Smart Tasks

CasaTunes Smart Tasks

Music simplified

CasaTunes Smart Tasks are designed to streamline and automate listening to your music at home and at work.

Smart Tasks are ideal for users who are not familiar with, or comfortable with, using traditional music Apps. This includes commercial environments, where employees may have little or no training on music Apps, installations in homes where one or more family members are uncomfortable and easily overwhelmed by music Apps, and more globally, everyday CasaTunes users who would like to streamline their listening process.

CasaTunes Smart Tasks are designed to streamline and automate listening to your music at home or work

What is a Smart Task?

A Smart Task is a task that contains one or more actions. Actions include; playing music, controlling rooms, controlling music, playing chimes, converting text messages into playable audio, and adding a timed or scheduled delay. Using these basic building blocks, one can construct some very sophisticated tasks, as we will discover later on.

Tasks are displayed as buttons in the Smart Tasks screen. Simply press the task to run the task, or you can schedule the task to run the task unattended. Only tasks whose actions do not include prompts can be scheduled.

Actions can be configured to prompt the user for input when the task is run. Prompts are simple wizard-like interfaces, and include for example, presenting a list of items to the user to select one or more items, or a text box to enter text. Users may be prompted to select rooms, select music items, or enter text for the text-to-speech action.

Tasks can be organized or grouped by categories. Categories are optional. You can create as many categories as desired. For example, you may want to create categories for grouping your music, radio stations, announcements, house control, etc.

In addition to categories, Smart Tasks have the concept of “users”. Users are optional, as well. Tasks can be assigned to users. Similar to categories, you can have as many users as desired. A task that is not assigned to ANY user is available to ALL users. When you select a user, the Smart Tasks screen will be filtered to only display tasks assigned to the user, or tasks that have not been assigned to any user.

Accessing the Smart Tasks screen

Smart Tasks are only supported by the CasaTunesX App. The CasaTunesX App can be downloaded from the appropriate store, or you can use the web version (http://casaserver/casatunesX).

Also, make sure you are using the latest CasaTunes version.

The Smart Tasks screen is accessible from the context menu button in the header in both the Rooms (as shown) and Now Playing screens.

To switch to the Smart Tasks screen select “My Tasks” menu item (or your customized tasks page name, like "Jack's Tasks", in this example).

When in the Smart Tasks screen, you can return to the Rooms or Now Playing screen by selecting the back button.

You can also configure the CasaTunesX App to always start up in the Smart Tasks screen.

Creating your first task

Turn off all rooms

To learn more about how tasks work, let's create a simple task to turn all rooms off.

Go ahead and access the Smart Tasks screen (following the instructions above).

The first time you access the Smart Tasks screen, there will be no tasks available. To create a task:

Select the context menu in the App header and select Create New Task, or
Select the + Add Task item (this option is only available when there are no tasks) to create a new task

The Edit Task screen is displayed. Let’s configure this screen as follows:

Change the Task Name to All Rooms Off
Ignore Users Assigned, Categories Assigned, and Schedule Task items for now
Select Actions

In the Edit Actions screen:

Select the + Add Action item to add a new action
Select the Control Rooms option.

In the Control Rooms Settings screen:

Select the Select Rooms item, and select All Rooms or All Powered Rooms option
Enable the Set Room Power item, and set the Power Option to Power Off
Select the Home button in the App header to return to the Smart Tasks screen

You should now see the newly created All Rooms Off task in the Smart Tasks screen. To test the task, make sure some of the rooms in your home are on, and select the All Rooms Off task. All the rooms should now turn off.

Customizing the Smart Tasks screen

Now, let's customize our Smart Tasks screen by adding categories and users. Categories are used to group tasks, while users are used to filter tasks.

First, we are going to create a new category and name it “House Control”:

Select Edit Categories from the context menu button in the App header
Select “+ Add Category” menu item
Enter “House Control” for the category’s name

Now let’s add a picture for our Category.

Select the Category Picture item
Pick the house image from the list of images (or select + and upload your own picture)
Return to the Smart Tasks screen

Now let’s assign the All Rooms Off task to the House Control category.

Select the All Rooms Off context menu
Select Edit Task
Select Categories Assigned
Select the House Control category, then close and return to the Smart Tasks screen

You should now see your All Rooms Off task is grouped under the House Control category.

All tasks assigned to the same category are grouped together in the Smart Tasks screen. Categories are displayed in the same order as they are listed in the Edit Categories screen.

To re-order your categories, press & hold on the category to move in the Edit Categories screen, and move the category to it's new position in the list.

