software
Remote kiosk
management
A look at some of the most important features to
look for in a kiosk management tool
By Laura Boniello Miller, Business Development & Marketing, KioWare – www.kioware.com
When kiosks or other purposed devices
are deployed, remote management is a
useful and often necessary tool. Whether
two kiosks are being deployed, or
thousands of devices, kiosk management
features can help to make every kiosk
project a successful one.
Kiosk & device organisation
Imagine, a retail store kiosk
deployment of 50 kiosks across 22 stores,
in a variety of geographic locations. The
stores all live under the same brand,
but they are divided into three different
groupings.
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Men’s clothing vs women’s clothing
City vs suburban locations
Geography (northern or southern)
In this example, each kiosk fits into three
groupings. Once they are placed in the
appropriate group, the kiosk configuration
tools and content can be customised with
specific information for men in northern
cities, or women in southern cities, men in
the northern or southern suburbs, and so
forth. Content can include offers across
gender but only in cities, merchandise
valid only in the southern, warmer
locations, and images of one gender.
The point is, when using a kiosk
management system, groupings of
kiosks or devices can allow deployers
to be extremely flexible in the content
and configuration sent to each kiosk,
optimising offers, images, and other
collateral so that the content it appeals to
the appropriate individuals and converts
at a higher rate due to relevance.
The kiosk and device organisation
features of a kiosk management solution
are invaluable for large-scale deployments
across geographic areas, target audience,
and location type, just to name a few
of the groupings that could be utilised
when deploying kiosks and differentiating
configuration settings and content on
each kiosk or device grouping. is m issed, the management tool notifies
the kiosk deployer that their device is
not communicating properly and that
something has occurred. This notification
can then be acted upon quickly.
Additional kiosk health information
may also be available within a given
kiosk management tool. Some health
information could include memory usage,
CPU stats, I/O stats, hard drive space,
and more. Peripheral devices can also be
monitored; devices, including printers,
card dispensers, cash acceptors and
more, can be monitored with notifications
such as jammed, full, out of paper or
offline etc.
Monitoring kiosk uptime &
kiosk health
Whether there is one kiosk, or a thousand
or more kiosks deployed, it’s important
to know when a device is offline and not
working properly. Even more helpful is the
ability to know when a device is struggling
with an issue and in need of help. One
feature that is vital in a kiosk management
tool is the ability to send and receive
notifications when a kiosk is down. It
should be possible to establish a regular
connection with kiosks can be obtained
when the kiosk is working properly
and communicating with the kiosk
management tool. When a connection Reporting – kiosks as a data
source
Most kiosk management solutions have
reporting options. Reports are a vital
piece of what kiosk management brings
to the table. Kiosks have an abundance of
data that can be used to make decisions
on products and services and can be
broken down by locations, times, and
conversion rates to name just a few.
In a kiosk deployment in banks, for
instance, kiosks can be set-up to assist
customers before speaking with a bank
employee. Kiosks can be grouped by
branch and, can be used to determine
which branch sees the most activity
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