The demo newsroom

An empty house doesn't show much. The demo newsroom is a made-up broadcaster, Meridian News (demo), whose newsroom systems play a news day through your house. You press Play and watch, step by step, what the bus does with each message: a story opened, a duplicate dropped, a stale version refused, a gate only the standards desk may clear, a correction, a kill. You can do this before any system of yours or your vendors' is connected.

It is on the portal's Demo newsroom page, in your publisher workspace, under Houses. Your first steps on the Overview link to it with a See it working card. It is a card, not a step: there is nothing to tick.

For a click-by-click walkthrough, for publishers and for vendors, see Run the demo newsroom, step by step.

Everything in it is synthetic

• Made-up systems. Its newsroom system, media store, graphics, playout, web CMS, standards desk, studio automation and skill executor are fictional. None is a real product, and no real system of anyone's is involved.
• Made-up stories. Every story, clip, headline and warning is written for the demo. Nothing comes from a real newsroom.
• Clearly labelled. The page says Demo · synthetic data. Each system is marked Stand-in (a part the stand-ins also play in a rehearsal) or Demo (a part only the demo plays).

Which skills run live, and which are scripted

The demo shows skill warnings on its stories. Only one skill is evaluated live:

• raise-flag-on-match, live. RND's reference executor evaluates the demo's instances of it on each story snapshot as it arrives, with the values the page lists (the field, the value, the flag name, the severity), and publishes a warning only when the snapshot matches. It is the same reference executor the skill executor stand-in runs in a rehearsal's skills step. The page marks these Live · reference executor.
• Every other skill, scripted. Their warnings are part of the scenario's script: nothing evaluates them. The page marks these Scripted.

The flagship: Storm day

The first scenario on the page, Storm day, follows one story through a day:

1. A viewer's clip arrives on the tip line from an unverified source, and the skill flags it live.
2. The newsroom system opens the story at HIGH priority, flagged live. The same version arrives again, and the bus drops the duplicate.
3. The press conference feed lands in the media store, and the newsroom system adds it to the story.
4. The story develops, version after version.
5. A lagging copy re-sends an older version, and the bus refuses it before anyone sees it.
6. Graphics tries to clear its own gate, and the bus refuses it: graphics may book a lower third, not clear it. The standards desk clears it.
7. Playout puts it on air, and the web CMS publishes it.
8. A correction goes out as a newer version.
9. The story is killed: graphics withdraws, the telling ends, and automation records what was suppressed.

Every refusal names the gateway rule behind it, linked to its page in the rule catalogue. The other scenarios are some of the newsroom workflows, played by the demo’s systems.

Play a scenario and watch it

Each scenario has a Play button. A play goes through your house's bus, with the same checks as any message, and the page shows it step by step as it goes, the way a rehearsal does: which system played each step, what it sent, and what the bus did with it. Every play starts its own stories, so you can play the same scenario again at once.

Anyone in your workspace can watch. Developers, admins and owners press Play. Admins and owners reset the demo's stories, turn the ambient day on or off, and turn the demo newsroom off.

The five-stop tour

Take the five-stop tour, on the See it working card, opens the page with a short tour. Its stops: playing Storm day, the story in your story timeline, the live skill flag, the refused gate and its rule, and the routing map.

The ambient news day

While the ambient day is on, the demo plays a few scenario steps at set times of day, so your house has something happening when you look. The page lists today's times, in the demo's own time zone. As configured today:

• the steps play between 06:00 and 22:00 of that time zone;
• only for houses someone has viewed in the portal in the last 7 days;
• at most a handful of messages each time it plays.

These are settings, not promises: RND may change the times and amounts, or pause the ambient day for every house, and the page says when it is paused. Play works either way. Admins and owners turn the ambient day off for your house on the page.

How demo traffic is kept apart

• Its own producers. Demo messages come from sombus-demo-<system>, a name no app of yours or your vendors' can take. Their payloads carry newsroom_id demo, and their story ids end in .demo-….
• Marked in the portal. In your story timeline and activity, demo stories and messages carry a Demo mark, and Hide demo hides them. The choice is kept in your browser.
• A consumer connection receives it only if you turn it on. Every consumer connection has demo traffic off by default: no demo message reaches its queue, whatever its filter. Turn on Send demo traffic to this app for one of your connections on the Consumer connections page.
• It never counts toward your checklist or skill health. Demo messages don't tick your first steps, and the demo's warnings don't count in a configured instance's warnings.

For vendors

Your vendor workspace has no house of its own, so RND runs the demo newsroom for vendors in one shared house, Meridian News (demo house). Everything in it is synthetic, as above.

• You're invited, you choose. Once your organisation is approved for a vendor workspace, including through a publisher's invitation, Houses shows an invitation to it marked RND demo house · synthetic data. An owner or admin reads the house terms and joins, as for any house, or declines. The invitation is open for 90 days.
• Receive, don't publish. Connect a consumer or skill app: it is connected at once, with what you asked for. Producer apps can't connect there. Keep Send demo traffic to this app on (the form ticks it for you there): the demo's messages are all there is to receive. Then get the connection's client secret and read its queue, as in any house.
• Only your own. You see only your own connections there, and other vendors see only theirs. Nothing reaches your queue from another vendor: none can publish there.
• What plays. The ambient news day, on the terms above: it plays while a vendor in the house has opened Houses in the last 7 days. Play and Reset are on a publisher's own demo page, not here.

In a publisher's house you join, the same switch on your consumer or skill connection lets its demo newsroom traffic reach you too. It is off by default.

Reset or turn it off

• Reset demo stories clears the stories the demo played, so the next play starts clean. Your own stories are not touched.
• Turn off demo newsroom stops the Play buttons and the ambient day in your house. Turn it on again on the same page.

Limits

• 30 plays and 5 resets of the demo per house per day, counted apart from your rehearsals.
• The demo's story state expires after 14 days. Like every story, its messages are in your story timeline for 7 days.