Chromebook kiosks for customers and employees

Posted by Vidya Nagarajan, Product Manager, Chrome for Business

With easy personalization and built-in security, Chrome devices were made for sharing. The new Managed Public Sessions feature delivers a highly customizable experience for both customers and employees without requiring a login.

Because Chromebooks are low cost, easy to set up and manage, and require virtually no maintenance, Chromebooks with Managed Public Sessions make perfect shared kiosks. You could use a Chromebook with Managed Public Sessions to:

• Order out-of-stock items online while at a retail store 
• Search for books and browse the web at the library 
• Update machine and inventory info from the manufacturing floor 
• Access the company portal and update HR info from the employee break room 
• Catch up on work in a hotel business center

Administrators can easily customize any Chrome device to be a public session device using the web-based management console. The features that you'll find in the console include the ability to set the default sites and apps a user sees at login, custom brand the homepage, block sites and apps that shouldn't be accessed, configure device inputs and outputs, and set timed log-out sessions. For security reasons, public session data is cleared on logout so the next user starts fresh.

We’ve tested public sessions with a few customers and here’s the initial feedback:

• Dillards, Inc. - “We have many more employees than computers at our retail stores, so being able to share devices is key. With Managed Public Sessions, employees can walk up to any machine and get immediate access to their corporate email and important internal systems. And since Managed Public Sessions wipes all data at logout, it supports our PCI compliance requirements.”
  - Woody Chin, CIO, Dillard’s

• Multnomah County Library - “Our Community Chromebooks program was funded by a grant from the Mt. Hood Cable Regulatory Commission. We have about 160 Chromebooks in 19 neighborhood libraries that patrons can check out for 2 hours of in-library use. The program’s been hugely popular - in the last year, we’ve loaned Chromebooks over 30,000 times. With Managed Public Sessions, we can get patrons online and productive faster, by pre-configuring the devices with a terms of service agreement, the library homepage, and popular apps like Google Maps, Evernote, and the Kindle Cloud Reader. Public Sessions also makes the program easier for library staff to support, as the session count-down timer will help get Chromebooks turned in on time, and preinstalling the most popular apps will reduce setup questions.”
  - Lucien Kress, Project Manager, Multnomah County Library

• Hyatt San Francisco - “I’ve been running Chromeboxes with Managed Public Sessions in employee break areas. We really like Chromeboxes’ speedy browsing, easy management and security. Employees use Chromeboxes to access Hyatt payroll system, request time off, and stay up to date on internal news. They can also access personal email and social sites during breaks and I don’t need to worry about viruses and malware infecting Chromeboxes.”
  - Victor Povzner, Sr. IT Director, Hyatt Regency San Francisco

Learn more on the Chromebook site or contact us if you have any follow up questions.