Tour Auto-Play Mode

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Select the Tour You’d Like to Edit
• Change the Tour Type
• Specifying Auto-Play Distance at the Stop Level
• Controlling Auto-advance Audio
• Turn off Auto-Play Mode
• Other Helpful Information
• Troubleshooting Tour Auto-Play

Driftscape’s Auto-Play mode helps elevate your traditional tour experience even further, by providing a hands-free exploration option for walking, cycling and driving tours. Auto-Play Mode automatically advances to the next tour stop in the app, when a visitor approaches that stop, This lets your visitors enjoy their surroundings, and creates an immersive experience. 

To use this feature you first need to map a Tour. If needed, refer to our article How to Add a Tour.

Tour Auto-Play mode is turned on and set for Walking Tours by default. If your tour is a Cycling or Driving Tour, or if you want to make other changes to your Tour Auto-Play settings, this article is for you. Follow the steps below to edit your Tour Auto-Play settings.

Select the Tour You’d Like to Edit

From within your Organization’s listing of content, under the Edit column choose the ‘pencil’ icon that corresponds to the Tour you’d like to edit.

Change the Tour Type

In the Main Tab of your Tour Overview and scroll down to the bottom to find the dropdown menu labeled Tour Type.

Select Walking, Cycling, or Driving, depending on the mode of transport you expect visitors to use when they take your tour. This setting controls how far away from a tour stop a visitor needs to be before Auto-Play will start. Walking = 20m/65ft; Cycling  = 40m/130ft; Driving = 400m/1300ft.

Note: The Tour Type setting is only an app filter. Users will NOT see the “walking,” “cycling” or  “driving” labels.

Specifying Auto-Play Distance at the Stop Level

The Auto-Play distance can also be specified at the stop level. To specify Auto-advance Distance at a stop level: edit the Tour Stop in order to specify the Auto-Play distance for that stop.  In the field marked “Auto-advance distance” enter the desired Auto-Play Distance in meters. When a visitor is this distance away from the tour stop, the tour will Auto-advance to this stop, and any associated audio will play. The minimum distance is 20 meters. 

Note: Tour Auto-Play Mode works for any tour stop that the user is near, regardless of the tour stop order. 

Controlling Auto-advance Audio

The default behavior for the Auto-advance audio setting is ‘No’: If there is already audio playing for another tour stop, it will continue, and audio for the current tour stop will only start playing when the audio from the previous stop has finished.

If you set the Auto-advance audio setting to ‘Yes’ the following action will occur: if a visitor taking an audio tour approaches a tour stop (and is within the specified Auto-advance distance) and is still listening to the audio from the previous tour stop, that audio will stop and the audio associated with the current tour stop will start playing automatically. 

Turn off Auto-Play Mode

If you wish to switch off Auto-Play Mode for a specific tour, simply set the Auto-advance Distance to -1 in the tour overview.

Other Helpful Information

The Auto-advance feature requires the user to enable GPS locations for Driftscape.

• Once a user has been viewing a tour stop for ~30 seconds, a lock screen will appear. This enables the user to put their phone in their pocket and continue their tour experience, hands free. Users can easily unlock the screen or disable the screen lock with a single tap.

• Tour Auto-Play is not recommended for indoor spaces where GPS precision would not be accurate enough to work properly. In this case, simply set the Auto-Advance value for the tour to -1, and Auto-advance and the lock screen functionality will be disabled for that tour.

Troubleshooting Tour Auto-Play

• Make sure you have given permission to the Driftscape app to use location services while running and in the background (check the app settings on your device).

• Make sure the phone is not turned off, or timing out. On some devices, Driftscape may need to be running in the foreground for Auto-Play to trigger properly.

• Make sure you are viewing the tour, or a stop in the tour.

• Note that once you advance to a specific tour stop, the app will not Auto-advance to that same tour stop unless you close and re-open the tour.

• Make sure you are close enough to the actual location of the tour stop in question. Check the tour map, zoom in, and see if you are actually close enough to trigger the Auto-advance (see above for distances). For walking tours [which is the default setting], you have to be quite close to the actual location. Note that low GPS accuracy may prevent Auto-Play. In this case, a user can advance to the next stop manually, with a single tap.