Set-up manual for digital signage displays through the Google Android Management API.

Follow the instructions to set up the display.

This article will cover the following topics:

• How to install Flexopus on the a digital sigange display?
• How to turn on / off the kiosk mode on the display?
• How to switch from the PoE internet configuration to the WiFi internet configuration?
• How to do a factory reset?
• Alternative installation solutions

To learn more about the supported devices visito the supported devices article.

How to install Flexopus on the display?

When setting up a signage display, the most important requirements for an installation are:

• The display is set into a kiosk mode and the employees can not access anything else than the Flexopus application.
• The displays can be managed centrally through a device management system.
• New application versions are updated automatically.

To fulfill the above-mentioned requirement without involving a "paid" third-party service, we recommend using the Android Management API provided by Google. To do so, we published the Flexopus Device Connect Application in the Google Play Store.

You have 6 simple steps to follow:

1. Register a private (@gmail) Google account
2. Create a Project in the Google Cloud Console
3. Create an enterprise on the Google Cloud platform
4. Create a device policy.
5. Generate a connection code for your display.
6. Enter the code on the display.

To understand the goal of this installation manual, firstly I will describe step 6, to see what to do with a generated code:

Step 6: Enter the code on the display:

Once you unpacked your android display, it should be in factory reset mode. This is a pre-requirement for the setup. In case you're already logged in with a Google Account, please do a factory reset.

Follow the steps:

1. Power up the display with the provided adapter or through a PoE (Power over Ethernet) connection.
2. The display will start up and ask you for some configuration steps like selecting the language, and connecting to the wifi network (if not using PoE). When the setup process offers to copy data from another device, click "Don't copy". Follow the steps until it asks for a Google Account. DO NOT ENTER an email address.
3. Instead of typing in your email address, enter: afw#setup
   This will initiate an enterprise device setup process.
4. Agree with the terms and conditions. You enable the enterprise to manage the device externally (by you) through the registered Android Management API.
5. Enter the generated token from the Google API Console.
6. After entering the token, the display will automatically install Flexopus and will be set into kiosk mode, in case you configured the policy correctly. This may take a few minutes.
7. Once it´s done you can continue with the pairing of the display.

As you can see, for the installation, you just need to enter a code on the display.

Now let's see how to get the code:

Step 1: Register a private Google account

Yes, you need a free private @gmail.com Google account: Go to www.google.com. We recommend creating a separate account for this purpose (eg.: my-company-flexopus-devices@gmail.com). This account will only be responsible for storing the connected displays and the APK installation.

Google can not access the personal data stored in Flexopus, the installed APK is communicating directly with the Flexopus servers in a secure way.

Step 2: Create a project in the Google Cloud Console

As described in the Google manual, you will need to create a Google Console Project:

1. Open the Flexopus Device Management template
   
2. Click on "Copy to driverun " in the left top corner. This will create a local version of the project in your Google Drive. Take it as a template. All changes you make will be changed in your Google Drive. I recommend changing the name of the project in the left top corner from "Copy of Flexopus Device Management template.ipynb"  to your preference.
   This is now your Google Colab Notebook. If you are not familiar with Colab, read the introduction in the notebook.
3. Next, you need to create a project in the Google Cloud Console. Visit this page
   
   
   1. Click CREATE PROJECT. (Example: Flexopus)
      You don't need to select an organization.
   2. Enter your project details, and then click CREATE.
   3. Take note of the project ID and paste it in the cell below, then run the cell.
   4. After the creation, you may need to refresh the page.
4. Take the project ID and enter it in the Colab Notebook. Click "Run cell" (Play button on the left) to save the variable to the runtime.
   
5. Authorize Colab to manage your devices. To do so, run the second cell. It will ask you to click the blue printed link and sign in with your account. Copy the authorization code provided by the other page, and paste it into the input field in the notebook. Hit Enter, and you will see "Authentication succeeded."
   

