Hopefully you've already had a look at our iPad Kiosk Overview article and are aware of what the kiosk is.
There are a few things to get sorted — both inside the app and out. Let's start with out.
Double-check your iPad region
It's necessary for the iPad you're using to have its region set to your actual region. Without this, checking in may not work. Please follow the instructions on this Apple article on setting the region to ensure this is the case.
Get yourself an iPad stand
The iPad is probably going to live in your waiting room — and probably without you or any of your staff to keep an eye on it. To make sure that it stays where you put it, we highly recommend getting a good-looking stand or wall mount for your iPad, like this one from BossTab:
Not only will this keep your iPad in its rightful place, but you'll be able to keep it plugged in while hiding the charging cable.
Enable Guided Access
While the stand helps keep your iPad where you put it, the only way to ensure that no one accidentally (or on purpose) uses any other app on the iPad is to use Guided Access. Starting Guided Access ensures that:
Your iPad doesn't go to sleep
Your patients can't leave the Finger-Ink app
To enable Guided Access, please see Apple's article on Guided Access as it contains the most up-to-date instructions for your iPad.
We let you know in the app if Guided Access isn't enabled & started before you enter receptionist / kiosk mode from the setup screen:
Change the iPad alias and passcode
The default passcode for Finger-Ink is 4 3 2 1. It protects the admin area, and is required to exit kiosk mode. You'll want to make sure it's something only you and your team know.
To change the default passcode, you'll need to go to to the iPad settings in the Portal, update the passcode, then save:
The alias is what you want to label your iPad — so you can identify it when you're changing settings. Maybe you've got it in a specific location, maybe it needs a different logo, or maybe you're using it as a "check-out" rather than a "check-in" kiosk. Whatever the reason, setting the alias lets you know you're updating settings for the right iPad.
Once you've set an alias for a particular iPad, you'll be able to see it in the settings screen in the app:
(optional) Restrict appointments
By default, the iPad will download all appointments for the day to allow patients to check themselves in — all appointments means from all your businesses / locations setup in your PMS account.
New in version 7.2.0 of the app is the ability to restrict an iPad to appointments from one or more specific businesses / locations.
This can be combined with some carefully chosen wording on the "Appointment not found" screen to ensure that patients who turn up to the wrong location for their appointment get a suggestion to double-check their booking confirmation message.
How it works
Go into the iPad settings in the Portal (the same page that contains the alias & admin area passcode settings) and find the "Appointment settings for this iPad" section:
Then, click the "Appointments from selected businesses only" button, and select the business(es) for which you'd like patients to be able to check in on that iPad:
Finally, click "save" to send these changes to your iPad.
☝️ It's worth noting that we still send appointments from all businesses to every iPad. But, when appointments are restricted to selected businesses, we just don't show them within the Appointments screen, nor do we allow check-in to those appointments.
Next Steps
Once you've got these things sorted, it's time to configure the Check-in flow.