Getting started

About half an hour for the first set-up. After that, keeping it up to date takes a few minutes a week.

  1. Sign in. Go to yourhall.hallboard.uk/admin.html, type the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a sign-in link. No password to remember. If the email doesn't arrive in a few minutes, check your spam folder.
  2. Follow the checklist. At the top of the admin page is a short setup checklist. Each step takes you to the right place and ticks itself off when it's done. The steps below are the same ones, in a sensible order.
  3. Get your events on the screen. On the Rooms & calendars tab, paste in the iCal link of your hall's online calendar (Google, Outlook, Apple or a booking system that can share one). The tab has numbered steps for Google Calendar. You need the “Secret address in iCal format” (in Google Calendar: ⋮ beside the calendar, Settings and sharing, Integrate calendar), which ends in .ics. The Share and Embed links will not work. No online calendar? Type events into the Diary tab instead.
  4. Name your rooms. Also on Rooms & calendars. With two or more rooms, the screen shows a timetable for each.
  5. Put up a poster and a special event. On Notices & events, upload a poster (PDF, PNG, JPG or WebP) and choose when it shows from and until. It drops off by itself when the date passes. Big events get their own highlighted card.
  6. Add the practical details. The defibrillator and keyholder are on the Messages tab. Choose your bus stops on Buses, and add local taxis on Taxis. These are the details people look for when the hall is in use.
  7. Choose the pages and the look. On Pages & layout, switch on what's useful (weather, rivers, buses, taxis, hire) and switch off the rest, and choose the background.
  8. Add your committee. On the People tab, add each person's email address. Everyone signs in the same way.
  9. Put a screen up. Any screen with a web browser will do: open yourhall.hallboard.uk and leave it full-screen. A TV with a small computer attached works well, or our HallBoard Player. See the devices page for options.
  10. Tell your neighbours. The Diary tab has a one-page printable what's on for the noticeboard, with a QR code people can scan to get the what's on by email, and a button to send it.

If something looks wrong