the box; only the table stand is
• About thirty minutes, plus whatever the mount takes

Both are landscape, so build the content that way. And both take Ethernet, which on a wall-mounted screen in a public area is worth using — a Board that drops off WiFi is a blank wall in the busiest part of the building.

1. Build the floor content

Go to Signage › Content, choose Add, and pick Floor display.

Answer the screen questions to match the Board — landscape 16:9, and Touch screen on. A Board is a touchscreen, and saying so is what lets people work the map with their hands rather than only reading it.

The purpose starts the design with the floor’s availability map already placed. Everything about the editor, and what else can go beside the map, is in Build signage content; the map itself is covered in Booking status map.

2. Add the wayfinding tiles

Two things turn a floor map into wayfinding, and both are added on the content:

• Wayfinding QR code — a tile in the Workplace category. Somebody scans it and gets a search page on their phone, already routed from this Board’s position. This is the one that matters on a screen people walk past.
• Scan-to-go QR on route — a setting on the availability map itself. With it on, a route drawn on the map carries a QR the visitor can pick up and keep.

3. Enrol the Board in Neat Pulse

A Neat device takes its apps from Neat Pulse rather than from an address you type, and the enrolment is the same for every Neat device. It is explained once, with the two codes it involves, in Connect a Neat Pad room booking panel.

In short:

1. In Neat Pulse, open the Apps tab, enable Offision and disable every other app.
2. Go to Devices › Add devices, name the device and choose Continue. Pulse shows an enrollment code.
3. Power on the Board and follow its on-screen setup until it shows the Neat Pulse screen. Type the enrollment code.

Do this at desk height if you can. Everything up to the pairing code is easier before the Board goes on the wall.

4. Let Pulse install Offision

Once the Board pairs with Pulse, choose Continue on the device. On the Choose apps page, select Offision and choose Continue.

The Board downloads and launches the app, then shows a six-character pairing code.

5. Pair it as signage

In the console, go to Devices › Signage › Devices and choose Add.

The wizard asks three things: the content this screen will play, the brand of hardware, and then the code. Choose the floor content from step 1, then Neat Board.

Type the six characters from the Board. The field submits itself on the last one.

6. Place it on the floor plan

Routes start from the Board, so the Board has to be somewhere. As the wizard finishes, choose Set location and put the device where it physically stands — by the lifts, inside the entrance, wherever it ended up. The same thing can be done later from the device’s own row.

A Board that is not placed still shows the floor. It just cannot route from here, because there is no here.

7. Check it worked

Within a few seconds the Board stops showing the code and starts showing the floor. Then walk the thing people will actually do:

• On the Board, tap a room on the map. It should tell you about that room.
• With a phone, scan the wayfinding code, search for a room on another part of the floor, and check the route it draws starts from where you are standing.

When it goes wrong

What this does not do

• It does not draw your floor plans. The map is whatever the floor plan carries. A route can only pass places that were drawn on it.
• It does not turn the Board into a room panel. A Board paired as signage shows content. Booking a room from it is what the content’s own widgets do, not a panel mode.
• It does not use the camera or microphones. Those belong to Neat’s meeting features; Offision only draws on the screen.
• It does not manage the device. Firmware and which app runs stay in Neat Pulse. Sensor readings are a separate connection — see Connect Neat Pulse.