Your first rundown: step-by-step tutorial

This tutorial walks you through building and running your first rundown, from an empty list to on air.

Step 1: Create the rundown

Go to Rundown in the sidebar and click New Rundown. Give it a name, something dated like "Morning News — Mon", pick the Show it belongs to, and create it.

It starts in Draft.

Step 2: Add a segment

In the toolbar, click + Segment. Name it something you would recognise on air: "Headlines".

You can also add a + Break for an ad break, or a + Setup segment for things that happen before air. Setup segments stay pinned at the top.

Step 3: Add a story

Inside your segment, click Add story. A story is one item, for example "City council vote". Give it a title now; the slug, script and notes can wait.

Step 4: Add an element

Inside the story, click Add element. Pick a category (Graphics, Camera or Streaming), choose the integration, then the specific graphic or action.

Then set the two timing questions in the Inspector on the right:

• Starts: leave it At a set time and type when it should enter, counted from the start of the story. 00:00 means it goes on air with the story.
• Stays on air: For a set duration, or Until the end of the block for something like a lower third that should hold the whole item.

Step 5: Mark it ready

Click Mark ready. Two things happen: the rundown freezes so nobody edits it by accident, and the engine loads it and tells your output screens to start downloading the media.

Give it that time. This standby window is what keeps a heavy clip from arriving late.

Step 6: Run the pre-flight

Click Pre-flight. It checks, right now, whether a screen is connected, whether the clips have finished downloading, and whether the integrations answer.

The one to never ignore: "It would NOT go to air". It means no screen is listening, so there is nobody to send the show to. Open the output page on the playout machine.

Step 7: Go Live

Click Go Live. The live control bar appears at the bottom: Play/Pause, navigation by Next / Story / Segment, the Auto/Manual toggle and the countdown to the next cue.

Start in Manual for your first show if you want to control every advance yourself.

Step 8: End the show

Click End. The rundown moves to Completed, whatever is on air comes off, and the logs stay for review.

Press End before you close the browser. The show runs on Helmo Live's servers, so closing the tab does not stop it.