FWi Reviews

Eventually, if you're like me, you'll push the limits of you CMS. I like to do more. Maybe you started out wanting to push images to a single display. However, as your business grows, you may now need to pull live data and push that to your display giving your staff up to date metrics to judge business decisions. Does your current Content Management system provide that? Maybe it doesn't. Maybe you didn't know you needed that. I've discovered over the last twelve years as a designer and CMS admin I needed an overly robust shoe to perform in. I outgrew my last CMS and needed more functionality. FourWinds was that bigger shoe, for me. As I grow to do more with my digital signage the FourWinds platform is growing faster and I can't keep up. Thats a good thing! You don't want to eventually outgrow your shoe, you want your shoe to grow with you. Changing your CMS, because it can't keep up what with your business needs is painful. I done it three times and it's a pain, to say the least. To sum it up, the FourWinds content management system seems to have few boundaries and I like that the most.

If I had to come up with what I like least about the FourWinds software my list wouldn't be long. I have to separate my gripes into two categories. Are my issues caused by the media player I'm choosing to use or is it the software? Most of my gripes are directed at the media player which, really, has nothing to do with the software at all. So, separating the two, I would wish for a way to bulk upload assets. Each month I create, upload and schedule 40-60 promotional assets. If I could select, schedule, set duration of play, days to play, upload, etc. as a bulk list without doing it one at a time would save me considerable time. That would be what I like least about this software.

It posts content to screens as instructed mostly.

It's impossible to preview the content posted without sitting and viewing each slide in rotation in real time. Content doesn't automatically cease as directed, or always post as directed in some cases.

We had 3 old systems, one for wayfinding, one for signage and 1 a bit of both. Four Winds Interactive allowed us to consolidate our signage/wayfinding into 1 system and gain loads of functionality at the same time.

I could build the system I imagined from scratch utilizing Four Winds Interactive. This included creating my own templates, design and touch functionality to make it work best for our audience. It could integrate with 3rd party data utilizing JSON or XML which makes it extremely versatile.

Many past problems I have run into including documentation, etc are being actively addressed by the company with enhancements coming to the customer portal.

Content Manager Desktop is only available on Windows (which creates extra steps for Mac users like myself) but with their new Cloud system I need to open Content Manager Desktop less frequently.

The strongest aspect of FWI signage software is the ability to integrate with so many sources of data, including RSS, XML, SQL, and JSON. This has allowed us to greatly reduce the time spent manually managing sign content, as the signs update themselves as information is entered into our many different systems of record which serve as sources of content/data.

The Content Manager Desktop application, as it exists currently, is Windows-only and is much too complex for a beginning user who will only need to make simple image/video content updates. The application is incredibly powerful and makes sense to a power user, but I'm glad to see the FWI Cloud content library start to become available to serve the needs of basic content contributors.

Four Winds is a very robust and mature digital signage system. There is a lot of flexibility, fantastic resources and free templates. Customer service reps are always very sharp and have been able to resolve any issue i've encountered.

There is a bit of a learning curve because of the number of features and full control that the software provides. Overall this is a good thing though and FourWinds makes it easy to learn through their community site. They also have great trainers.

It is very versatile. It can handle many file types. It is very stable.

Software is never perfect. I do not have any issue with the system that I would consider a problem.

Ease of use, and flexibility. Being cloud based also provides the ability to make changes quickly and on the fly as needed. It is great to be able to deploy these players rather quickly and have the flexibility to do so as needs and client demands change.

Not much that I have not liked about this software. This is not a negative comment regarding the software, but being a cloud based solution it is critical to have a proper infrastructure behind this solution. This solution does not require a high amount of bandwidth to manage, but it is critical to have a stable connection to get the full benefits. This is specially important when pushing large contents like videos or HD images from the content manager to the players.

The stability of the product provides a no worry approach to developing and deploying digital content. The power of the product makes it possible to create between quite simple to very complex.

The piece that is missing, is a faster way to deploy the same graphic to multiple signs. An application for drag and drop of one image to be deployed to as many signs as that app is active in a region would be so awesome.

I like that it's easy to use and install. I felt that it was easy to configure and the price of training was good too. I like that they allow you to do online training.

Can't think of anything at the moment. I enjoy using this software.

Software is fairly easy to use with no prior knowledge and the support crew is easy to contact and answer questions as needed. And didn't mind when called about the same issue multiple times.

Sometimes I'd have to running to look for accessories to use when needed, which wasn't a big deal but I felt bad for having to keep the support team on the line while doing so.

It is flexible and powerful and constantly being improved

My version relies on IE for HTML which has caused several problems. I understand the updated version has the option of chromium though. Have had issues with powerpoint as well.

helps provides a platform to display information company wide

there is a learning curve needed but the FWI store helps working thru issues

Flexibility and reliability. Support is very responsive and the techs know their stuff.

Scheduling - not being able to batch delete outdated interrupts and recurrences.

I like the freedom to add images, power point slices and be able to free type. For me I like to personalize my groups so I can always type a personalize message to my groups.

at this moment I have encounter any issues.

The software is easy to navigate . It is user friendly

Too Basic of a software. Should add more add-on and features for guests to explore

the software is easy to understand and works with little or no issues, the FWI support covers any questions

did not have any real dislikes a lot of engineering went into software to insure minimal issues

It is compatible with the hotel software, very seemless.

Would love to enhance with a wayfinder board, but cost prohibitive.