Repair kiosk

A repair kiosk is an iPad at a desk, like the library or the front office, where students drop off a broken device. They scan the device, say what's wrong and get a ticket number and an emailed receipt. When the repair is done, they come back, scan their ID and see which device to collect. You set kiosks up on the Kiosks tab of Admin › Tickets › Intake. schoolOS staff select an Account at the top of Intake before viewing or changing that account's kiosks.

A kiosk isn't a person. It signs in with its own kiosk code and passcode, and it can only drop off and pick up devices: it can't open tickets, people or anything else in schoolOS.

You need Manage kiosks (kiosks.manage) to see the Kiosks tab. Roles with Manage helpdesk settings have it to start with. Kiosks come with schoolHelpdesk.

schoolOS administrators use Account on the Kiosks tab to choose which account to manage. Kiosk creation, settings, passcodes, and pairing use that account. Switching accounts clears open forms; save your changes first.

Set up an iPad#

1. On the Kiosks tab of Admin › Tickets › Intake, select New kiosk. Give it a Name (what staff call it, like "Washington MS Library"), a Kiosk code the iPad signs in with (letters, numbers and hyphens, like WMS-LIB) and, if it stands in one school, its Location. The location names the kiosk's welcome screen and is where its spares come from.
2. Write down the passcode it shows you. It's shown this once; Change passcode makes a new one whenever you need it.
3. On the iPad, open Safari and go to your schoolOS address followed by /kiosk. Tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen, and open the kiosk from the new Home Screen icon. It opens full screen, without Safari's address bar.
4. Sign it in from the Home Screen app (not from Safari: the two keep separate sign-ins). Type the Kiosk code and Passcode, or select Show pairing code on the Kiosks tab and tap Scan pairing code on the iPad. A pairing code works for 10 minutes.
5. Allow the camera when the iPad asks. The kiosk reads barcodes and QR codes with it; typing a tag always works too.
6. Turn on Guided Access (Settings › Accessibility › Guided Access), open the kiosk and triple-click the top or Home button to start it. Students then can't leave the kiosk or change the iPad's settings.

Status shows whether an iPad is signed in and when it was last used. Sign out this iPad sends it back to its sign-in screen right away, and pairing codes shown before then stop working. Use it when an iPad goes missing or moves to another desk. Five wrong passcodes in a row lock the kiosk code for 15 minutes; scanning a pairing code still works.

Sign out at the iPad#

Staff can sign a kiosk out from the iPad itself: at the bottom of the Welcome screen, press and hold Staff: hold to sign out until the ring around its lock fills (about a second and a half), then select Sign out. A tap, a brush or a short press does nothing, and Keep it signed in backs out, so students won't sign it out by accident. It's in the audit log like any sign-out.

When the kiosk is signed out (from the iPad, or with Sign out this iPad in Admin), its sign-in screen has Leave kiosk mode at the bottom. Select it to use that browser for schoolOS again; it goes to schoolOS's own sign-in. A browser that was never a kiosk doesn't show it.

The sign-in screen wears your school's logo (Admin › Account Settings › Branding) when the address or the signed-in person names your account.

Use your own phone or tablet as a kiosk#

Someone with Manage kiosks, or an agent who can update devices or check them in and out, can turn the device in their hand into one of your kiosks without its code and passcode. When your account has one kiosk, Use as a kiosk in the avatar menu enters kiosk mode straight away; with more than one, it opens the kiosk page to pick. Choose Use as a kiosk in the avatar menu (or open /kiosk while signed in), pick the kiosk it becomes, and select Enter kiosk mode. Because it's your own device, you stay signed in to schoolOS: the browser isn't locked to the kiosk, and you can get back to the app at any time. That's different from a kiosk signed in with its code and passcode or a pairing code, which locks the browser and signs out any schoolOS session in it. For a shared iPad, sign it in as a kiosk instead. The audit log records who started it.

The Welcome screen then has a plain Leave kiosk mode button at the bottom instead of the hidden hold-to-sign-out, since it's your own device. It asks once, signs the kiosk out and takes you back to schoolOS, still signed in. With no kiosks set up yet, the screen points you to Admin › Kiosks.

Settings#

Each setting saves as you change it. Select Edit to rename the kiosk, change its code or location, or delete it. Deleting signs its iPad out; the tickets it filed stay.

• Check the student. On: after the scan, the kiosk shows the device's assigned person as a first name and last initial ("Ava T.") and asks Is that you? No asks the student to scan their ID card or type their school email, and the ticket goes to them with the device still attached. Off: the ticket goes straight to the assigned person. A device assigned to nobody always asks who's dropping it off.
• Topic. Fixed topic gives every ticket one topic, like Hardware › Repair, and the kiosk skips the topic step. Student picks shows the subtopics of the topic you choose, like the topics under Hardware, as large buttons. No topic files without one, and triage picks it as it does for email.
• Questions. On: the kiosk asks the topic's questions, the ticket fields required on submit for that topic, on the "What's wrong?" step, and the student can't continue without answering. Off: nothing is asked at the kiosk, and the requester is asked by email after the ticket is filed. Edit questions opens the Fields tab of Admin › Tickets › Topics & Routing.
• Also offer.
  • Notes: an optional "Anything else?" box.
  • Photo of the damage: the iPad's camera takes a photo, which is added to the ticket's files and virus-checked like any attachment.
  • Spare checkout (from the Spare pool): when a spare is free, the kiosk asks Need a spare while it's fixed? A yes checks out the next free device in the Spare pool at the kiosk's location (or the device's, when the kiosk has none) to the student, and the Done screen names its tag so staff hand over that one. Spares come from the Pool field on each device (see Which pool?); a spare already checked out at the front desk or out on another ticket isn't offered. The spare is recorded as the ticket's spare: it shows in the ticket's Spare box, and the ticket can't be solved or closed until it's back (see Lend a spare from a ticket).
  • Printed claim slip: a Print claim slip button on the Done screen prints a small slip with the ticket number and tag, for an iPad paired with a printer.
  • Pick up: the Pick up button on the welcome screen.
• Ticket details. Every kiosk ticket has the source Kiosk, the device's location and room, and is routed like any other ticket.
• Start over after. How many seconds without a touch before the kiosk goes back to its welcome screen, so the next student never sees someone else's device. The Done screen counts down the same time.

