The term ‘kiosk’ is not new to the world. However, the meaning of the term kiosk has changed drastically in today’s digitally forward world. What once meant a small stand-alone booth, now holds the meaning of a special digital device that is implemented for business-specific use cases. Every major industry in the world has kiosk applications that drive their efficiency, presence and service to the next level.
To help industries ease out the process of obtaining and managing their digital kiosks, several tools are designed that offer a feature called the ‘Kiosk mode’. This feature allows businesses to turn their regular Android, iOS or Windows devices into special kiosks by locking them in either a single app or specific multiple apps.
In this article, we will walk you through the benefits and industry applications of the single-app Kiosk mode and help you understand how you can lockdown your existing digital devices to transform them into dedicated kiosks.
What Is Single-App Kiosk Mode?
Single-app Kiosk Mode is a configuration that locks down a device’s functionality to a single selected application making it ideal to cater to specific industry use cases. This feature can be configured on your employees’ devices to limit their usage to a single mobile app. Alternatively, it can be configured on your public-facing devices for various business requirements.
With this, only a single application remains open and functional on the devices and every other application is hidden. Single-app Kiosk Lockdown enables IT admins to gain better control of their organization-wide devices and prevent misuse.
Benefits of Single-App Kiosk Lockdown
The Kiosk Mode in general offers several business benefits in terms of improving employee productivity and endpoint security. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that businesses can leverage with the single-app Kiosk lockdown.
1. Improved Employee Productivity
Employees are allowed to use just one app on their devices. This significantly reduces the chance of them being distracted by using other inappropriate or entertainment apps or falling prey to cyber risks and accidental data breaches. The single-app kiosk mode promotes better productivity, more focus on employees during work hours and lesser security risks.
2. Stronger Security
IT admins of every business fret over their corporate data protection and endpoint security. With the single-app Kiosk Mode, every other functionality or application on the device is hidden. Even if users want to, they are not allowed to access other applications or settings of the device. This reduces the risk of inappropriate device usage and adds an extra layer of security to the device and to the data stored on the device.
IT admins need not worry about their employees being distracted with their digital devices, downloading untrusted apps or even securing their public-facing unattended devices against misuse by strangers.
3. Reduced Costs
With the maximum functionality of the digital devices being restricted, kiosks require very less maintenance. With the single-app Kiosk lockdown, businesses can turn their existing devices or commercial off-the-shelf digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, TVs, etc. into purpose-specific kiosks.
This eliminates the need for businesses to invest in special costly kiosk devices. Moreover, public-facing devices lockdown in a single-app mode minimizes the need for businesses to invest in a large on-site manual workforce.
Industry Applications of Single-App Kiosk Mode
Locking down digital devices into a single app has immense benefits and several industries are resonating with the advantages that it presents and the diverse industry use-cases that this feature can fulfil.
Let’s look at some powerful business applications of the single-app kiosk lockdown that benefit organizations across diverse industries.
1. Logistics and Transportation
The single-app kiosk lockdown has important applications in the Logistics and Transportation industry. All Logistics and Transportation businesses have a remote workforce including a large driver fleet. These businesses are largely dependent on the efficiency of the drivers to swiftly but safely deliver goods from the source to the destination.
Logistics businesses can leverage the single-app kiosk lockdown feature to lock their drivers’ devices into a selective application such as a location tracking app to obtain instant GPS monitors. Similarly, several countries in the world are making the use of Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) mandatory for freight drivers to ensure on-road safety. The single-app kiosk lockdown can help businesses cut down costs on purchasing costly ELDs by simply locking their drivers’ devices into a single ELD app.
2. Healthcare
Hospitals and healthcare facilities also rely heavily on purpose-specific medical devices and equipment such as patient health monitors. Locking down your Android tablets or iPads in a single app that monitors patient vitals can help businesses reduce hefty costs spent on dedicated critical-care equipment. Moreover, hospitals and other healthcare facilities can also implement self-help kiosks for patients to book appointments, obtain instant health reports, etc. to reduce wait time and improve the patient experience.
