KIOSK Workspace and Power Management

[Darryl Meyers]

Using a Chromebook in KIOSK or public session KIOSK mode works great for launching a single app for the Citrix workspace app. Problem is power management, the Chromebook wants to sleep after 6 mins on battery and 15 minutes when plugged in. We would prefer to turn power management off or at least prevent it from going to sleep. When it does this it loses connection and students have to then wait to reconnect.

 

The preference is to have the devices go directly in the workspace app and not log into Chrome and then launch the app.

 

Tiny glitch but its annoying.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Shruthi Udayakumar]

Hi 

 

You can set the workspace app to launch automatically. Please follow the link - https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/3316168?hl=en and refer to Set the kiosk app to launch automatically.

 

This way switching on the chromebook would go to kiosk mode and launch the workspace app directly.

[Darryl Meyers]

Thank you however I already know how to setup the Citrix workspace app to launch automatically. What I would like to know is how to set it so that the ChromeOS doesn't go in to sleep mode if inactive after 6 mins on battery. 

[Seth McGill]

I assume you're deploying these from a gsuite environemnent?

What we have done, from the Citrix Workspace app kiosk settings (Device Mangement > Chrome > App Managment) find the appropriate OU and disable power management by moving the slider to the left so that "Allow app to manage power" was not selected.

Under user settings (Device Management > Chrome > User Settings) find the appropriate OU and search for "Idle", adjust the idle settings to your liking.

Under device settings (Device Mangement >Chrome>Device Settings) find the appropriate OU and search for "power" adjust the power settings to your liking.

 

We have had pretty good luck with these settings thus far.

 

[Amos Secoy]

I am possibly having the same issues as OP. Using Acer CXI3 Chromebox with G-Suite management and have all the settings configured that smcgill recommended. However, when the Workspace app launches as a kiosk app it seems to ignore all those settings and puts the Chromebox to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity. If a user was logged into a desktop session during that inactivity, they are disconnected and have to fully log back in. I would prefer that the Windows desktop session just time out their inactivity with a Windows lock screen!

I interrupted the Workspace kiosk app launch and confirmed the Chromebox will sit there without sleeping. It just seems that the Workspace app is ignoring the "disable power management" and idle settings.

 

[Shruthi Udayakumar]

We have an EAR that addresses the power management. You may use this and give us the feedback.More details below..
 
To enable the feature, edit the Google Admin Console policy and set the value of the keep_awake_level property under power_settings to "display" or "system" and then restart the session.
 
The "system" level prevents the system from sleeping in response to user inactivity..
The "display" level prevents the display from being turned off or dimmed or the system from sleeping in response to user inactivity.
 
{
    "settings": {
        "Value": {
            "settings_version": "1.0",
            "power_settings": {
                "keep_awake_level": "display"
            }
        }
    }
}

Note: In kiosk mode, the Allow app to manage power setting must be disabled. 
  
Citrix Workspace app for Chrome build information
 
Citrix Workspace App for chrome Tech Preview build: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/citrix-workspace-app-tech/lbfgjakkeeccemhonnolnmglmfmccaag?hl=en&authuser=3 

Kindly provide your feedback here: https://podio.com/webforms/21158007/1463361 
  
To use this app in your test environment, you need to whitelist this app id in storefront:
 
Link for the document: http://docs.citrix.com/en-us/receiver/chrome/current-release/deploy.html
 
 STEPS:
1.    On the StoreFront server, use a text editor to open the web.config file for the Receiver for Web site, which is typically located in the C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\storenameWeb directory, where storename is the name specified for the store when it was created.
2.    Locate the following element in the file.
<html5 ... chromeAppOrigins="chrome-extension://haiffjcadagjlijoggckpgfnoeiflnem" ... />
3.    Change the value of the chromeAppOrigins attribute to 
 
chrome-extension://haiffjcadagjlijoggckpgfnoeiflnem|chrome-extension://lbfgjakkeeccemhonnolnmglmfmccaag
 
 
Where lbfgjakkeeccemhonnolnmglmfmccaag is the item key for Citrix Workspace App Tech Preview Version 18.12.0.4059

[Nick Fuchs1709160433]

@Shruthi Udayakumar

 

Can you confirm that the power_settings configuration should go in the Kiosk app policy? For example: 

 

{
    "settings": {
        "Value": {
            "settings_version": "1.0",
            "power_settings": {
                "keep_awake_level": "display"
            },
            "store_settings": {
                "name": "CR Citrix Lab",
                "rf_web": {
                    "url": "http://172.XX.XX.XX/Citrix/StoreWeb"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

 

Edit: I've confirmed that this policy does indeed work. We'll submit a feedback log to you tomorrow Shruthi.

[Shruthi Udayakumar]

Thank you for testing. Looking forward for more feedback. 

[Nick Fuchs1709160433]

22 hours ago, Shruthi Udayakumar said:

Thank you for testing. Looking forward for more feedback. 

Thanks for putting this together. I've sent you a direct e-mail and filled out the feedback form. We'll report back when we find some more information from our customer. 

[Shruthi Udayakumar]

Thank you

[Nick Fuchs1709160433]

Hi @Shruthi Udayakumar, I wanted to respond with another thank you for putting this together and prioritizing this feature. We were able to pass on this solution to a major enterprise financial customer, as well as a smaller enterprise customer in the last week.

 

Thank you again.

Nick Fuchs

[Shruthi Udayakumar]

On 3/21/2019 at 0:16 AM, Nick Fuchs1709160433 said:

Hi @Shruthi Udayakumar, I wanted to respond with another thank you for putting this together and prioritizing this feature. We were able to pass on this solution to a major enterprise financial customer, as well as a smaller enterprise customer in the last week.

 

Thank you again.

Nick Fuchs

Thank you Nick..