Android Tablet Setup Made Simple

When we launched EventBoard for Android in the summer of 2016 with the goal of our customers not being limited to a single operating system. There are also individual wins available to each and we wanted to tap into those when possible. One of the major benefits only available to Android is the ability to push the latest version of the EventBoard app from within our web dashboard. You can do it for a single room or your entire organization without any additional software or need to walk around and touch each device. In order to achieve remote updating (and kiosk mode) we couldn’t offer our production app directly in the Google Play Store. Until now. Working directly with the Android team, we’ve been able to simplify the setup process down to a few taps.

Previously, we required you to download a file from our site, plug the tablet into your computer, run a shell script, and execute several commands in the terminal to get the app on your device with the necessary functionality. You would go to the dashboard and enter the PIN to sync it to a specific room or space. It worked, but it had friction.

Now, it’s a lot easier, with 6 simple steps:

• Power up a new Android (6.0+) device, or factory reset an existing one
• Be sure to encrypt the device if prompted (required for security reasons)
• Go through the setup wizard until you get to the point of entering a google account for the device
• In the email field, you’ll enter afw#teem (all lower case)
• This will fetch the latest build of the EventBoard app from the Google Play Store, install it, and set it up in a kiosk mode with no additional work from you
• Now you go to your Teem dashboard, enter the PIN to sync that device to a space and you’re done

A few additional notes:

• Since EventBoard will essentially take over the tablet in kiosk mode, it must be done from a fresh boot-up of the device, either brand new or factory reset. Google requires this to prevent bad things from taking over your devices, so we support that effort.
• You can still push the latest version of the app from the web dashboard and it’ll apply to both legacy displays and new ones that were set up through this process.
• The version of EventBoard that sits in the Google Play store is still a demo version. To download the full version, you must follow the process outlined above.