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Maps
Once you organize computers into divisions you can use Maps to show these groups of computers, either as simple lists or detailed Floorplan drawings linked from a geographic map of locations. When you first visit the Maps you will see a list of all your divisions with information showing their current status based on number of computers. Clicking a line will allow you to make a Floorplan. In this manner, it is very easy to quickly create publicly visible list based floorplans making your fleet available in minutes. You can later use our drawing tools and/or image files provided by your organization to create accurate layouts of the building or room the division represents, and then place computers on the Floorplan in a manner that reflects their physical location in that space.
Map Sets
You can create new Tabs (Map Sets) in the Maps screen by clicking the + at the top. These Map Sets can be based on Divisions (default) or Tags. In other words, a Map is a list or geographic layout view of locations or logical groups of computers. Those in turn as you'll see below can be shown as Floorplans. Clicking the gear icon on a tab lets you configure the Properties of that map set. You can make entire sets visible to the public or not, so you can have internal maps for IT use compared to public labs for student use. This also allows you to make Floorplans in a set publicly available without enabling public access to the entire set to see the list of floorplans. While there is no way to browse to those floorplans in the UI (effectively blocking unwanted access), you can provide direct access to the Floorplans in question by supplying users with the appropriate URLs. Remember that as an admin you will see all divisions under each tab, but until you both make a floorplan and set it as public, nothing will be seen by the Guest view. This means you can name the tabs for branch locations of an organization, and put the relevant floorplans under each tab. While you see all things listed, the users see a nice organized UI of labs by location.
Maps can be very useful in education for visualizing a lab. You can see which machines are available, what software they have, and even show printers with their status information. In corporate settings, using maps for IT staff can be useful to again see building layout and computer status. Public maps are available to the guest view. Maps that are not public can be visible to authenticated users based on roles and permissions.
Floorplans
As a Map is a collection of division or tag based floorplans, a Floorplan is a List (default) or drawn Layout (optional) of the Computers in said division or Tag. Each floorplan can be configured with a number of settings as detailed below. The main Information tab in the Properties window allows you to set a friendly Name and Description. Divisions based on AD groups may have technical names, so setting a Name that makes sense to the everyday user can help clarity. The Description will show in popups when you click on the Division on the Geographic Map (see below). If you use a standard naming convention with a prefix, you can put in the prefix in question for this division to hide it in the name of the computers when displayed. That is, BLDG1-Comp3 will be simply shown as Comp3 if you put in BLDG1- for the hide prefix value.
The Location tab is more of a curiosity to see the coordinates once the floorplan has been pinned on a geographic map (see below). If you happen to have coordinates you can put them in manually.
For those wishing to leverage our Remote options to facilitate off site connections to an available machine, we offer a rich array of remote settings. Please see the linked documentation for more on those.
The Options are documented as well, but let's explore some use cases for these items.
- Public floorplans are viewable by the Guest and Community accounts. You may want to make some not public as mentioned, so they can only be seen by authenticated users of the proper role.
- Heatmaps are mostly an interesting analysis tool for admins. They show a colored aura on computers based on how highly used they have been over the selected time period. Not usually of interest to the public per se, but can be interesting. For the admin, it may reveal social patterns of use in the location, or show newer hardware gets higher use.
- Suppress Availability for Safety was added for higher education. In the event you have a remote lab late at night, perhaps you don't want it easily seen there is only one person using a computer in that room. This option shows all computers as available if less than 5 are in use.
- Base on Idle Sessions is good for locations that use a generic account that is always logged in. So as to not show them in use, you can enable this and set a low 5 minute idle time in your server settings (Settings - Misc).
- Use distinct icon for Off computers will make computers in a powered off state show blue rather than green (available). This provides greater detail as to the actual state. It is also helpful for Remote situations as you can't connect to an off machine. Some caution is needed when using power saving settings on workstations as sleeping computers appear as off.
- Show Remote links for Off computers on the other hand may be useful in fringe cases. If you set a computer to sleep but wake on LAN, we'll show it as off as appropriate. However in this state you can connect and it will wake for use, so this option opens that possibility. It does mean a truly off computer just won't respond, and there is no way to accurately show that difference.
Finally the Floorplan tab will allow you to enter the Floorplan Editor and actually draw and lay out the location graphically, including using a background image if desired. You then place the computer icons on the layout to show location and status. This is entirely optional as computers will be shown in the simple list view if you don't create a Floorplan Layout.
Once you click Add you'll see in the Map list that the division has a number of icons on the right of the screen (see image). From left to right these are:
- Connect - Only shown if Remote options are enabled for the division. Connect to a random available machine.
- Public - Check or uncheck the box to toggle the floorplan being public
- Pin - Click to use the map to place the geographic location of the division. This is like using Google Maps, but we use the free OpenStreeMap system. Your server needs to be able to access that service to fetch map tiles. Pan and zoom and click to place. You can click the Pin icon again to move it. Note that once you have any floorplan pinned, the default view is the geographic map instead of the list of Divisions. In the upper right you'll now see a button to toggle on a List View under the geographic map (bulleted list icon). A + will be shown on the pin icon for any Division row in the list view if it is not currently pinned.
- Configure - Open the Properties modal you saw when first making the Floorplan
- Time Sets - Edit the Schedule for the division. You can use this to set open hours and set class reservations.
- Edit - Modify the drawn floorplan or create one if there isn't one currently. There is a + on the icon in the latter case.
- Delete the floorplan. This does not remove the underlying division or time sets. It does permanently remove the graphical layout of the computers, as well as all options previously chosen for that floorplan.
If you click on a division that has a floorplan, you will see the list view by default unless there is a drawn layout. There is a ribbon at the top of the screen that allows you to flip between layout view, list view, and the Info page. At the other end are buttons for toggling computer names, viewing heatmaps, running reports, and configuring and editing if you have the proper permissions. The far left drop down button allows for quick navigation to other floorplans without returning to the main Maps screen. Note the edit (pencil) button will enter the layout editor if you are on the Floorplan or List tab, but will open the Markdown editor if you are on the Info tab.