Featured Project: Carousel Software Powers the Knowledge at this School Down Under

Minneapolis-based Carousel Digital Signage, which makes digital content management software primarily geared toward the educational and corporate markets, announces that its product was chosen for use in an Australian girls’ boarding school.

The Walford Anglican School for Girls is in South Australia, and takes in boarding, international and day students from early learning-starting at age 4-through the 12th grade. It relies on a campus-wide digital signage network to communicate with its students and faculty.

The school specifically wanted the Carousel Cloud software, which it believed would increase the user experience and streamline the costs for expanding and maintaining its network. The school’s digital network uses 20 displays, with content including calendar items, local weather, and a newsfeed with updates and photos from recent events.

Walford operates on an all-Mac computing ecosystem and previously had been using a Windows-based digital signage system that the school found difficult to configure, manage and update.

“We had many Apple TVs around the school, and wanted to leverage those (instead of) purchasing separate digital signage players for each display,” says Kyle Heading, the school’s IT operations manager. “That was how we came across Carousel.”

Carousel Digital Signage software simplifies content delivery and device control on Apple TV devices due to its integration partnership with Jamf, a comprehensive enterprise management company that helps IT departments manage their Apple devices. Heading had previously integrated Jamf to better manage the school’s iPads, Macs and Apple TVs.

Walford has since successfully deployed Carousel software to some of its Apple TV devices via Jamf and the results have been positive.

“We configure them as digital signage players, and once complete they are instantly functional as part of the Carousel Cloud network,” says Heading.

Not only has the user experience and ease of programming greatly improved since installing the Carousel Cloud software, but the cost savings have been dramatic. Heading estimates that they saved about $5,000 (Australian) by using their 20 existing Apple TVs. Additionally, they save on licensing fees and the cost of dedicated servers for an on-premise system, which would also add to management overhead costs.

Walford anticipates an expansion of the Carousel network as new screen locations are added, and older projection systems are upgraded to flat-panel displays. He emphasizes that the success of the network to date confirms the value of digital signage as a highly effective tool for internal communications and promotion in education.

“People nowadays just want information at their fingertips,” he says. “Digital signage offers a very effective and dynamic way to present that information, and Carousel Cloud has proven to be the right choice for our environment.”