Manual Trigger Setup
Table of contents
What are manual triggers?
Triggers let your Fugo screens react automatically instead of only following a fixed schedule. When a trigger fires, it plays a chosen playlist on your selected screens for as long as that content runs, then your screens return to their normal rotation on their own.
Manual triggers are the simplest trigger type: instead of firing from a schedule or a CRM event, you fire them yourself with a single click, whenever you want. They're the right choice whenever the "when" isn't something you can plan in advance — a spontaneous announcement, a client walking into your office, an all-hands takeover, or anything you want on screen right now.
Conceptually, a trigger is just a playlist with a firing rule attached — for a manual trigger, that rule is simply "you clicking a button." That's why triggers use the same permissions, and the same content and screen-picking flow, as playlists elsewhere in Fugo.
What you'll need
A Fugo account with playlist permissions
Triggers use the same permissions as playlists — create, edit, and publish — rather than a separate "trigger" permission. If you can already build and publish playlists, you have everything you need to build and run triggers too.
At least one connected screen
Your trigger needs a destination screen to play on. You can pair any supported smart TV or media player — see our full compatibility guide here:
👉 Devices & OS compatible with Fugo
If you don't have hardware yet, you can still build and test triggers using the Fugo Chrome extension player or the Fugo browser player, both of which let you preview playback directly from your browser.
Don't have a Fugo account yet? You can start a 14-day free trial here: www.fugo.ai/app
Create your manual trigger
Log into your Fugo account.
Go to Triggers in the left-hand navigation, then click New Trigger.
Give your trigger a name — something specific enough to recognize later, like "Welcome client to office" or "All-hands takeover."
Choose Manual as your trigger source
The Trigger step opens a picker showing every available trigger source as a card: Manual, Timer, and any connected HubSpot or Salesforce accounts. Manual sits at the top of the list and, unlike HubSpot or Salesforce, needs no connection or setup — click it and you're done with this step.
Choose your display content
Move to the Content step to choose what plays when you fire the trigger. This is the same content picker used everywhere else in Fugo, so nothing here is trigger-specific to relearn:
Media — an image, video, audio, or presentation file from your media library.
Studio Content — a slide or slideshow built in the Design Studio.
Dashboards — a dashboard connected through Fugo's TV Dashboards feature.
Apps — a feed from one of Fugo's third-party app integrations.
Each content type keeps its own default duration — images play for a default length, videos play for their full length, and Design Studio slides play for whatever duration you assigned them in the Studio. Manual triggers don't have an associated event, so the Message (dynamic text) content type isn't available here — that option is reserved for HubSpot and Salesforce triggers, which have real event data to fill a template with.
Choose your screens
In the Screens step, choose where this content should play. You can target screens two ways:
By Screen — pick individual screens or screen Groups directly, with search built in.
By Property — target dynamically instead: set a condition on a custom screen property (for example, Region = East), and any screen matching that condition is targeted automatically, including screens you add later that happen to match.
Switching between By Screen and By Property clears whatever you'd already selected in the other mode, so it's worth deciding which approach fits your trigger before filling it in.
Save and publish your trigger
You can save a trigger as a draft at any point. Going live requires Save and Publish, which stays disabled until your trigger has content chosen and at least one screen target set (Manual triggers don't need a connection, so that part is automatically satisfied).
Once published, your trigger is listed as On Standby on the Triggers page, ready to fire whenever you click it. If you edit a published trigger afterward without republishing, it's flagged Outdated until you publish the new version.
Firing your trigger
Once your manual trigger is published, open it from the Triggers page to fire it. You have two independent ways to play its content, each with its own start and stop:
Play Once
Plays your chosen content a single time, for the duration you assigned it, then automatically returns your screens to their normal rotation. Use this for a one-off message that doesn't need anyone to remember to turn it off. While it's playing, the button becomes Stop if you want to end it early.
Loop
Plays your chosen content continuously until you stop it. Use this for something that should stay up indefinitely — during an event, for example — where you'll actively decide when it's over rather than let a timer decide for you. While looping, the button becomes Stop looping.
Play Once and Loop are independent controls, so you can start one, stop it, and start the other without reconfiguring anything — the trigger itself doesn't change, only how you choose to fire it in the moment.
Trigger statuses
Your trigger's status badge on the Triggers page tells you what's happening at a glance:
Draft — not fully configured yet, or not published.
On Standby — published and ready, waiting for you to fire it.
Playing — currently running via Play Once and still within its duration.
Looping — currently running via Loop, and will keep running until you stop it.
Outdated — published, but edited since, so the live version differs from your last edit.
💡 Tip: Every trigger also has a Duplicate action available from its detail panel. This is a quick way to reuse a manual trigger's setup — for example, duplicating a "Welcome client" trigger to create a near-identical one pointed at a different room's screens, without rebuilding it from scratch.
Other trigger types
Manual is one of four trigger types Fugo currently supports:
Timer triggers — fire content automatically at a date and time you set.
HubSpot and Salesforce triggers — fire content automatically based on events in a connected CRM.
👉 Timer Trigger Setup
Need more help?
If you run into issues, can't find the trigger source you need, or something isn't working as expected, we're here to help. You can contact us through the chat box in the Fugo CMS or email support@fugo.ai, and our team will get you sorted.
Don't have a Fugo account yet? Start a 14-day free trial: www.fugo.ai/app