Faster and Simpler Kiosk Provisioning
Using QR for Provisioning
The hype about QR Codes
QR Code has become a highlight in the recent years as businesses have started seeing huge benefits of the small square shaped code. It (QR) stands for Quick Response code and is made up of black squares on a white background arranged in a square grid.
Its use-cases now range from being used in business cards, to initiating transactions and much more.
You may wonder what is special about this code.
- Data can be stored in patterns that are present in both horizontal and vertical components of the image. In other words, more data can be stored as there are two dimensions in contrast to bar codes.
“QR code, can contain 640 bits or 114 alphanumeric characters. A 177x177 (version 40) QR code can store up to 23,648 bits or 4,296 characters.” techterms.com
- QR Codes can be read from a QR Code reader or a smartphone with a camera and a QR reading application.
- QR codes can be scanned either from a rough interface or a screen.
Utilizing the above advantages, the OS platforms have enabled a QR provisioning method for dedicated devices or kiosks.
A bit about Kiosk Devices and Provisioning
Kiosks can be seen at airports, banks, restaurants as self-service terminals for customers and also at organizational premises for inventory management.
All the Kiosks you may have seen may be by design simple devices, with a singular purpose. They only manage a limited number of applications and functions at a time and are very specialized for the context.
It is highly likely to leave the kiosk device unattended for a considerable period of time or use it to perform tasks which involves business and/or confidential data. Hence, it is imperative that you are able to manage the devices remotely, and gain insights of the device such as memory usage, location, battery level etc. (For more information about Kiosks refer this article.)
In order to assign the device as a dedicated device under your device fleet, provisioning your device is a must. Provisioning means the process of setting up the device for remote management. You send all relevant configurations such as WiFi, Time zone and Locale etc. via an encrypted line to the device to setup components.
Provisioning was earlier performed using two methods. There’s USB provisioning and NFC provisioning.
USB was restrictive in its capability as it worked across a wired connection and the provisioning process took a considerable amount of time. NFC provisioning, on the other hand, could only be applied for devices with NFC capability.
A better way was required that enabled provisioning without hardware limitations, cross-platform, supported cross-device and was faster as well.
QR codes to the rescue
QR was a good match to resolve the issue. Hence, Android decided to reap the benefits of QR from Android 7 onwards for QR provisioning.
Entgra EMM is capable of generating a QR, based on the values provided by the user from the Server. The QR shall be generated with the following configuration details set by the Entgra EMM server.
Other than the above, it would also pass the login token to communicate with the server. When a QR is scanned all the configurations shall be passed unto the respective device. This would enable the device to be enrolled under the Mobile Device Management Server.
After resetting a device, Android 7 and above supports provisioning by enabling a 6 tap method for QR process.
- In Android 7 users are required to enter Wifi details of the network as a pre-requisite. This will facilitate device owners to download the QR application and scan the QR, to redirect to the relevant location of the package.
- The Android 8 supports QR provisioning by enabling users to enter network details, thereby connect users to the network and download a QR Scanner application. When the relevant QR is scanned it downloads the agent as per the location details.
- The Android 9 version has an inbuilt QR scanner library — when you scan the QR code, the Wifi details shall be retrieved from the QR code itself and would proceed to download the agent as per the location details in the QR.
Step by step guide (Android 9)
- Reset your mobile device.
- In the initial screen— tap 6 times on the screen, instead of clicking on the Arrow button. (When you select arrow button it would proceed to the personal device setup mode)
3. Once you tap 6 times, the QR reader is open. (Android 9)
4. Firmly hold the camera to read the QR generated from the Entgra EMM Server.
5. It would start setting up a work profile and the progress bar shall be displayed.
6. It would display a disclaimer for the user. Select ‘Accept and Continue’ to proceed.
7. When traversed, the next screen displays the user agreements. Select ‘I have read and agreed to all of the above’ to traverse to the next screen.
8. Finally, the device screen is populated with applications which is based on the configurations previously set up at Policies.
It would take only seconds to set up your corporate device. As you can see, device provisioning has become easy, faster and simpler with QR.
Entgra also supports ADB and NFC based provisioning other than QR provisioning.
Reach out to Entgra via contact@entgra.io if you have any queries. We’d love to hear from you!
