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How to use the Transparent Menuboards with Google Sheets app
How to use the Transparent Menuboards with Google Sheets app
Joe Turone avatar
Written by Joe Turone
Updated over 2 months ago

Using the Transparent Version of the Google Sheets Menuboard app is similar to using the other versions of Google Sheets-Integrated Menuboards, with a few minor tweaks.

Start by heading to the Signagelive Marketplace and adding the Transparent - Google Sheets app to your Signagelive Network. If you are unsure on how to do this, please see this article.

With the app added to your Signagelive Network, we're ready to begin.

Preparing your Google Sheet for publication

Firstly, you'll need to ensure the sharing preferences of your Google Sheets document have been configured correctly.

With your desired Google Sheets document open, please follow these steps:

  1. Head to File > Share > Share With Others

  2. Change General Access to Anyone with the link

  3. Set the General Access Role to Viewer

  4. Press Done

Congrats! Your Google Sheets URL is ready to be added to the Menuboard - Transparent - Google Sheets app in Signagelive. See the next section to find out how to do this.

Please Note

Whilst it may be tempting to hit that "Copy Link" button that appears within the Share dialogue box, we actually require a different URL for the Transparent Google Sheets Menuboard app within Signagelive (the one located in the address bar). See the next section for more information.

Adding your document to the Menuboard - Transparent - Google Sheets app within Signagelive

With the Google Sheets app added to your Asset Library (if you've not done this yet, see here), you can now begin adding your Google Sheets URL to the app.

However, we need to ensure the URL contains GID values; therefore, ensure you copy the URL from the address bar whilst you have your Google Sheets document open as opposed to the one you acquire from hitting "Copy Link" in the Share menu we accessed earlier.

Image 2024-09-02 at 11.11.13 AM

With the correct URL copied, we can now go ahead and add this into the app within Signagelive.

To start, double-click on the asset within your Asset Library (or drag and drop it into a Playlist and then double-click) and then:

  1. In the Preview tab of the Google Sheets app, enter your Google Sheets URL in the URL field

  2. (Optional) change the colour of your data in the Font Colour field

  3. Hit the Refresh button

You should now see the data from your Google Sheets document populate in the preview on the left.


Making use of the Transparency feature in the Transparent - Google Sheets app

In order to make use of the transparency feature of this particular version of the Google Sheets app, you'll need to ensure that this app is published in front of another piece of content. As such, you'll need to create a Layout to do this. See this article for steps on creating a Layout.

Before creating your Layout, we recommend having your Menuboard - Transparent - Google Sheets app correctly configured in its own Playlist and then a separate Playlist with the content you wish to display behind your Google Sheets content.

With your two Playlists created, proceed with adding two Schedulable Zones to your Layout, ensuring:

  • The Playlist with the Transparent Google Sheets content is layered in the top Schedulable Zone of the Layout Designer.

  • The Playlist with your content you'd like to appear behind the Google Sheets content is in the bottom Schedulable Zone of the Layout Designer.

With your Layout background complete and your two Schedulable Zones present, you can now map each Playlist to each Schedulable Zone during step 2 when publishing. See this article for more details on this process.

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