OptiSigns served you well for two or three years and you've grown out of it. Maybe you outgrew their pricing tier; maybe their multi-tenant model doesn't match your franchise structure; maybe you need first-class support for LG IDCAP, Pro:Centric, or Novastar LED that they can't deliver. Whatever the reason, here's how the migration actually goes.
Day 1 — Export and Inventory (3 hours): Every customer migration starts with two questions: what content do you have, and what hardware is it running on. From the OptiSigns dashboard, export your asset library (videos, images, HTML5 templates) using their bulk download. Pull your schedule rules into a spreadsheet — OptiSigns lets you copy schedule configurations as JSON if you ask support. Take inventory of every screen: model, location, current playlist.
Day 1 — Setup GoVista (1 hour): Create a GoVista account at govista.app. Set up your organization, invite users, configure roles. If you operate multi-brand or multi-region, set up brand scopes — each scope is independent. Define your locations (stores) and tag them by region. None of this requires touching any panel yet.
Day 1 — Upload Content (1 hour): Upload your exported asset library to GoVista. Rebuild your playlists in the visual editor. For most operators, 80% of OptiSigns playlists map 1-to-1 to GoVista playlists; the remaining 20% benefit from GoVista's multi-zone layouts (compose multiple content sources on one screen, which OptiSigns charges extra for).
Day 1 — Build Your First Test Group (30 minutes): Pick 2 of your highest-traffic screens for the pilot. Install the GoVista player on each: webOS gets the IPK from /downloads; Tizen gets the WGT; Android downloads the APK from the dashboard. Each install takes ~5 minutes. The screen pairs by entering a 6-character code on the GoVista dashboard. Done.
Day 1 — Validate (1 hour): Watch the test screens for an hour. Check: does the content play smoothly, does the schedule rotate correctly, do the dashboard's heartbeat/screenshot diagnostics work, does the panel survive a forced WiFi outage and recover. If all four pass, the migration is technically validated.
Day 2 — Roll Out the Fleet (8 hours): Deploy to your remaining screens in waves: 10 at a time, with a 30-minute observation between waves. Most failures are network or DNS issues at specific sites, not the CMS. A 50-screen fleet typically finishes in a single day with one experienced installer per region. Larger fleets (200+) parallelize across multiple installers.
Day 2 — Decommission OptiSigns (2 hours): Once every screen is running GoVista and you've watched a full business day go by without incident, downgrade your OptiSigns plan to a single screen (or cancel). Don't cancel immediately on Day 2 — keep one screen on OptiSigns for 7 more days as a comparison/insurance policy. Then cancel.
