Collections are the central hub for your digital signage in ScreenCloud Arc. Think of a Collection as a smart library that automatically formats and optimizes your manual posts, automated feeds, and third-party apps to ensure they look professional without any manual design work.

This guide also covers Apps in Layouts, which can surround your Collections when they are set to screen. While Collections handle your rotating content in the main zone, Layouts allow you to add persistent, supporting apps, such as clocks, weather, or news tickers, to secondary zones around your screen.

A Collection is a centralized place where you gather and manage content that will appear on your screens. Within a Collection, you can:

Collections make it easier to keep your screen content organized and ensure that only the most relevant information is displayed. For example, different teams or departments, such as HR, Marketing, Operations, or IT, can each manage their own Collection with content relevant to their audience. Common use cases include displaying location-specific content for individual offices or sites, sharing team news and updates for specific departments, broadcasting company-wide announcements, and highlighting HR milestones such as new hires, promotions, or birthdays.

Navigate to the All Collections view from your sidebar menu. Select the + New Collection button located at the top of the screen. You will be prompted to give your Collection a name. We recommend using the name of the department or the specific location (e.g., "HR Updates" or "London Office") to keep your account organized. You can also select an emoji to use as your Collection's icon. Only standard emojis are available at this time.

You can pin any Collection so it appears directly in the side menu, giving you instant access without having to navigate to the All Collections view each time. To pin a Collection, click the Pin icon for the Collection when it appears under Recent. Pinned Collections appear in the sidebar and are always visible, making it easy to jump straight into managing your content.

Click the icon at the top of the Collection to open the emoji picker. Use the Search field to find a specific emoji, or browse by category, such as Smileys & Emotion. Only standard emojis are available at this time.

Click Add Cover in the top right corner of the Collection to open the image picker. Select one of the suggested images, or click the upload tile to add your own. Cover images are auto-fitted and center-anchored, with a recommended size of 1600 x 400 pixels.

Select an image, then click Confirm to apply it, or Cancel to close the picker without making changes. The cover image appears as a banner across the top of the Collection.

Posts allow you to create original content directly for your screens. With a post, you can:

All post content is automatically designed and scaled to fit perfectly on your screen. Posts are best for one-off or occasional content, such as announcements, event flyers, policy documents, or promotions, rather than content that needs to update automatically from an external source.

For full details on each content type, file limits, the AI Writing Assistant, and how to manage your posts, see Creating Posts for Your Screens. You can also create posts from your phone; see Posting Content to Your Screens via Mobile.

A feed automatically generates posts from an existing content source, so a Collection stays updated without manual effort. With a feed, you can:

Feeds are best for content that already lives somewhere else and updates regularly, such as team news, intranet posts, or social updates, rather than one-off announcements (use a post for those instead).

For the full list of supported integrations, how to connect and manage a feed, and how AI instructions work with feeds, see Connecting Feeds to Your Collections.

Apps let you display a specific tool or live data source, such as a stock ticker, live sports score, embedded dashboard, or slide deck, directly on your screens. With an app, you can:

Apps are best for a specific tool or live data point, rather than content you write yourself or updates pulled automatically from another source (use a post or feed for those instead).

For the full list of available apps, how to add one, and the connectivity requirements each app needs, see Adding Apps to Collections and Layouts.

The Preview feature lets you check how your content will look on screen before it goes live. You can preview an entire Collection at once, or inspect individual posts. You can also click to maximize the view at any time.

A Preview button appears in the top right corner of the Collections view. Clicking it opens a full preview of the Collection, showing how all your content will appear when rotating on screen.

Each post in a Collection also has its own Preview option, found beneath the post alongside its other action buttons. This lets you review a specific piece of content without cycling through the entire Collection.

When previewing, you can choose how the content is displayed:

Once your Collection is ready, you can connect it to a screen directly from within the Collection itself.

Open your Collection and select the Screens tab. Click Connect a screen to see a list of your available paired screens. Select the screen you want, and the Collection will begin playing there.

If needed, multiple Collections can be assigned to the same screen. When more than one Collection is connected, they play alongside each other, with the newest content, whether created manually or pulled in from a connected feed, displayed first.

For example, a screen in your London office might display three Collections simultaneously: a location-specific Collection with local office news and events, a team-based Collection with department updates (such as HR announcements or Operations alerts), and a company-wide Collection covering business news and security updates. This layered approach ensures every screen shows the right mix of relevant local content and broader organizational communications.

You can control who has access to a Collection directly from within it, without needing to open People & Groups in your account settings.

Open the Collection you want to share and click Share in the top right corner. Search for the person or group you want to add, then choose an access level from the dropdown next to their name: Full access, Contributor, or View only. For what each level allows, see Collection Access Levels.

To remove someone's access, open Share again, find their name or group in the list, and select Remove access from the dropdown next to it.

You can permanently delete a Collection from the All Collections view. When you select Delete, you'll be shown a summary of everything that will be removed before you confirm.

You'll see how many posts, feeds, and apps are in the Collection, along with any Screens it's currently connected to. If a Screen has no other Collection to fall back on, it will be flagged as "No other collection" — meaning that Screen will be left with no content playing once this Collection is deleted.

Review the affected Screens carefully before confirming. Select Delete Collection to proceed, or Not Now to cancel.

ScreenCloud Arc automatically handles your content playback in a continuous, sequential loop based on creation date, starting with the most recent content.

Display for a fixed interval (approx. 15 seconds).

Plays for the full duration of the video file.

Creative apps like Canva and Google Slides will automatically cycle through each of their individual slides for a few seconds each, so the display duration per app varies depending on its content.

Content within a Collection cannot currently be scheduled to appear at a specific time, for a set duration, or in a defined order.

Playback speed and timing cannot be adjusted manually, as Collections are designed to automatically rotate content in a continuous feed.