All Rooms Off task assigned to the House Control category in CasaTunes Smart Tasks

Scheduling a Task

Now, let’s create a new task, similar to the All Rooms Off task, but this time we are going to schedule it to automatically run at midnight.

Let’s make a copy of the current task.

Select the All Rooms Off context menu button
Select Copy Task option

CasaTunes creates a new copy of the existing task and names it "Copy of All Rooms Off". Now let's edit this new task.

Select the Copy of All Rooms Off context menu button and select Edit Task
Set the Task Name to "All Rooms Off at Midnight"
Select Schedule Task
Press + to add a new schedule
Select the newly created schedule item to change it's settings
Change the Start time to 12:00 AM
Change the Days to Every Day by selecting all days
Return to the Smart Tasks screen

You should now see both the original "All Rooms Off" task, and the new "All Rooms Off at Midnight" task. Note, the alarm clock icon displayed in the "All Rooms Off at Midnight" task. This let's us know this is a scheduled task‍

‍We really don’t need both these tasks because even though the All Rooms Off at Midnight is a scheduled task, you can still run this task manually to turn off all your rooms.

Let’s delete the All Rooms Off task.

Select the All Rooms Off context menu button
Select Delete Task and select OK
The original All Rooms Off task has now been deleted

Customizing tasks for each User

You can further customize the Smart Task screen by creating users, and assigning tasks to users.

When you change the "current" user, only tasks that are assigned to this user, or tasks that have not been assigned to ANY user, are displayed in the Smart Task screen.

In our example, let's assume there are two people in our home, Jack and Jill. Let's create these two users:

Select the context menu in the App header, and select Edit Users
Select “+ Add User” menu item
Enter Jack as the name for our first user
To change the title displayed in the Smart Tasks screen when this user is selected, select Users “My Tasks” Title and enter a new name. The name defaults to <User Name>'s Tasks, like Jack's Tasks
Select a picture for this user, if desired
Go back to the Manage Users screen and repeat the steps to create the user Jill
Return back to the Smart Tasks screen

Now, let's select the user Jack:

Select the context menu in the App header and select Change User
Select the user Jack option
You should now see the updated Smart Task screen title and user's picture displayed

Since we have not assigned our task to ANY user, it will show up for either Jack or Jill. You can see this by changing the user to Jill. Now switch the user back to Jack.

Let’s assign our task to Jack, but not Jill.

Select the context menu in the All Rooms Off at Midnight task
Select Edit Task
Select Users Assigned and select the option Jack
Now return to the Smart Tasks screen and nothing should have changed (because the task is assigned to Jack)

Now let's view Jill’s Smart Task screen

Select the context menu in the header
Select Change User and pick the option, Jill
You should see Jill’s Smart Task screen displayed but there will be no tasks because the task has not been assigned to Jill

Like Categories, Users are completely optional, but are helpful when customizing the Smart Tasks screen and organize tasks..

You can create users and assign them to tasks. When you change the current user, only tasks assigned to this user are displayed in the CasaTunes Smart Task screen

Creating a "Play Music" task

Now that we know the basics of how tasks work, let’s create a task to play music. The Play Music action is used to play playlists, albums, stations and tracks.

Before we create this task, let’s make sure we have several playlists or various Featured Items available to select. If you are not familiar with Featured Items, please check out the following video (https://www.casatunes.com/videos/featured-items). Go ahead and tag several playlists and radio stations as featured items.

First, we are going to create a task that plays a specific radio station in a room. Then we will amend the task to pick a random radio station from a list of selected radio stations in a room, and finally, we will amend the task to prompt the user to select the rooms to play a radio station in, and prompt the user to select the ratio station to play from the list of selected radio stations.

For our task, we have tagged several BBC stations as Featured Items (including BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 and BBC World Service). This was accomplished by performing a search for the term "BBC", when viewing airable Radio, and tagging each station as a featured item.

To create a task that will play BBC1 in the office:

Select Jack as the current user in the Smart Tasks screen
Create a new Category called "My Radio" and select the radio image as the picture for this category
Now select Create New Task from the context menu in the App header.

In the Edit Task screen:

Set the Task Name to BBC1 in Office
Assign the My Radio category as the category for this task
Select Actions, select “+ Add Action”, and select the Play Music option

If you have configured Users, and have selected a user, then the selected user will be automatically assigned to all new tasks you create.

