Emergency Alerts on Digital Signage: NWS, NAAD and Custom Feeds
Public venues have a responsibility to communicate emergency information to the people in their space. Digital signage is one of the fastest ways to do that. Digipal includes a built-in emergency alert system that can interrupt whatever is playing on screen and display critical information automatically, without any manual action from venue staff.
How the Alert System Works
The alert system runs on the player side. Each player polls configured alert feeds at a regular interval. When a relevant alert is detected, the player interrupts the current content, displays the alert in a full-screen overlay or a banner format, and resumes normal playback when the alert expires or is cleared.
Alert interruption is immediate. There is no dependency on a round trip to the cloud server. The player fetches the feed directly and processes it locally, which means alerts appear even if the player has lost its connection to the Digipal management server. As long as the device has internet access, it can receive and display alerts.
US National Weather Service Integration
For deployments in the United States, the platform can connect to the National Weather Service ATOM and CAP feeds. You configure the alert zone using a standard NWS zone identifier (for example, CAZ006 for San Francisco). The player fetches the feed and checks for active alerts in that zone. When a tornado warning, flash flood warning, or other qualifying alert is issued, it appears on screen within the next polling cycle.
Alert severity determines display format. Informational alerts appear as a scrolling banner at the bottom of the screen without interrupting content. Severe and extreme alerts trigger a full-screen overlay with the alert text in large type. You can configure the severity threshold that triggers each format.
Canadian NAAD Integration
For deployments in Canada, Digipal supports the National Alert Aggregation and Dissemination system. NAAD distributes alerts from Environment and Climate Change Canada and provincial emergency management agencies through a standardised CAP feed. Configuration follows the same pattern as the NWS integration: specify the relevant geographic area and the player handles the rest.
Custom Alert URLs
Not all emergency scenarios are covered by national weather systems. Building fire alerts, security lockdowns, internal evacuation instructions, and facility-specific emergencies require a custom mechanism. The system supports any CAP-compatible feed URL as a custom alert source. Your facilities team can post alerts to a simple web endpoint, and the player will detect and display them automatically.
- Supports any CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) compatible feed
- Multiple custom URLs can be configured per screen or per screen group
- Alert priority levels determine display behaviour: banners for informational alerts, full-screen overlays for critical alerts
- Alert expiry is respected automatically: content resumes when the alert period ends
Alert Display Options
You can configure the visual appearance of alerts per screen group. Choose between a full-screen takeover with the alert text centred on a coloured background, or a persistent banner overlay that shows the alert while content continues playing behind it. Critical alerts always use the full-screen format regardless of your setting.
Configuration
Alert configuration is available in the Emergency Alerts section of the Digipal dashboard. Select the feed type (NWS, NAAD, or Custom URL), enter the required identifiers or URLs, choose the display format, and assign the configuration to individual screens or screen groups. Changes take effect on the next player sync.