To start the scheduler software click Start > All Programs > PresentationPoint > iPoint Enterprise Edition > Scheduler. When you start the scheduler for the first time, you will have to indicate where the server resides. Set the server's computer name or ip address and set the communication port number (default = 8000). Click OK to continue. The scheduler will now launch the user interface and will try to connect to the server.

The scheduler's multi document user interface has 5 different zones.

Zone 1: Menu. The normal menu to control some general actions like connect, disconnect and server options.

Zone 2: Player and playlist control. Select the tab at the top to switch between your players and playlists.

Zone 3: Main window. Here you see an overall status of all your players. In this zone other documents can become visible when you open the detail view of a player or playlist. This player thumbnail is indicating the connection status of the player. When the player is connected to the server, its name will be colored green. When the connection is down, the name will be colored red.

Zone 4: Property window. Lists all properties you can view and modify of the current open document in the main window (zone 3).

Zone 5: Output window. Is logging the activity of the scheduler and the server process. Additionally you can open new output windows of players to monitor and debug its activity.

From the menu you can access some general options of the scheduler like connecting to or disconnecting from an iPoint server. Furthermore you can change the location of the iPoint server. Or change some general server options for archiving data, network information and player communication settings.

Next to this in the Tools menu, you have the option to distribute a new player software version to all players automatically.

Select the Players tab in the control to see a list of all defined players and player groups. The second tab Playlists displays all playlists defined in your system.

With a player or playlist selected you can run the following actions:

• Double click the item to open a detail view of it in the main window.
• Right click the item to get a popup menu with more actions.

For a player you get a brief description of the customs actions you can choose.

• New group - Create a new group of players and select the players for this group.
• New player - Creates a new player definition. This is done automatically whenever a new player connects the first time to your system.
• Open - Opens a detailed view on the player in the main window.
• Assignments - Displays all playlist assignment for this player.
• View activity - Open a new output window for this player.
• Special actions - When this player is connected to the server, you can restart the software, reboot or shutdown the computer.
• Delete - To permanently delete a player from your system.

With a playlist selected you get the following options.

• New - Create a new playlist and start adding files and folders.
• Open - Opens a detailed view on the playlist in the main window.
• Delete - To permanently delete a playlist from your system.

The Start document is always there and cannot be closed. All other open documents like a detailed view of a player or playlist can be saved and closed by right clicking the tab.

From the Start tab you get some shortcuts to the 3 most important actions in the iPoint system.

• Add a new player - Adds a new player to your system and set its properties.
• Create a playlist - Creates a new playlist where you can add files and folders to.
• Assign a playlist to a player - Indicate at what time a player should play a given playlist.

Next to this you get a thumbnail for each player defined in your system. The color of the player name will indicate the connection state. Green is connected, red is disconnected from the server. You can double click a player thumbnail to open a detaild view or right click the thumbnail for more options.

This area of the user interface is displaying all properties of the open and select document (player or playlist) in the main window.

The properties are grouped (in bold) and a property group holds 1 or more properties. When you have a property selected, you can read some more information at the bottom of the property window. To modify or set a property value, click in the textbox at the right of that property and type in the new value or select its new value from the values presented in the listbox.

When you change a property you will see a asterix (*) behind the name of the document in the main window indicating that the document is changed and unsaved. To save your modifications, right click the tab of the document and choose Save from the popup menu.

There are 2 standard output windows open. The Output tab lists all additional information of the scheduler process itself and the Server tab lists the activity, errors and warnings generated on in the server process. Both default tabs cannot be closed.

Additional tabs can exist when you have chosen to execute the View activity action on a player. These tabs can be closed whenever you want.

For all open tabs, it starts logging the activity from the moment you opened the output window. Older messages are not visible. Right click a output window to open a popup menu. From here you can clear the output window or copy its content to your clipboard.

If you want to debug a troublesome player, first open the output window for this player. Then you go the the main window, right click the thumbnail of the player and you choose Special actions > Restart software. In the output window of this player you will now see the player software starting up and running the current playlist.