Now in the Play Music Settings screen:

Make sure the selected source is a CasaTunes media player (or change it so that it is)
Select Select Rooms and select the room to play the music in (in our example, we selected Office) but you can select any combination of rooms
If you would like to configure the volume for the selected room(s), then select Rooms Volume. If you don't configure the Room Volume for a room then it will play the music using the default volume settings for the room
Select Select music option and select the Pick Music option. This setting allows you to either pick specific music to play (Pick Music), prompt the user to select music from a list of selected music items (Prompt for music), or let CasaTunes randomly pick an item from the list of selected music items (Random Pick).
Select Select music item and select BBC Radio 1 from the list of playlists and featured items
Select the Home button in the App header to return to our Smart Tasks screen
Now when you select the BBC1 in Office task it will start playing BBC Radio 1 in the Office

Creating a random "Play Music" task

Now, let’s add a task that randomly selects one of BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, or BBC World Service in the Office.

Copy the BBC1 in Office task, and edit the new task.

Select the context menu for BBC1 in Office task, and select Copy Task
Select the context menu button for Copy of BBC1 in Office task and select Edit Task
Rename the task Random BBC Station
Select Actions and select the existing Play Music Action
Change the Select music option to Random Pick
Now we need to add all the radio stations we want CasaTunes to randomly select. elect Select music.
Select “+ Add Items” and select all the radio stations to include (in our case BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5, and BBC World Service)
Now return to the Play Music Settings screen
Now lets configure CasaTunes to notify us which random station it picked
To configure CasaTunes to audibly notify us using the room speakers, enable the Audio Feedback item
To configure CasaTunes to notify us via a notification, enable the Visual Feedback item
Finally, let's configure the task so that when the task is run it will switch to the Office. Select Switch to Room and select the option, Office.
Now select the Home button in the header to return to the Smart Tasks screen
Now run the task. CasaTunes picks one of our BBC stations randomly.
A notification pops up notifying which random music item was selected (this is our visual feedback)
CasaTunes will also audibly announce the station selected over the speakers for the selected room(s), in our case, the Office
Finally, CasaTunes switches from the Smart Task screen to the Now Playing screen for the Office

Select a random BBC Station from our list of available BBC Stations, then switch to the Office

With CasaTunes Smart Tasks, you can have a task prompt you to select from a list of pre-selected music items.

Prompt to select rooms and music

One of the unique and more powerful capabilities of Smart Tasks, is the wizard-like prompting interface.

Often times, when you are creating your tasks, you don't know where to play your music, or what music to listen to.

In this next exercise, we will show how Smart Tasks can prompt the user to select the room(s) and to select the music to listen to.

Copy the Random BBC Station task and edit it.

Select the context menu in the Random BBC Station task, and select Copy Task
Select the context menu button for Copy of Random BBC Station task and select Edit Task
Rename the task BBC Station
Select Actions and select the existing Play Music Action
Enable Prompt to select rooms?
Select Select music option and pick the Prompt for Music option
Select Switch to Room and set it to None. This option prevents switching from the Smart Task screen when the task is run
Select the Home button to return to the Smart Task screen
Notice the icon in the upper left hand corner of the BBC Station task notifying this task requires user input
Now run the task

When your run the task, CasaTunes first prompts the user to select one or more rooms to play the music in, then prompts the user to select the music to listen to.

Prompting provides tremendous flexibility, while still providing users with a simple and easy to understand user interface.

Adding music to a task while browsing music

In addition to adding your music selections when you create a Play Music action, you can also add music to your tasks while browsing and exploring your music.

When browsing music and you want to add a playlist, album, track or station to your tasks:

Step 1: Select the context menu icon for the music item (Today's Top Hits in the example above)
Step 2: Select "Add item to Tasks..."
A popup displays all the available tasks (for the current user)
Select which tasks to add the music item to

You can also add music to a Smart Task from the Now Playing screen for a room.

Step 1: Select the context menu icon in the transport control area (where the Play, Stop and other buttons are found)
Step 2: Select "Add item to Tasks..."
A popup displays all the available tasks (for the current user)
Select which tasks to add the music item to. The music item added to the task(s) will either be the playlist or album the current playing song is part of, or a radio station.

You can create a bedtime CasaTunes Smart Task for a child, which will play child lullabies for 15 minutes, and lowering the volume after 5 minutes.

CasaTunes Smart Task support for multiple actions, allows you to build powerful tasks by combining basic actions.

Combining multiple actions in a task

Up until now, all our tasks have included a single action, but tasks can include an unlimited number of actions.

