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Check Out from a Self-Serve Station

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2015 4:21 pm
by newdaycommunity
Here's what I need: I need a check in kiosk that cannot be closed/minimized (without entering a password) that our volunteers/individuals can check in AND check out from.

Why? Because of our network and how we share files, in order to access powerchurch you're on a network that can also access confidential financial files that are saved outside of powerchurch. It took us ages to get get the computer to even find PowerChurch and work consistently across the network. I don't know much about networks but I don't think it's an option for us to set up PowerChurch on a network that can be just for the kiosk and still let our staff access powerchurch from their different computers and get to the confidential files mentioned above.

At first I thought we'd just use the self-check in station feature for this. We are using the auto-maximize and "always on top" features. But you cannot check kids out in the self-serve mode. I can even understand that for security purposes, but it's not helpful for my problem.

So then I thought, I'll make a user that can access a manned station, but maybe there is a setting so that user cannot close/minimize the check in box. But there isn't. It could be an option in the user set up for check in I would think...

In essence a church service could look like this: one of our staff starts the check in Kiosk, our volunteers can check people in and out but not use the computer for anything else, and then our staff can close the computer out when services are over.

Is there a way we could use a scanner for this? We haven't purchased it yet but if it would solve this problem I'd give it a shot. My suspicion is the scanner won't work without being attached to a manned station, though. What can I do to solve this problem?

Thanks for reading and hopefully we can solve this!
Tori Webb, Administrator New Day Community Church

Re: Check Out from a Self-Serve Station

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2015 1:16 pm
by Jeff
Tori,

It sounds like you worried about volunteers or other people getting access to other confidential information on your network. You are right to be. If you have a wireless network that you let people connect to, they may be able to access these files from their tablet or smartphone. And they wouldn't even need to use the check in kiosk. This all depends on how your network is configured.

There are a number of ways this information can be protected and it all depends on how our network is setup. It depends if you are using a central server running a server OS like Windows Server 2012 R2 for example, or if you peer to peer network where there is not a central server. In either case you can secure confidential information. You may need to bring in someone how is familiar with networks to help you do this. You might even have someone in your church that can help.

Generally in a central server environment you will have what is called a domain. And then using the domain you can set who has access to what file shares. You would setup a check-in station log in user and that domain account would not have any access to any file shares with sensitive information.

In a peer to peer environment you basically do the same thing, but you will have to check each machine to see what files they are sharing and set security as to who can access these files. Even in a peer to peer environment you can put a restriction on who can access that file share.

The login accounts for the check in workstations do not need access directly to any of the PowerChurch data folders. They talk to the check in server. The check in server needs access to the PowerChurch data so it would login in with an account that gives it access to those files.

You asked about using a scanner for check out. There is an option for check out called the Express Checkout. This is stilled designed to be done in a manned station sort of way. But to check someone out the operator just scans the child and parent tags and they are on their way.