retail (or demo) mode

[Lucien Kress]

I've been beta testing the "retail mode", also known as "demo mode", which includes some nice features to make Chromebooks act more like public computers.

1) At start up, the patron logs in by clicking anywhere on the screen, rather than having to type in a username and password or select "Browse as guest".

2) We can preconfigure a proxy setting and a start page.

3) The session is incognito, at least until the patron logs into Gmail or Facebook.

4) When the patron logs out, all session data is deleted.

One of the features I've been looking forward to is the ability to preinstall Chrome apps in retail mode. We don't have this yet, but as a proof of concept Google wrote a little timer app and preinstalled it for me. It's very simple:  it sits in the tool bar and displays the remaining time (based on our two-hour loan period). If a patron clicks on the icon, it shows the remaining time in a larger format. At a few specific times, it pops up a warning message, and at zero it pops up a message that the session is over.

I'm including screenshots of the login screen (actually taken with a camera, sorry for the poor quality) and of the timer app in action.

Lucien
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Lucien Kress
Project Manager
Multnomah County Library

[Tamara Broman]

Any idea when this will be available for other libraries?  I am with the Sacramento Public Library and would love to see this before we launch in November.

 

Thanks,

Tamara

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[Matt Amory]

Interested in this as well here in Wayland Mass.

Matt Amory

[Lucien Kress]

Tamara, I'll see if I can get a better ETA on the finished retail mode, and also whether Google is willing to let other libraries beta test it. 

Lucien
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Lucien Kress
Project Manager
Multnomah County Library

[Lucien Kress]

Google says "end of Q4" for a full-featured retail mode. (But I've learned to take their delivery predictions with a grain of salt.) And no, they are not accepting any new beta testers at this point.

As happy as I am to see progress with "retail mode", I should add that I think the recently released "ephemeral mode" meets the minimum requirement for deploying Chromebooks as public computers. 

Lucien
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Lucien Kress
Project Manager
Multnomah County Library

[Matt Amory]

Any news on "Retail Mode"?

[Lucien Kress]

I'm still running a beta version of the "retail mode" interface in a development domain, and it has had some periodic, small improvements, but it doesn't seem to be on the verge of going into production. 

In particular, the promised feature of being able to pre-install apps is not there yet. Features like setting a default home page and proxy are not yet accessible through the control panel; Google has to set them for you. 

It's been a while since my Google rep told me it was going to be released imminently, but I haven't followed up for a while. Will do.

Lucien

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Lucien Kress
Project Manager
Multnomah County Library

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/chromebooks_lib/-/0cqQNllVHvUJ.

[Matt Amory]

thx!

Matt Amory
(917) 771-4157
matt....@gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/matt-amory/8/515/239