Kiosk mode

Turning a center tablet into a check-in screen for the door, and what the PIN protects.

For directors, assistant directors and admins

Starting kiosk mode

Open More and choose Kiosk Mode, or tap the Kiosk tile on a classroom screen. RoundUp asks you to Set Kiosk PIN — exactly four digits — and then opens the check-in screen. Starting kiosk mode is for directors, assistant directors and admins — and for a dedicated Kiosk account, if you've made one for the tablet.

The PIN is chosen fresh every time kiosk mode starts. Whoever starts the kiosk tells it to the staff who'll need it, and nobody else.

There is no way into the kiosk that skips this. Opening Kiosk from search, from a shortcut, or from a tablet that was already in kiosk mode all land on the same PIN — a kiosk without one isn't a kiosk, it's your account on a tablet by the door.

Teacher-level staff can work at a kiosk a director has started, but can't start one, because starting one means choosing the PIN everybody else will need. A teacher who wants to check children in on their own device wants Attendance instead.

Checking in

The kiosk shows Check In / Out, today's date and a running count such as 12/40 present. Children are grouped by room — tap a room's header to collapse it — and Search children… finds a name quickly. Tap Check In next to a child and they're marked present.

If the tablet loses its connection, the arrival is still kept on the tablet and the kiosk says it hasn't synced yet. It retries on its own once the tablet is back online with the app open.

That's only for a lost connection. If RoundUp itself turns a check-in or check-out down — say, the person collecting isn't on the child's pickup list — the kiosk shows the reason and leaves the child as they were, so the tablet never shows something the record doesn't.

• The list keeps itself current. It refreshes every minute, and whenever the tablet wakes, so a child checked in or out on another device shows up at the door too.
• Names follow your center's Child name display setting. A kiosk faces the lobby, so consider First + Last Initial, under Settings → Center Settings → Logins & configuration.
• Scan Check-In Code and Scan NFC Tag read a child's check-in code. Print a card for each family from the Check-in cards button on a classroom screen, or open one child's code from their quick menu (Check-in code) to show it on screen or print it on its own. A scan only finds the child — the kiosk still shows who it found and asks staff to confirm.
• NFC tags carry the same code. From a child's Check-in code, tap Copy NFC tag text and write it to a tag as a text record with any NFC writer app; RoundUp reads tags but doesn't write them itself.

Checking out

Tap Check Out on a child who's present. The kiosk asks Who's picking up the child and lists the people on their authorized pickup list. Choose the person, switch on Verified photo ID, then tap Check Out — the button stays disabled until both are done.

That switch is a statement by whoever taps it, and a parent at an unattended tablet can tap it as easily as a teacher. Check-out at a kiosk needs a staff member who can actually see the screen and the person collecting.

The list only shows people currently cleared to collect the child. If the person in front of you isn't on it, don't pick the nearest name. Cancel, and handle that pickup on a staff device instead — see Attendance and check-in.

When a child has no pickup list

If nobody is on a child's authorized pickup list, the kiosk says so and offers an override instead. Type a reason, have a director enter the Director override PIN, and tap Record director override. The reason is kept with the check-out, along with the fact that it was approved with the PIN.

The override PIN is the center's, not the kiosk's. A director sets it once under Settings → Configuration → Kiosk director override, and RoundUp checks it — so it works on any kiosk tablet, whichever account the tablet is signed in as. Until one is set, the kiosk says the override isn't available and the pickup has to be recorded on a director's own device.

Five wrong PINs lock the override for a few minutes, and the lock is held by RoundUp, so restarting the tablet doesn't reset it. If the pickup list can't be loaded at all, the kiosk asks you to try again rather than offering the override — not being able to read the list isn't the same as there being no list.

The PIN, the idle lock and exiting

• Idle lock. After five minutes without a touch, the kiosk shows Kiosk paused and won't go further until someone enters the PIN.
• Exiting. Tap Exit Kiosk and enter the PIN. Face and fingerprint unlock don't exit a kiosk — a tablet at the door may have several people's faces enrolled on it, and none of that says anything about who was told the PIN.
• Wrong PINs. Five wrong PINs lock the kiosk for thirty seconds, and the wait doubles for each further run of five. The kiosk is unusable while it's locked, and the correct PIN works again as soon as the wait is over — you never have to reinstall or sign in again to get back in.
• Closing the app doesn't exit. Force-quit the app on a tablet in kiosk mode and it reopens in kiosk mode. The PIN is the way out.

Setting up the tablet

• Use a center tablet, not someone's personal phone. Every check-in and check-out at the kiosk is recorded under the account signed in on it.
• Sign the tablet in with a Kiosk account. Add a staff member with the Kiosk role in the director portal and sign the tablet in as that. A Kiosk account can look children up and check them in and out, and that's where it stops: billing, center settings, staff records and the rest of a director's tools aren't open to it. So if someone does get past the PIN, far less is exposed than behind a director's account — though, like any staff account, it can still see children's details.
• Lock the tablet to the app. Turn on Guided Access on an iPad, or app pinning on Android, so the app can't be closed or switched away from at the door.
• Check who can unlock the tablet itself. Face and fingerprint enrollments can't exit kiosk mode, but they can unlock the device and everything else on it.
• Put it where staff can see it. Drop-off can run itself; pickup can't.
• Keep it charged and on the center's Wi-Fi.
• Close up at the end of the day. Exit kiosk mode and put the tablet somewhere locked, since leaving the kiosk opens the full account.

More: All director guides