No matter how professional your kiosk looks. No matter how efficient your kiosk software, the negative impact of an out of order kiosk can be devastating to your business.
The Kioskmonitor solution is designed to provide you with a complete set of tools you will need to remote support any number of self service interactive kiosks installed. in the field. Remote kiosk managment is achieved by two technologies working together and utilising our 100% available server network which monitors your kiosks and alerts you in case of problems.
Simply use the System Watchdog for kiosks and Site Manager on your helpdesk PCs. The kiosk operating system is secured and protected by the Kiosk System Watchdog with automatic recovery A regular heartbeat from your kiosks is monitored by the network and all the information (inlcuding audit trails, log files and other information you need to quickly identify issues and resolve them) can be seen as a healthcheck of your kiosks using the Site Manager application. Integrated tools provide secure remote connections to your kiosks for remote desktop control, file transfers and running applications, even when installed behind firewalls or when using mobile (3G/4G/EDGE) technologies.
Unlike most other and possibly better known solutions which started life as remote desktop solutions for home PCs, Kiosk Monitor has been designed and developed specifically with interactive kiosks in mind. For over 10 years, and now operating in more than 18,000 interactive kiosks worldwide, the Kioskmonitor technology is constantly monitoring, maintaining and securing your kiosks to reduce downtime, reduce operating costs, and therefore guarantee your return on your investment. By instantly informing you of any kiosk support issues, your support staff can quickly identify the kiosk problems, view historical information to identify the sequence of events leading up to the issue, and then use a secure remote kiosk access function to remotely resolve the problems and get your kiosk operational.
Available as a software-plus-service technology, simply pay for what you need, and ensure your kiosks are working for you 24/7.
Our Philosophy
Prevention
Residing on the kiosks is the protective System Watchdog application which prevents users from accessing and damaging the Kiosk operating system or application. The operating system is ‘locked down’ to prevent access to data, programs and potential security risks (especially useful for kiosks with keyboards). Any ‘banned’ programs are prevented from starting and also, pro-active monitoring of key applications, devices and systems ensure that the kiosk remains operational. If an support engineer arrives on-site, this lockdown and security can be quickly unlocked simply by typing a configurable secure key sequence (no password box appears).
Recovery
If anything untoward occurs (e.g. application resource issues, application failures, device failures or impeding failure, etc), this is logged and whenever possible, the kiosk will automatically take remedial action to make the kiosk operational again. Programs and key services which fail are automatically restarted or if this doesn't resolve the issues, the kiosk is restarted. Interaction with hardware System Watchdog devices and other support hardware is performed by the use of plugins allowing specific devices to be managed. In some circumstances, the kiosk can also be configured to automatically repair itself to a prior known working state.
Reporting
To ensure you know what is happening, everything which occurs on the kiosk is logged and sent back to the central server network. This is used against pattern-matching systems to alert the appropriate support staff of anything they wish to know about, via the Web, the software tool (Site Manager), via Email, and via SMS text message. Also, the every detail of the kiosks are held on the servers to ensure that the support staff can see everything they need to identify the sequence of events leading up to a failure, even if the kiosk itself is uncontactable or has failed.
Support
Built into the system is a tracked remote access system. In the event of a failure of a kiosk, the support staff responsible can take ownership of the ticket raised and then securely remotely connect to the kiosk (either through configurable inbound TCP-ports or via a tunnelling system). If just viewing the screen, support staff can just monitor the operability of the kiosk, or take control of the kiosk remotely (blanking the kiosk screen in the process to prevent users from seeing the operations), or even transfer files, run remote DOS commands and view connected webcams. If the system is used for updating applications or making changes, the changes made can be saved in a script file, and the Multicast function allows you to rollout the same changes to multiple kiosks at a click of a button (with rollback functionality if required).
Management
To allow your support staff to monitor the estate of kiosks and quickly identify and resolve issues, the Site Manager software provides a number of tools which let them do this all within one application. By using this tool, they are able to log into the Kioskmonitor Server network and, depending upon their access rights, are able to see kiosks they are responsible for. A variety of useful information is shown for each kiosk, including uptime, memory, HD space, screenshot, audit trail, past tickets, etc. A Built-in ticketing system enables kiosk status to be managed and tracked against guaranteed SLA times, and previous ticket resolutions can be viewed for knowledge base information and patterns. If using in combination with an existing ticketing system, the Kioskmonitor system can either use structured Emails, or specific secure interfaces between the historical and Kioskmonitor systems can be installed.
