Set up how a screen rotates between departures, arrivals and your slides

A lobby board rarely shows one fixed picture. It can alternate between departures and arrivals, fold your own slides into the cycle, scroll through a long list or turn it page by page. This article explains where each of those settings lives, how they depend on one another, and why the interval at which flight data is refreshed is not something you can set. Everything here is configured per screen, so two screens in the same hotel can behave quite differently.

Where the settings are

Open Displays in the portal and open the screen you want to change. The settings for movement are spread over two tabs, each in the place where it belongs.

Design → Flight list holds Shows (Departures, Arrivals or Both), Columns (one, two or three), the column assignment for two or three columns, and under Content the Own slides switch.

Design → Motion holds the alternating switch, the field Show flights for, Long lists (scroll or pages), Seconds per page, Rows per page, Transition and Animate new rows.

Behavior holds Auto-scroll with its speed and pause, and the language settings. The Motion section links there with Open Behavior.

The live preview next to the controls shows your unsaved changes. Choose Play in the preview to watch the board move; the default still picture never alternates.

When the board alternates

Whether the board alternates at all depends on what it shows and how it is laid out. A new screen starts with Shows set to Departures, and a board that shows only one direction never alternates. Set Shows to Both and one of three situations applies.

One column on a TV always alternates between departures and arrivals. There is no switch for it; the editor says so in a short note.

One column in Touch or Website mode offers the switch Alternate automatically. On, the board changes direction by itself. Off, guests switch with the tabs at the top.

Two or three columns offer the switch Alternate all columns. On, every column shows the same direction and they all change together, so the column assignment is ignored. Off, each column shows what you assigned to it. While the switch is on, the editor offers Switch rotation off right next to the greyed-out assignment.

How long each view stays up

Show flights for accepts 10 to 600 seconds, and a new screen starts at 120 seconds. The value applies to every flight view: with alternating on, departures stay up that long, then arrivals stay up for the same time. The field only appears once the board alternates or your own slides are on, because only then is there anything to time.

Slides are timed separately. Each slide carries the duration it has in the slide pool, and you can give it a different duration for one particular screen on that screen's Content tab.

Your own slides in the cycle

Slides need a Pro or Premium plan; on Basic the Own slides switch stays locked. Slides live in one central pool, so creating a slide does not yet put it on a board.

Create the slide under Slide Pool in the portal.

Open the screen, go to its Content tab and add the slide from the pool. The order there is the order on this screen.

Make sure Own slides is switched on under Design → Flight list.

The board shows all assigned slides after every flight view. With alternating on, one full cycle is departures, your slides, arrivals, your slides, and then departures again. Slides are never shown in Website mode.

Scrolling or turning pages

A list longer than the screen either scrolls slowly or turns page by page like an airport board. You choose this under Design → Motion → Long lists, and Pages needs a Pro plan.

Seconds per page sets how long each page stays, from 6 to 60 seconds. It starts at 12.

Rows per page is Automatic by default, which fits as many whole rows as the screen holds. You can also fix it at 1 to 20 rows.

A small page indicator shows where the list stands. In paging mode the board never scrolls; your auto-scroll settings stay saved and apply again when you switch back to scrolling.

Paging also changes how long a flight view lasts on a one-column board that alternates. The view is rounded up to whole passes through all pages, so the board never switches direction in the middle of the list. With 120 seconds per view, 12 seconds per page and four pages, one pass takes 48 seconds, so each view lasts 144 seconds. In scroll mode the value in Show flights for is kept exactly. On two or three columns the columns turn their pages together, the longest column sets the pace, and the view length stays as you set it.

Transitions

Transition decides how the board changes between departures, arrivals, slides and pages. None is the default and cuts straight to the next view. Fade and Slide need a Pro plan and play a short entrance of well under half a second. Split-flap needs a Premium plan: instead of moving the whole list, the times, gates and statuses flip like the letters on a classic airport board, both when a value changes and after a page or view change.

