This article explains how to navigate and use the content deployment features in EloView 3

Introduction
Content deployment is one of the most important features within EloView, which allows for the deployment and installation of different types of content like Android apps, websites, web apps, and media files onto Elo Android devices remotely. App Bundles is a sub-feature within EloView’s content deployment feature-set that is utilized by many customers for deploying multiple applications on Elo devices that may or may not have dependencies. Elo Home application is a recent addition to Elo Gen 4.0 devices which enables additional functionality for managed devices that allow access to multiple applications set by the administrator.  

This article primarily applies to devices in EloView Control Mode. Control mode offers complete access to EloView’s robust features including the ones described in this document. The goal of this knowledge base article is to explain the various methods of deploying content on Elo Android devices,   describe the benefits of using App Bundles and additionally provide a guide on how to use App Bundles across Elo Android devices. 

Types of Applications Supported by EloView 
Applications installed on devices through EloView are classified into different groups.

1. Elo Installed Applications (also known as "Elo Stock Apps"), are applications that are preloaded onto the device at the factory for advanced settings, test purposes, and demos to help developers and technicians (e.g., Settings App, WebView Browser, Peripheral Test Applications, and EloView SDK Test App, Elo ScanConfig App, etc.).
2. User Installed Android Applications: Applications installed by users, via EloView or other methods.  These applications typically enable the use case for the device.  
3. User Installed Web-Apps: These are applications set up in EloView library with a web URL, wrapped with a kiosk browser supplied by EloView.  These applications provide a way for our customers to quickly deploy an experience using only web development.  
4. GMS Applications (Google Managed Services Applications): are a collection of Google applications and APIs that are available for Google GMS certified devices. These include Google Chrome, Google Drive, YouTube, Maps.  Certain user applications may require the existence of these applications (e.g., embedded YouTube videos or embedded maps) for them to function properly.
5. Smart Applications: Smart Applications are a type of content which are created by grouping together more than one application on the EloView cloud portal. There are two types of Smart Applications: 

• Attract Loops consist of a primary and a secondary application. Both primary and secondary apps will get installed on the device once the Attract Loop is deployed. Attract loops can be created by selecting any two apps in your EloView library. The "secondary app” typically contains a video or a dynamic image which plays until a user touches the screen. At this point, the primary app takes over for the purpose of user interaction. The primary app will start and continue to play until the Attract Timer times out (without any activity on the screen) – and at this point the security application will resume.  
• App Bundles consists of two types of applications, foreground, and background applications. App Bundles have one foreground app and up to five background applications as part of each bundle. The foreground app will be the main application played as the “kiosk mode content", and background apps will be downloaded and installed during deployment and run in the background. In most cases, these background applications support the foreground applications to perform single-use instances. In other cases, they are independent applications serving different use cases.

As EloView expanded to support mobile as well as employee-facing, multiple application devices from the original user-facing Kiosk type devices, offered by app bundles have become very powerful to enable these use cases.  However, these options also have caused complexity.


App Bundle Creation Screen 

Deploying Applications to Devices
Applications can be deployed to Elo Android devices using different methods depending on the device being used (e.g., Elo I-Series 4) and customer use case. Utilizing the “drag and drop” feature within EloView is the most common way to deploy user applications or content onto devices. Drag and drop is initiated from the “Content” page in EloView.  Users can install and launch the content by “dragging” it from the App Library and dropping it on top of the target device or device groups.  Applications need to be pre-loaded into the library by using the “+” button to add applications.  

Using drag-and drop can be done on any of the applications types described above. Additionally, EloView will maintain the application (of the “main app” in case of Smart Apps) as the foreground application on the device.  This enables the kiosk mode, a powerful feature in EloView.  


Content Deployment by Drag and Drop from the Content Tab 

EloView can also deploy applications from the “Apps” page in Device Settings . Users  can select the applications to be added to devices from the App Library and select if they are shown or hidden on the device by clicking the Show/Hide slider.  


Application Installation and Visibility can be controlled from the Apps Tab of Device Settings 

Accessing Installed Applications on Device 
Once deployed applications are installed on the device, users can access them on a device in numerous ways. Applications assigned to play on the device (deployed using drag-and-drop) will play as locked-down content. Users can access background applications from app bundles and previously installed applications from the device's “app drawer” by unlocking the Control Panel. Users can open the Control Panel by pressing the Home and Power buttons together and entering the Control Panel password.  The following section describes the user experience in accessing these applications across various generations of Elo Android hardware. 

