External Communication
External communication is how organizations share information with customers, investors, media, and the public. Learn what it is, why it ...
Digital signage software is the platform that lets you create, schedule, and manage content on screens – without ever touching the display itself. It’s what powers the content on every TV, video wall, and kiosk showing anything from a safety alert to a live sales dashboard.
Digital signage software is what turns a blank screen into a communication channel. It’s the layer that lets you build content, decide where and when it appears, and keep it updated without physically going near the hardware.
For organizations with more than a handful of screens, digital signage software makes a huge difference. One office might manage a couple of TVs by hand. Fifty offices across a dozen time zones can’t – that’s where the software does the heavy lifting. It means a comms or IT team of a few people can run screens across an entire company.
Some platforms are built for a single use case, like wayfinding or menu boards, while others – like Appspace – tie corporate digital signage into the rest of your workplace experience, from the employee app to room booking.
According to Appspace research, 72% of employees have felt out of the loop on key workplace information updates. And 78% believe their organization could do better at sharing important information and updates.
Digital signage software generally handles three jobs:
The best digital signage software can also publish the same content to an employee app, email, enterprise messaging tools, or an intranet, so signage becomes one channel among several rather than a silo.
The right digital signage software doesn’t just run screens – it feeds directly into broader company strategy, from internal comms to workplace efficiency.
Getting strategic value out of digital signage software isn’t automatic – a few common pitfalls can keep it from ever feeding into the bigger picture.
A university with campuses across the U.S. needed to keep communication consistent institution-wide, while still giving individual campuses the freedom to share their own event schedules and local updates.
They partnered with Appspace to pilot a solution at their main Boston campus using BrightSign devices, with the goal of deploying and managing content from a centralized platform. From day one, corporate teams could push university-wide messaging while local campus communicators managed their own relevant content – and by the second year, local teams were fully on board and eager to use the platform themselves.
Since then, the university has expanded beyond communication displays into conference room signage and room booking, with plans to keep growing adoption across campuses.
Read the full education customer story ›
A major retail chain in the financial services sector had already rolled out digital signage but was only using about 40% of its available devices. That meant sales updates, promotions, and operational messaging were slower to reach stores than they needed to be.
Appspace’s Workplace Experience services team built a custom PowerBI card so store information could display in real time, along with a tailored spreadsheet solution that let the company tag content by sales requirements, promotions, and other retail metrics – making it far easier to organize and distribute messaging across storefronts and back offices.
The impact went beyond signage: after seeing how much simpler communication and conference room functionality became, the company looked at additional workplace solutions, including space reservation, and is now expanding the program into Latin America.
Digital signage software is similar to a few related systems. Here are the differences:
Digital signage software is the tool, corporate digital signage is that tool applied to a workplace. The software is what lets you create, schedule, and publish content – corporate digital signage is the result: screens across offices showing company news, safety alerts, or team wins.
A CMS is technically a component of digital signage software – it’s the part that handles organizing content and setting rules for what shows up where and when. Most modern digital signage software includes a CMS as one piece of a larger toolkit that also covers content creation, device management, and analytics.
These terms are often used interchangeably, but “platform” usually implies a broader ecosystem – signage software that also connects to other systems a company already runs, like an intranet, room booking, or employee app. Digital signage software can exist as a standalone tool; a platform positions it as one channel among several.
Remote screen management is a feature within digital signage software – the ability to monitor, update, and troubleshoot screens from a central dashboard rather than in person. The software is the whole toolkit; remote screen management is what makes running it across multiple locations practical.
It’s the platform behind the screen – the tool that lets you create content, schedule it, and push it out to TVs, video walls, and kiosks without physically touching the display.
You build content (often from a template), schedule when and where it should appear, and the software delivers it to media players connected to each screen over your network.
Yes – that’s typically the main reason organizations move from manual updates to dedicated software. A central dashboard lets teams push content, monitor status, and troubleshoot issues across every location at once.
No – most platforms are built around templates, so comms and AV teams can publish polished content without a design background, and many now offer AI assistance to speed up content creation even further.
You don’t need another dashboard to stare at – you need answers. Appspace Insights brings your physical and digital workplace data into one place, so you can spot friction, track engagement, and make smarter decisions without digging through reports or waiting on IT.
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