Set Up MT Showcase Services

A service set defines a specific administrative setup for an MT Showcase app. Each MT Showcase installation can support multiple service sets. This allows MT Showcase designers to create multiple versions of an app, all with the same content and theme but each with a unique service set. For example, you may want to deploy the same app in your London and Paris offices but with a different service set in each location that specifies the local SMTP server.

In the current version of MT Showcase, service sets can include:

The Data Gathering service collects content usage data that can be imported into third party data visualization tools such as Tableau Desktop. Usage data is stored in a PostgreSQL database as event records. Example events include hand and finger touches, opening or closing a widget, playing a video, viewing a PDF, browsing to a URL, adding items to a personal space, and emailing items from a personal space.
The Email Sending service is used for sending screen content from MT Showcase to a specified email account. When you add the email sending service to a service set, you will need to define such attributes as the SMTP host, credentials for an SMTP user, the sender's email address and the email subject.
The Twitter Connection service displays tweets in your app, either in a cloud widget or finger menu. This service retrieves tweets from a Twitter feed generated by a Twitter app to display tweets. When you add the Twitter feed to a content set in your MT Showcase app, you can specify search terms to filter the tweets.

You configure service sets in the MT Showcase Editor; for full instructions, see the MT Showcase Editor Manual. However, before you can configure the service in the Editor, some initial preparation may be needed; see the following sections for details.

Data Gathering Service

To enable data gathering, you simply add the data gathering service to a service set, and then add that service set to your MT Showcase app. You do this in the MT Showcase Editor. For instructions, see the MT Showcase Editor Manual.

After you enable data gathering for an app, MT Showcase tracks content usage and generates event records whenever the app is running. It saves event records in a database, mt-showcase-reporting.

PostgreSQL is the recommended DBMS for the data gathering service, on both Ubuntu and Windows application computers. On Ubuntu application computers, PostgreSQL is installed automatically with MT Showcase. The mt-showcase-reporting database is also created automatically.

However, you may need to install PostgreSQL manually if you want to:

Set up a reporting database on the local Windows application computer.
Connect to remote reporting database.

In these situations, you will also need to manually create the reporting database and reconfigure MT Showcase to store usage data in the new database.

Full details about data gathering are in the Set Up Data Gathering section. This section describes how to manually install PostgreSQL and create a reporting database. It also includes example database views and event records, and describes how to identify related events (for example, how to identify which video was played or which PDF was opened).

Email Sending Service

When you set up the Email Sending service in the Editor, you will need to provide details about your SMTP server, including:

SMTP host: You will need to enter the name or IP address of the SMTP server that will forward emails from MT Showcase to your users. Alternatively, you can specify the SMTP relay service for routing emails through Google (smtp.gmail.com).
SMTP port: You will need the TCP port for mail submission on your SMTP server. The default is port 587.
SMTP email account: You will need to enter the user name and password for the email account that MT Showcase uses to access the SMTP relay server. For example, noreply@unipraxis.com.
Sender email account: You will need to enter the email account that your organization will use to send MT Showcase emails to users. For example, admin@unipraxis.com.

You can also increase the timeouts for sending emails (for example, there is a 60 second timeout for attempts to connect to the SMTP server), although it is unlikely that you will need to change the default timeouts.

Finally, you can choose to ignore SSL errors. By default, MT Showcase does not send an email if it detects an SSL error (such as an invalid certificate) when connecting to the SMTP server. If you trust the connection, you can instruct MT Showcase to ignore SSL errors and send the email anyway.

Twitter Connection Service

Note

MT Showcase can only retrieve tweets; it cannot post tweets on behalf of the Twitter account being used and it cannot access the Twitter account's personal data.

The Twitter Connection service allows you to add Twitter feeds to your MT Showcase apps, with tweets displayed either in a cloud widget or finger menu. This service uses a Twitter app to retrieve the tweets from Twitter.

Before you can add the Twitter Connection service to your MT Showcase apps, you must therefore create a Twitter app. When you create this Twitter app, Twitter automatically generates a consumer key and consumer secret; the Twitter Connection service will need these details to authenticate communication with Twitter when searching for tweets. You will also need to authorize your Twitter app to use a designated Twitter account when retrieving tweets.

After creating your Twitter app, you can set up the Twitter Connection service in the MT Showcase Editor. Finally, you can add a Twitter Feed widget to your MT Showcase apps.

The full setup procedure is described in the Set Up a Twitter Feed section.

Media Server Service

The Media Server service is used for saving screen content from a user's personal space to a personal web page. This service is an alternative to the Email Sending service and has the advantage that it does not require a user's email address. Also, this web page can include screen items collected by the user from multiple video walls.

From the end-user's viewpoint, they can drag screen content into their personal space in MT Showcase and then use a QR code reader on their mobile device to download screen content they have collected on any video wall.

Before you can add the Media Server service to an app, you must prepare the media server; see the Set Up a Media Server section.

After preparing the media server, you can then set up the Media Server service in the MT Showcase Editor. For instructions, see the MT Showcase Editor Manual. Registered users can download this manual from https://cornerstone.multitouch.fi/mt-showcase-manuals.

Note

The URL for the user's personal web page is determined by the media server. The media server creates a unique web page for each Codice code detected by MT Showcase when users present their personal markers.