Screen Monitoring & Downtime Alerts

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 when one or more 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 and notifies your chosen recipients (usually via email). 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 Vibes Admin Console:

  1. Log into the Vibe admin console.
  2. Go to Settings > Alerts.
  3. Select the Alerts tab where you can configure On/Off Schedules, Excluded Dates and Recipients.

Define your 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. It is strongly recommended to set 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 begin tracking device check-ins immediately, expect to see emails similar to this:


Why screen monitoring matters

Without monitoring, screen outages can go unnoticed for hours or even 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.