Kiosks - Overview

Modified on Fri, 3 May at 4:10 PM

Kiosks are a great way to display the availability and upcoming schedules of your resources, allow users to book reservations, and enforce check-in procedures to free up time when a reservation is abandoned!


Modes

Resource Kiosk


A resource kiosk is designed for use outside of rooms, at a front desk, or on a display wall to show one or more resources with current and upcoming reservations.

Supports: Reservation Display, Touch Screens, Booking, Check-In/Out, Multi-Resources, 1-6 resources recommended, QR Code Authentication

Resource Library Kiosk


A resource library kiosk is designed for large numbers of resources that are labelled with the QReserve QR Codes. Simply walk up to the kiosk, scan the QR code, and check that resource out. Scanning a resource's QR code will bring up the standard resource kiosk page for that resource. Requires QR Code reader capability and a camera.

Supports: Reservation Display, Touch Screens, Booking, Check-In/Out, Multi-Resources, Unlimited Resources, QR Code Resource Picking, QR Code Authentication


Check-In Desk


A check-in desk kiosk is designed to make checking into and out of reservations a breeze. Reservations must already exist and then once a check in window is open, the reservation will appear on the kiosk to check into and then out of. Read More

Supports: Reservation Display, Multi-Resources, Unlimited resources, QR Code Authentication

Live Map Viewing and Booking

Display a configured live map directly on a kiosk to provide real-time utilization views of your spaces. If enabled, tapping a resource on the map allows users to book or check-into reservations directly on the kiosk.

Supports: Reservation Display, Touch Screens, Booking, Check-In/Out, Multi-Resources, Unlimited Resources, QR Code Resource Picking, QR Code Authentication

Daily Agenda

A daily agenda kiosk is a simple agenda list of reservations for your selected resources and is useful as a non-interactive display to show guests the schedule for the current day.

Supports: Reservation Display, Multi-Resources, Unlimited resources

Hardware Requirements

Kiosks are compatible with any tablet display or computer that has access to the internet. While touchscreens are not required for viewing basic availability information, a touch screen is recommended for full functionality. We recommend any modern Android or Apple tablet with a recommended size of at least 10", although smaller sizes will still function. Tablets can be placed into your environment with a variety of stands or enclosures that best suit your particular situation.

Alternatively, the kiosks module can be used to display real-time resource availability in large screen format by using any computer connected display with any web-browser capable of displaying full-screen websites. We recommend using Chrome or Firefox.

Software Requirements

In the most basic sense, all that is required to use a kiosk on any device is a web browser; however, when tablets are used, we recommend using kiosk lockdown software to ensure users are only able to interact with the kiosk website and not other websites or other applications. QReserve does not provide this software nor any warranty of it but we have tried and tested the following with great success:

We recommend configuring your kiosk software to automatically reload the kiosk page a few times a day to ensure it receives and updates to the kiosk page automatically.

Configuring Kiosks

QReserve kiosks can be configured and customized to perfectly fit your desired application. Use one of our built-in themes or create your own with custom branding and background images.

Adding Resources

QReserve kiosks can be used to display information about one or many resources. The maximum number of resources depends on the kiosk mode and the size of your display. A standard 10" tablet should be able to display 6 resources without trouble when using the Resource Kiosk mode. Simply select the resource(s) you want to display on your kiosk from the dropdown and then click the + Add Resource to Kiosk button.

For easier management of larger resource numbers, add resources by tag to always have all resources tagged with a particular tag available on that kiosk.

Reservable vs Requestable Resources

A reservable resource will present users with the ability to select the date and time of a reservation with a default being the current time. A requestable resource will not present any date or time options, just like in the QReserve application itself.

Create a consumable tracker easily through the use of the Resource Library Kiosk and requestables mode resources for consumables so users can mark their usage on a kiosk at the time a resource is removed from a store room or storage area.

Resource Options

Each resource in your kiosk can be configured to allow on-kiosk booking or not. When enabled, a Reserve button will appear on the kiosk that allows users to create reservations for that moment in time or a future date. By default, users will need to authenticate with their PIN code that they can set from their My Profile page, but this can be disabled if the kiosk is being used within a trusted environment.

Check-In and Check-Out Features

If enabled, your kiosks can be used to allow users to check in and out of a reservation directly on the kiosk. Further more, enabling the End Early on Check Out option can make your resource available for immediate use upon check-out.

Compatible Form Elements

Not all form fields or functions are supported with kiosks. If an incompatible field is defined in your form then an error will show on your kiosk and requests cannot be received.

Compatible Form Fields

  • Text Input (Single Line)
  • Text Input (Multi-Line)
  • Number Fields
  • Checkbox
  • Checkbox List
  • Dropdown Select
  • Static Text
  • Computed Fields
  • Visibility Scripts

Incompatible Form Fields

  • Administrator Only Fields
  • File Uploads
  • Date Fields

Theme Options

Select one of the built-in themes, or select one of the Custom themes to use your own background image and colour scheme! Select the appropriate light or dark custom theme depending on the tone of your background image, as this will determine whether the main text colour is black or white.

Background images should match the screen resolution of your display and, if not, will be stretched to fill the display. Displays can be used in either portrait or landscape orientations so this should also be taken into account. If adding logos, we recommend doing so either along the top of the kiosk where there is approximately a 60px band of space where the time is shown, or the bottom right. Note: Kiosk background images are only refreshed once every 30-60 minutes on the kiosks themselves.

Loading a Kiosk Onto a Device

Each QReserve kiosk is accessible at a unique URL that is provided at the top of your kiosk configuration panel. Simply load that URL in any web browser or kiosk lockdown software to activate your kiosk. For convenience, a QR Code encoding of your kiosk's URL is provided on the kiosk administration page to be scanned by kiosk software.

Security Considerations

Kiosks are often placed in public locations and require no or little authentication (a PIN code can be requested to confirm bookings). Therefore, you should consider any security risks prior to their deployment in terms of access to user lists, account numbers, or rates. For example, if account numbers and rates are required and pre-defined on user accounts, these values can be revealed to anybody using the kiosk by misrepresenting who they are and impersonating a different user. For secure locations this is likely not a problem; however, in public situations, it may be best to disable on-kiosk booking or to create special public versions of resources that do not require rates or account numbers to be set.

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