Screen Monitoring & Downtime Alerts

Keeping your digital signage screens reliably online is essential for effective workplace communication — a blank or offline display is more than a technical glitch, it’s a missed opportunity to reach your audience.

Active Screen Monitoring lets you set up Downtime Alerts so you’ll be notified (via email) when screens go offline, or don’t check-in on schedule. This proactive monitoring helps you respond quickly and resolve issues before they impact engagement.

What active screen monitoring does

Active Screen Monitoring continuously checks the status of your digital signage devices at configured intervals. When a screen fails to report its status within the expected window (e.g., goes offline or loses connection), the system triggers a Downtime Alert, emailed to your chosen recipients. This gives you visibility into screen health without having to manually watch dashboards or physically inspect displays.

Setting up Downtime Alerts

You can manage screen monitoring and downtime alerts from System Settings:

Log into the Vibe portal
Go to System Settings > Site Settings
Select the Downtime Alerts tab
This is where you can configure On/Off Schedules, add Excluded Dates and Recipients.

Define a monitoring 'On/Off Schedule'

Monitoring should reflect when your screens are expected to be active. For example, if your screens only operate during business hours, alerts should only trigger within that timeframe. This ensures you are not notified when screens are intentionally powered off.

If a location does not have a timezone configured, the system will default to server time, which may cause alerts to trigger at unexpected times. We recommend to setting the correct timezone for each location.

Configure 'Excluded Dates'

You can exclude specific dates from monitoring, such as public holidays, planned maintenance, or known outages. This prevents unnecessary alerts and reduces noise for your team.

Add alert 'Recipients'

Enter the email addresses of the people who should receive downtime alerts. The system accepts multiple formats (commas, spaces, semicolons, or line breaks) and will automatically format them correctly when saved.

Monitoring is immediate

Once your schedule, exclusions and recipients are configured and saved, Vibe will immediately begin monitoring device check-ins. If a screen is detected as offline, an email alert will be sent to your nominated recipients, including common reasons for the issue and troubleshooting tips to help get the screen back online.

Here's an example of what you can expect to receive:

Why screen monitoring matters

Without monitoring, screen outages can go unnoticed for hours or days. With Active Monitoring enabled, you gain immediate visibility into issues such as:

Network connectivity loss
Device power interruptions
Player app failures
Sync issues preventing content updates

This allows you to take action before your audience notices a blank or outdated screen.

FAQ

What qualifies as “downtime”?

Downtime refers to any period when a screen fails to report its status within the expected timeframe based on your monitoring schedule. When that happens, an alert is triggered so you can investigate quickly.

Can I monitor screens outside business hours?

Yes — just configure your on/off schedule to cover the times you care about (e.g., 24/7 monitoring or specific shifts).

What if I get too many alerts?

Review your schedule and excluded dates.

Unnecessary alerts often come from monitoring during expected downtime or maintenance. Adjusting these dates helps reduce noise.

Who receives these alerts?

The email addresses you add under “Recipients” in the alert settings will receive notifications when issues occur. You can include multiple team members or escalation contacts.