remote monitoring
Five benefits of remote monitoring software: how remote
monitoring can enhance your software platform
By Paul Burden, Director of Software, Meridian – www.meridiankiosks.com
Businesses across the globe are
continuing to invest in digital signage
and kiosk technology to personalise
customer experiences. Kiosk and digital
signage solutions have revolutionised
industries from tourism to insurance by
empowering companies to utilise self-
service solutions for simple transactions,
allowing employees to focus on more
complicated customer service tasks.
This adoption of technology amounts
to companies being able to shift costly
labour resources into more vital business
roles. Businesses and organisations
are deploying self-service solutions to
maximise customer reach, generate
additional revenue opportunities and
deliver expanded services.
When devices need to operate
independently in an unattended
environment, there are some obvious
concerns that must be addressed.
What’s done to secure the physical kiosk
or digital signage from tampering? This
is especially important when it comes
to transactional kiosks that handle
payment. Additionally, how is a deployer
notified of issues with kiosks in the field?
If a deployer is relying heavily on
more labour to address these issues, any
gains made by deploying a self-service
solution would likely evaporate. Remote
monitoring offers a solution for these
concerns and adds additional benefits
to kiosks and digital signage. Here are
just a few key ways remote monitoring
enhances software for kiosk and digital
signage solutions:
Remote access
One of the most valuable features
a software platform can offer is the
ability to be accessed remotely by non-
technical users. Rather than hiring a
coding expert to change the URL of the
kiosk, business and organisations can
change the content of the kiosk or digital
signage from any computer connected to
the Internet. Remote access allows kiosk
deployers to automatically schedule and
change content based on current needs.
For example, a company may want its
digital signage to display adverts for
family activities and open shops during
the day and, in the evening cater to a
more mature audience by displaying
adverts for dinner specials and events.
Monitor health
Remote monitoring solutions can give
deployers the ability to monitor the
health of the kiosk operating system
and software, along with accompanying
hardware, in real-time. Deployers can
be notified if either the physical unit
or the software has been accessed
inappropriately, either by email or text
message.
Multi-user access
With remote monitoring, your software
platform will be able to support multi-
permission level access. Multi-user
access can be used for alerts, security
updates and pushing new content to the
kiosk or digital signage. In some cases,
a generic user might be limited to their
own account, content and alerts. The
IT team account might have access to
manage all accounts and alerts, as well
as the ability to push security updates
and software to the device.
Customisable alarms
Remote monitoring allows deployers
to customise what the severity of each
alarm is, and determine who an alert
should go to. For instance, if a paper
roll is 80% empty, that alert might go to
the local shop owner. When the paper
reaches 90% empty, that alert could
be escalated and sent to the district
manager who is able to call the store to
find out why it’s not being replaced.
Making use of analytics
Finally, a great remote monitoring
solution should offer measurable ROI
with the ability to pull logs, diagnostics
and usage information reports
from the kiosk and digital signage. A
comprehensive remote monitoring
solution should provide the deployer
with reports including information about
the number of users who interact with
the system and the duration, where and
what the user interacted with, viewed
and touched etc. While this information
is valuable for IT purposes, it can also
be leveraged for marketing research,
and can even give deployers insight into
changes