Hello,
Can you add a new option on a step trigger that looks at the duration of inactivity on that step? For example, “after 30 seconds have elapsed on a step without activity” then “transition to another step” or “show message” etc.
Hi Kevin,
Right now, you can make a step enter trigger on a timer that fires every 30 seconds and checks for time elapsed (that you specify) on a app step , but this wouldn’t specifically be looking for inactivity on the app - it would only be checking for how much time has passed so I don’t think it would fully help/address you request here. Would this help or is what you really need is the ability to count duration of inactivity?
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Hi Beth, yes this request is specifically for inactivity. @Pipiet FYI.
Hi Kevin and Manuh, could I ask a bit more about the use case you’re hoping to solve right now? Are you trying to detect when an App is not in use, or instead create a report on inactivity? Happy to chat on a call if that’s more convenient!
Asking partially because Tulip Automations might be a great option for any form of reporting, and also background tasks that would cause an App to be inactive.
- Olga
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Hi Olga, we are increasingly seeing the need for an auto log out timer at app level, currently it’s only possible to set the ‘Automatic log out after a period of inactivity’ at instance level. The reason for this is that individual apps can have very different requirements when it comes to auto log out, for example:
A) An interactive dashboard app, designed to be displayed on a large screen for long periods of periods of time.
B) An EBR data recording app, which is used on a shared device on the line and requires the logged in users details to be attributable.
It is critical for example B to have an automatic log out after inactivity so that operators don’t enter data under someone else’s log in, but if we set the auto log out timer at instance level it will render example A useless as you need to log back in every 15 minutes or so.
We have tried to use the existing step timer to build this at app level but currently we can only trigger a log out after duration spent on a step, so even if the user is actively using the app they will be logged out.
Thanks, Aiden
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Thank you Aiden.
This is helpful detail. I’ve updated the title of this Product Suggestion. We look at votes to help prioritize suggestions, so this clarity will also help others find and vote on the idea.
For B - Out of curiosity, what’s your workaround today? Do you train EBR operators to always log out and log in? How often do “login mistakes” happen? and how would they get detected downstream?
For A - Do you want an auto-logout for Dashboards, and if so on what cadence/for what purpose? or do you just mean that they shouldn’t log out?
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Thanks Olga!
For example B, or anything similar, our customers train their operators to sign out after data input, and in some cases we use the step timer to log out after a period of time, say 1hr if no single step should reasonably take that long to complete.
For example A, we have some customers that use dashboards designed to run on a screen for most of the day, so you wouldn’t want any log out, or at least for a few hours. We also have some examples of apps which require the user to stay on certain steps for long periods of time, completing tasks from an interactive table, where you also wouldn’t want to be logged out.
The main thing that we are finding is the need for auto log out varies from app to app, so having it at instance level doesn’t give us enough flexibility.
Makes sense and thank you for the detail. I’ve forwarded this internally and we’ll also keep an eye on Upvotes.
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So you need Three timers
A logout timer that is recording the time spent in a step
The actual logout function timer
And a timer reset for “inactivity” on step enter
Worth documenting that technically @tyler.stoltenburg solution still isn’t perfect because “On Step Enter” will not fire if someone logs off or shuts down the player. And the timer trigger won’t tick while the player is off.
Would need to use a custom widget to fire an event on screen re-open or make sure that all buttons on the screen are also checking for time out.
I did just trial this, you are correct it won’t reset the inactivity timer to zero but it will still continue the timer and the auto logout function to auto-logout after closing the player and re-opening
I have a simple custom widget, that has an event listener on the dom rendering.
I put this on the base layout, so it will fire any time, the base layout gets rendered, also, when the app is still running but you open up the closed player.
This is the only event I need to check for activity or current version and restart the app.
The steps I posted from above work, but cause the user to be logged out then they have to log back in 3 times. Any solutions? It immediately logs out the current user 3 times then the third time it stays logged in for 30 seconds unless switching to a different step and resetting the timer back to zero.
