What's a Ticker Tape "Site"?

Within Ticker Tape a "Site" is defined as a group of workstations, running the Ticker Tape Agent software, all configured to pick up messages from the same Message Control File location.

When first installed, Ticker Tape is unlicensed and able to manage a maximum of 3 discrete Sites - Ticker Tape does not impose any limits on the number of Agent workstations on each Site.. they could easily contain many hundreds or even thousands of workstations; the only factor to consider would be the amount of network traffic between the Agents and the location holding the Sites' Message Control File (which would normally be on the same network)

While a Site often equates to the workstations in the same physical location - such as a particular office - for maximum flexibility, how the workstations are grouped into a Site is completely of your choosing and merely a function of how you configure the Agent on individual workstations which will be driven by your business needs. Some common approaches for defining a Site are;

All of the workstations physically located within a specific office
e.g. Your New York office may be one Site, the Boston office the second and the London office the third

All of the workstations on a specific floor within an office
e.g. The workstations on the 1st floor of your office are one Site, the 2nd floor workstations the second Site and the 3rd floor workstations the third Site

Workstations spread across multiple physical offices that perform certain roles
e.g. Workstations specifically designated to display status information in communal areas across multiple offices may be one Site, similar workstations in Reception areas the second Site and those in Meeting rooms the third

Workstations within a specific department spread across one or more physical offices
e.g. All workstations in your Finance departments across your offices may be one Site, those workstation in Human Resources a second and those in Facilities the third Site.

Which of the above approaches you take - or whether you take an entirely different one - directly influences the number of Sites you'll need to define within Ticker Tape. In general, the more granular the approach, the greater the number of Sites. If, for instance, you decide that a Site is a physical office and you have three office locations, the unlicensed (and completely free) Ticker Tape may well suit your needs - even if each of your offices contains a thousand workstations!

If, after considering how best to define your Sites, the 3 free Sites available within the unlicensed version of Ticker Tape can't meet your needs, you can easily and cost-effectively purchase a license to increase the number of managed Sites, up to a current maximum of 42, in batches of seven.