In our next exercise, we are going to create a bedtime task for a child. In this task, we will select an appropriate playlist for children to listen to. After five minutes, we will lower the volume, and then after fifteen minutes we will shut the room off.

Let's create a new category for bedtime. Select the context menu in the App header and select Edit Categories. Select + Add Category and name it Bedtime. Select the bed time picture for the new category. Return to the Smart Tasks screen
Let's create the new Task. Select the context menu in the App header and select Create New Task. Name the task Bedtime Music.
Assign the new Bedtime category for this task
Select Actions and select + Add Action and select the Play Music option
Select Select Rooms and select the child's room
Select Rooms Volume, enable Configure Volume for the room, and set the starting volume level
Select Select music option and pick the option Pick Music.
Select Select music item and select the music you want your child to sleep to
Select Back to return to the Edit Actions screen

Now add another action. In this action we will add a five minute delay before continuing with the next action (lower volume)

Select + Add Action and select the Add Delay option
Select Wait Option and select the option, Time Delay. Note you can either wait a specific amount of time, or you can wait until a specific time.
Select Delay and set it to five minutes
Select Back to return to the Edit Actions screen

Now add the next action to lower the volume.

Select + Add Action and select the Control Rooms option
Select Select Rooms and select the child's room
Select Rooms Volume, enable Configure Volume for the room, and set the lower volume level
Select Back to return to the Edit Actions screen

Now add the next action to wait another ten minutes before continuing with the next action (turning off the room)

Select + Add Action and select the Add Delay option
Select Wait Option and select the option, Time Delay.
Select Delay and set it to ten minutes
Select Back to return to the Edit Actions screen

Now lets add the final action to turn off the room

Select + Add Action and select the Control Rooms option
Select Select Rooms and select the child's room
Select Set Room Power and set Power Option to Power off
Select Home button to return to the Smart Tasks screen

Create smart paging tasks using the CasaTunes Smart Task action Page Text-to-Speech.

You can have a CasaTunes Smart Task prompt you to enter text to convert to audio in many different voices and languages

Creating a paging task with prompting

A cool feature of Smart Tasks is text-to-speech (or TTS). TTS allows you to enter a text message and have CasaTunes convert your text to audio, but that's not all. You can select from various different voices to use to convert your text, including support for different languages.

In this exercise, we will create a task which will first prompt the user to select the rooms to include in a page, then prompt the user to enter the text message to convert to audio. CasaTunes will then convert the text message into audio, using an Australian female voice, and play it in the selected rooms.

OK, let's get to it:

Select the context menu in the App header, and select Edit Categories
Add a new Category, name it "Announcements" and select the microphone image for the Category picture
Select the context menu in the App header, and select Create New Task. Set the task name to "Page..."
Select Categories Assigned and select the Announcements category
Select Actions, select + Add Action, and pick the Play a Chime or Text-To-Speech option
Enable Prompt to select rooms?
Select Play Chime or TTS? and select the Play Text-To-Speech option
Select Select Voice and select the Australian Female Voice option
Enable Prompt for Text?
Press the Home button in the App header to return to the Smart Task screen

When your run the Page... task CasaTunes first prompts the user to select the rooms to page, then prompts the user to enter the text to be converted to audio, and finally CasaTunes plays the converted message using the selected voice in all the selected rooms

Configure your Smart Task Settings in the App Settings. You can select whether to enable Smart Tasks, allow Task Editing, and set the Tasks screen as the startup screen

Configuring Smart Task Settings

There are two levels of Smart Task Settings you can configure, device and system (wide) settings.

Device Settings apply to the current device you are using. Each device (phone, tablet, browser, etc.) can be configured separately.

Device settings include:

Enable Smart Tasks - Configure this option to enable/disable Smart Tasks on this device
Allow Task Editing - Enable this option if you want to allow the user to create, edit and delete tasks on this device. Disable this option to limit this device to running tasks only
Set Tasks As Start Page - Enable this option if you want the App to always start in the Smart Tasks screen. Select this if you want to use the Smart Tasks screen as the primary UI for CasaTunes on this device

System Settings are used to configure Smart Task settings for your system (and applies to all devices).

Currently, this is used to configure the Audio Feedback Settings for Random Play Music actions, and includes:

Voice - The voice to use for audio feedback
Audio Feedback Prefix - The text to insert before the name of the music item to be played. By default this is set to "Now Playing"
Audio Feedback Postfix - The text to insert after the name of the selected music item. By default this is not set

Finally, you can configure the Password Feature Settings to override whether to enable or disable Smart Tasks for your system