Best Practices for Using EMS Room Sign App

The EMS Room Sign App (formerly named EMS Glance) is an optional web-based application that turns your tablet into a digital room sign. The EMS Room Sign App gives users real-time information and at-a-glance availability for their meeting, learning, and working spaces.

This topic will provide information on:

Considerations

  • To know when the EMS Room Sign App stops running, you can receive an email notification (ideally), or watch a central monitoring display. EMS does not provide this capability, therefore you should physically check your tablets to see if EMS Room Sign App has stopped.
  • For the tablets running the EMS Room Sign App, you will want notification of battery failure, lost connectivity, or necessary updates to the operating system. EMS does not detect these conditions remotely. We recommend implementation of a Mobile Device Management (MDM) system.

iPADS and the EMS Room Sign App

  1. If the iPad's battery dies, the iPad will return to its home screen after you restore power. At that point, you must configure Guided Access again for the EMS Room Sign app.

  2. If a user presses the iPad's Home button, Guided Access displays a passcode screen. The screen disappears after fifteen seconds or if the user clicks Cancel.

    Users should not be able to press any tablet buttons if using a tablet enclosure.

  3. If a user presses both the iPad's Home and Sleep/Wake buttons simultaneously for 10 seconds, the iPad restarts. At that point, you must configure Guided Access again for the EMS Room Sign app. See Deploy EMS Room Sign App on Tablets for more information.

  4. iOS devices occasionally display notifications that a software update is available. There is no way to suppress update notifications. When this notification appears, the user can choose Later but the notification will appear again in 24 hours. If the user chooses Install Now, the iPad downloads and installs the update and then restarts. At that point, you must configure Guided Access again for EMS Room Sign. See Deploy EMS Room Sign App on Tablets for more information.

Android Tablets and the EMS Room Sign App

  1. Ideally, dedicate a tablet to the EMS Room Sign App and don't use it for anything else. Android provides no capability to lock down the tablet in a suitable way for EMS Room Sign App. We recommend deploying the EMS Room Sign App with an Android app that places the tablets in 'kiosk' mode. Placing the tablet in kiosk mode prevents users from accessing other applications and disables the Home button. We recommend that you purchase, install, and configure the Kioware Lite app.

  2. If you run the EMS Room Sign App on a Samsung Tab A, users can hold down the Power button to power off the tablet. If you have configured Kioware according to our recommendations, the EMS Room Sign App will restart as soon as the tablet is powered on. To prevent users from pressing the Home button, use the appropriate enclosure.

 

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