Step 3: Create an enterprise on the Google Cloud platform

You will only need to perform this step once. Later, when you come back to your copy of the notebook, just run the cell 4. Enter the enterprise name with your enterprise name.

To create your enterprise Run the next cell to create an enterprise in your Cloud project. You will be taken to a page where you can create the enterprise.

1. Click on "First steps".
2. Enter the organization name
3. (optional) Enter the data protection officer, or just accept the terms and conditions and skip it without filling it out.
4. Finish the setup
5. You will get a code again: paste it back into the notebook. The notebook will print your enterprise name. Enter this name in the next cell's input field
   

Step 4: Create a device policy

In the Management API policies are configuration files that describe how a connected device should behave. This includes update settings, installed apps, and kiosk mode. With cells 5.1 and 5.2 you can list or delete your existing policies. But first, go to cell 6 to create your first policy.

The policy_name uniquely identifies the policy, so every time you want to make changes to it, you will have to provide the exact name (here we only enter the name flexopus, but it will be prefixed to enterprises/<generated-enterprise-name>/policies/flexopus).

The install_type defines how the Flexopus Device Connect application should behave. With KIOSK, the app is starting in kiosk mode, while with AVAILABLE, the app is not being installed automatically, just put onto the list of enabled apps. When you have to do some action on the device that is blocked in kiosk mode, you can change the app in the policy to AVAILABLE to exit kiosk mode.

Run this section with the play button.

Step 5: Generate a connection code for your display.

Once you have defined your policy, you generate an enrollment token. The token is a 16-character code, all capital alphabetic. Enter this code on your device (without the separating spaces). You will have to generate a new token for every device you want to enroll.

Run this section with the play button.

Now you can go to Step 6, which is described at the beginnig of this article.

How to turn on / off the kiosk mode on the display?

Once you have set up the device to be managed by the Management API, most of the features of the device are controlled by the policy it has been enrolled. Thus, to exit from kiosk mode, you will have to change the app installation type of the policy itself.

How to switch from the PoE internet configuration to the WiFi internet configuration?

Network configuration is one of the first steps of the provisioning and is not accessible when in kiosk mode. We recommend provisioning your devices in the final network environment to avoid issues with configuration. Still, there might be cases when it's necessary to make changes to the network settings. For example:

• The WiFi configuration changed (SSID, password, or security settings)
• You have configured the devices on PoE, but you would like to use WiFi

To access WiFi configuration, you have two options:

1. Access wifi settings from the error page: when your device has a connection issue, an error page is displayed. In the bottom right corner of this page, we added a hidden button that opens the wifi settings. 
   
2. Exiting kiosk mode to access the settings app.
   
   1. Make sure your device has internet access (plug in PoE, or reset the initial WiFi settings that the device knows)
   2. Turn off kiosk mode by modifying the device policy. Make sure the device syncs the policy and exits kiosk mode.
   3. Open Wifi settings on the device, and connect to the desired network. If you are using PoE, you may need to unplug and change to a regular power source to be able to connect to a WiFi network.

How to do a factory reset?

To perform a factory reset, you have two options.

1. Option 1: Delete the device from the Management API. If you have already provisioned the device, then just run cell 8.1 List devices to get the device's name, then run 8.2 Execute device command with the correct device name and delete command. The device will recognize that you have removed it from the enterprise and will perform a factory reset automatically.

   

2. Option 2: If you can access the settings application on the device, you can just perform a factory reset in Settings / System / Reset options / Erase all data.

   

Alternative installation solutions

Note that the above-described provisioning using the Android Management API is primarily needed for the kiosk mode operation. Every functionality related to Flexopus is implemented in the Flexopus Device Connect app, which is available at Google Play. Thus, if you do not wish to use the app in kiosk mode (not recommended), you can simply download and run the Device Connect app. Feel free to explore other, third-party solutions to put our app in kiosk mode (eg. Fully Single App Kiosk).