3. Education
The educational sector is a recent addition to the world of digitalization. Online classes, virtual classrooms and remote learning are a reality in today’s academic world. As more and more students rely on digital devices for their sessions, schools and universities can leverage the single-app mode in multiple ways.
Students’ tablets can easily be locked in a single app to prevent them from carrying out malpractices during examinations. Schools can also provide locked-down tablets to their students which are configured to run a single app such as a web conferencing app, learning app or a specific website to enhance students’ focus.
4. Hospitality
The hospitality industry has adopted digitalization on various levels. Be it airports that digitally display their flight schedules or hotels that offer instant room booking using interactive kiosks. Even restaurants largely use digital displays to advertise their discounts, menu, specialities and much more. The single-app kiosk lockdown feature is designed to fulfil diverse business use-cases of the hospitality industry from digital signages to kiosks.
5. Retail
Retail stores use a diverse variety of dedicated devices, from digital signboards to advertise their brand, to self-check-out devices and POS systems. The single-app mode can instantly turn regular tablets into an instant POS system for faster transactions. Similarly, retail stores, malls or boutiques can improve their brand presence, without having to purchase special devices for it.
6. BFSI
The banking sector is currently implementing kiosks at various levels to improve customer interactions and the self-service experience. ATM machines, self-help kiosks, and feedback booths are some of the kiosk deployments in the BFSI sector. With the single-app locked-down devices, bank branches can turn their tablets into on-site kiosks to help them reduce customer wait time and ease the burden on the on-site workforce.
How Can You Lock Your Devices Into the Single-App Mode?
It is evident that locking down devices into a single-app mode has massive business benefits, but how exactly can organizations configure this powerful kiosk lockdown functionality? The answer is Kiosk software. Kiosk software enables businesses to configure the single-app mode on their devices on an organizational level. Kiosk software helps businesses streamline their bulk deployments, monitor the inventory health, device usage and manage them remotely, irrespective of their type or location.
1. What Is Kiosk Software?
Kiosk software is a tool that allows businesses to lock their digital devices into single or multiple pre-selected apps. This software offers IT admins of organizations a platform using which they can gain better control of their remote devices, manage applications and device settings, security controls and enable automation. Depending on the business demands Kiosk software allows devices to be converted into various public-facing devices such as interactive kiosks, information kiosks, digital signages or self-service booths.
Alternatively, the Kiosk software also allows businesses to limit their company-issued devices to single or multiple selective applications to ensure business-specific usage.
2. Lockdown Devices With Scalefusion Kiosk Software
Scalefusion is a Mobile Device Management solution with extensive Kiosk management features. It helps IT admins leverage a single dashboard through which they can not only convert multitudes of their devices into dedicated kiosks but also constantly monitor and manage these devices remotely.
Your businesses can leverage the following powerful Kiosk management capabilities with Scalefusion MDM:
- Monitor device vitals remotely based on extensive device-level reports.
- Schedule automated compliance alerts such as the low battery, excess data usage, device inactivity, etc. for your unattended kiosks.
- Obtain a comprehensive overview of your inventory health with Scalefusion’s DeepDive analytics
- Troubleshoot device errors remotely straight from the Scalefusion dashboard using Remote Cast & Control.
- Automate routine IT activities such as OS and app updates, switching presentations, locking, unlocking or rebooting your locked-down devices.
- Push content files of diverse formats remotely on your kiosk-enabled devices.
Closing Lines
In a corporate world that is being bombarded by newer trends and technologies such as enterprise mobility, remote and hybrid working, etc. powerful technologies play a great role in helping businesses cope with the ever-changing landscape. Kiosk is one such technology that has become mainstream in several industries. Scalefusion makes it very simple for businesses to deploy dedicated kiosks and manage them effortlessly.