Animate new rows (Pro, on by default) lets a flight that newly appears in the list fade in instead of popping up. Animations are left out on a device that asks for reduced motion, and in the still preview.

Auto-scroll stays on the Behavior tab

Auto-scroll is its own movement and has nothing to do with alternating. On the Behavior tab under Auto Scroll you can switch it off, set the Scroll Speed on a five-step scale, and set Pause at Start/End, which is how long the list rests at the top before it scrolls again (0 to 300 seconds, 30 by default). Auto-scroll is not available in Website mode, and it does not run in paging mode or while a slide is on screen.

The display mode changes what can interrupt the cycle

The Device setting on the General tab is TV by default.

TV never pauses. A touch or mouse movement does not pause it, so the cycle keeps running whatever happens in front of the screen.

Touch and Website pause alternating for 30 seconds after a touch or mouse movement, then carry on. In Touch mode guests can also use the pause button in the footer, which holds the board for at most five minutes, so a guest who walks away never leaves it frozen.

Website mode, meant for embedding the board in a web page, shows no slides and does not auto-scroll. Alternating still works there when you switch it on.

Language rotation

If a screen has more than one language, it takes turns with them as well. On the Behavior tab under Language Settings you choose the languages, and once there are at least two, Language Switch Interval appears, from 10 to 600 seconds and 60 by default. Basic shows one language, Pro two, and Premium the full list. On Pro and Premium, Design → Languages also offers a bilingual mode that shows the second language directly under headings and statuses instead of taking turns.

Saving, and when the screen picks it up

Changes reach the screen only after you save. A running screen re-reads its settings about every 20 seconds, so you do not need to touch the device in the lobby. If a screen seems stuck on an old state, use Reload screen next to it in the Displays list; it reloads within about 20 seconds.

How often flight data is refreshed

This is not a setting. The refresh interval follows your subscription.

Basic refreshes flight data every 60 minutes.

Pro refreshes every 30 minutes.

Premium refreshes every 5 minutes.

Our servers keep the flight data for the same interval, so reloading the browser on the display device does not bring newer data before the interval is up. What a refresh brings in is flight status, gate and terminal, times, and flights that newly appear in the schedule. What a screen does when its connection drops is described in the article on offline behaviour linked below.

Settings worth starting from

For a busy departure board, give each flight view around 60 seconds and keep slides short, at about 15 seconds, so that guests looking for their flight do not wait through your content. For a hotel with only a few relevant flights, 30 seconds per flight view and 30 seconds per slide gives a more even split. If your list is long and guests read it from a distance, paging with 10 to 15 seconds per page is often calmer to read than scrolling.

Troubleshooting

The board never changes between departures and arrivals. Check that Shows is set to Both. On Touch or Website mode, also check that Alternate automatically is on; otherwise guests switch with the tabs. On two or three columns, Alternate all columns has to be on.

My slides never appear. Slides need Pro or Premium, Own slides must be on, and the slides must be added to this screen on its Content tab. In Website mode slides are never shown.

A flight view lasts longer than the value I entered. The board is in paging mode on one column, and the view is rounded up to whole passes through all pages. Switch Long lists back to Scroll if you need the exact time.

Nothing moves in the preview. The preview starts as a still picture. Choose Play to see the cycle. A board opened with preview=1 in its address is frozen on purpose.

The list does not scroll. Auto-scroll is off on the Behavior tab, the screen is in Website mode, or Long lists is set to Pages.

Next steps

The display editor walks through all tabs of the same screen.

The running order covers assigning and ordering slides in more depth.

Styles for your board explains the style gallery, which can set paging and transitions for you.

What happens when a display loses its connection describes the board during an outage.

Choosing a plan lists what changes at each tier, including the refresh interval.

Support

If something here does not match what you see, write to info@lobbyflight.com. Support is available Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:00 CET.

Set up how a screen rotates between departures, arrivals and your slides