Which should I choose?#

• Check the student on where devices are assigned one to one and students share a desk: it catches a friend dropping off someone else's Chromebook, and the ticket still goes to the right person. Off where the device's assigned person is always the one dropping it off, like a staff-only desk; it's one step shorter.
• Fixed topic when the desk takes one kind of request, like hardware repairs: students skip a step and your topic's route sends every ticket to the same team. Student picks when the desk sees different problems and your topics under it route to different teams or ask different questions.
• Questions on when the answers change what happens next, like "How did it happen?" deciding whether a repair is billed. Asking at the kiosk means the answer is there before anyone picks up the ticket.
• Spares only when there are spares at that desk. The kiosk offers one only while one is free, so an empty pool never promises a device nobody can hand over.

What students see#

1. Welcome. Your account's logo and color, the kiosk's location and name, and two large buttons: Drop off and Pick up.
2. Scan your device. The camera reads the barcode or QR code on the asset sticker (the asset tag, serial number or External ID). No sticker? Type the tag works without the camera.
3. Is this you? The device's name, model and tag, and its assigned person as a first name and last initial, when Check the student is on.
4. What's wrong with it? The topics to pick from, the topic's questions, notes and Add a photo, as you've set them.
5. Need a spare while it's fixed? When spare checkout is on and one is free.
6. You're all set. The ticket number, where the receipt went (with most of the address hidden), and Print claim slip if it's on.

The receipt#

Every drop-off emails the requester a receipt, whether or not your department's auto-response is on: their ticket number, the device, the problem, the kiosk, the spare they took (to bring back), what happens next ("We'll email you when it's ready"; with pickup on, "Pick it up at the kiosk with your ticket number or student ID") and See my ticket. It takes the place of the department's "your ticket was created" email for kiosk tickets, so they get one email, not two. The ticket's timeline notes that it was sent. The ticket also shows in their My tickets in schoolAgent.

Pick up#

A device is ready for pickup when its ticket's status means Solved. At the kiosk, the student selects Pick up, then scans their ID card or types their school email. The kiosk shows each device that's ready with its asset tag in large type, the ticket number, and any spare to bring back. If nothing's ready, it says so.

Telling the student#

The moment a drop-off's ticket moves to a status that means Solved (by anyone on the ticket, or by a workflow), the student who left the device hears it's ready:

• In schoolAgent. A notification in the bell, "Your device is ready for pickup", saying where to collect it and what to bring. Selecting it opens the device's page in My devices, which shows Ready for pickup too.
• By email. The same message in your account's ticket email, with your logo and colors, sent to the student's school email.

Each drop-off is announced once: a ticket that's solved, reopened and solved again doesn't send it twice. Nothing is sent once the device has been picked up. The message names the kiosk and where it stands, "Bring your student ID or school email" when Pick up is on for that kiosk, and the tag of any spare to bring back.

To hand the device back, scan it (or open it) in schoolOS. Its page shows Ready for pickup with the ticket number and the spare; select Complete pickup. That closes the ticket, following your ticket lifecycle (fields and time required when closing still apply), and checks the spare back in: the one checked out at the kiosk, or else any Spare-pool device the student holds that isn't out on another ticket. Any other spare still out on the ticket is returned too, so a pickup is never held up by a spare. You need Work tickets (tickets.update).

The tickets it files#

• Source: Kiosk, apart from Walk-in, which is someone staff logged at the desk. Filter the ticket list and build reports by it, or match it in a routing rule.
• Requester: the device's assigned person, or the student who identified themselves.
• Location: the device's location, and its room when it has one. The device is linked to the ticket.
• Topic, questions and routing: as set above, then routing rules, the topic's route and the team's method, like any ticket.
• Timeline: the first entry reads Created at kiosk and the kiosk's name.
• The device: marked In repair when it's dropped off: your account's asset status whose meaning is In repair (Asset statuses), on the device's timeline like any status change. When it's picked up (Complete pickup) it goes back to the status it had, unless someone changed its status in the meantime.

What a kiosk can see#

Signing a browser in as a kiosk signs out anyone using schoolOS in that browser, and while the kiosk is signed in, the browser shows only the kiosk: any other schoolOS page sends it back to the kiosk. So no one at the iPad can reach the rest of schoolOS as whoever set it up. Sign the kiosk out (at the iPad or from Kiosks) to use schoolOS in that browser again.

The kiosk fits any screen: on a small one its buttons and type get smaller, and every screen scrolls when it doesn't fit.

A kiosk sees as little as the screen needs. Looking up a device returns its name, model and tag and its assigned person's first name and last initial. Looking up a student returns their first name and last initial. It never lists tickets, people or devices, and it can only file a ticket for a device and a student it looked up in the last few minutes. Signing in, failed sign-ins and signing out are in the audit log under Sign-ins, and every change to a kiosk's settings is there too.