Elo Generation  2.0/3.0 Devices (e.g., I-Series 2.0 with Android 7.1.2)
Two types of app drawers are available on Gen 2.0 and 3.0 devices to access installed applications:

1. Elo Stock App drawer , which has Elo Installed or Stock Apps. By default, all applications are visible on the device. You can modify the visibility of any app(s) in the device by selecting the appropriate visibility option in the edit mode of the Apps tab as described in the prior section.   Users can launch the Stock Apps drawer by unlocking the Control panel and clicking the Apps Tab.


Stock Apps drawer 

2. User App drawer, which has Device installed or User Installed Apps. Users can launch the user app drawer by pressing the home button, which brings up a user apps drawer with applications. Keep in mind that HOME button needs to be enabled for this to work.  This is appropriate in use cases where device access is limited to trained employees.  For unattended, customer facing use cases, Elo recommends that the HOME button is locked.  EloView cloud portal allows showing Elo Stock Apps as part of this drawer by configuring the “Stock Apps” options under device side settings. With Stock Apps on the EloView cloud portal disabled, user app drawer will show only user applications. With Stock Apps  on the EloView cloud portal enabled, device will show the User and Elo Stock Applications on the user app drawer with multiple swipe screens.


User apps drawer 

Elo Gen 4.0 Android Devices (e.g., I-Series 4 with Android 10)
Starting with the launch of Elo’s 4th generation Android devices, Elo introduced the EloHome application (APK) which enabled users to run devices in a “Single App Mode” or “Multi-App Mode.” 

• Single App mode allows Elo devices to function in a kiosk/locked down mode with a primary application and restrict users from launching other applications.
• Multi-App mode was implemented to support cases where customers wanted to mimic a more traditional Android experience, similar to a consumer smartphone, but while limiting the applications that are shown to the user. 

Customers can drag and drop applications from the content library of the EloView cloud portal to be played on devices. Multi-App mode allows Elo devices to access and launch multiple applications to complete single or multiple use cases. Note that the drag and Drop feature is disabled in Multi-App Mode. Users can turn off Multi-App mode by configuring the "Multi-App Mode" under device side settings, which is an available setting in Filter, Group, and Account levels. Multi-App mode is turned on by default on all Elo handheld devices (e.g,, M50 and M60) and turned off by default in all fixed devices (I-Series, PayPoint and Backpack). 


Switching between Single and Multi App Mode 

The Behavior of App Bundles
App Bundles generally behave the same way on 2.0/3.0, and 4.0 devices, but the capability of different device modes in 4.0 devices have added some changes in how we can utilize App Bundles. 

Elo Gen 2.0/3.0 Devices (e.g., I-Series 2.0 with Android 7.1.2)
Once a bundle is deployed from the EloView cloud portal, all the applications in that bundle get downloaded and installed on the device, and the primary app will play in the foreground. Enabling the Android navigation bar under the device settings places a navigation bar (including Back and Home buttons) at the bottom of the screen. Pressing the “Home” button brings up the app drawer, allowing for quick navigation between applications. After 1 minute of inactivity, the system will automatically play the default application. This can be achieved using the physical home button on the back of the device as well.

Elo Gen 4.0 Devices (e.g., I-Series 4 with Android 10)
The App Bundle feature is only supported on Single App mode and not on Multi-App mode.
In comparison to 2.0/3.0 devices, installed applications (Elo Stock, User Applications) can only be accessed from only the app drawer available in the Control Panel. “Stock App” feature under device side settings allow the user to add Elo Installed Apps (Stock Apps) as part of the app drawer. However, the EloView cloud portal gives granular access to show or hide individual applications on the app drawer. So even if the Stock Apps are enabled, apps must be enabled to show on the app drawer from the Apps Tab. With Stock Apps on the EloView cloud portal disabled, the device will only show User Applications on the app drawer. 



EloView Cloud – Granular access on the app level to make it visible on app drawer 


Elo 4.0 Device – Selected Apps being shows in the app drawer ​
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Known issues and Enhancements  

• The capability to access the app drawer by pressing the home button was broken on Elo Android 10 OS. Therefore, the primary application would relaunch after a flash of the control panel screen popped up with every press of the home button. This behavior has been fixed as part of the Android 10 MR-16 release allowing the app drawer to launch. 
• Drag and drop of Elo support and web applications onto 4.0 devices in Single App mode installs and launches the applications however applications were not displaying in the app drawer. An upcoming release in Q2 2023 will enable Elo helper apps and web applications to properly display in the app drawer.
• With the release of the EloHome APK on 4.0 devices, a dependency was unintentionally created where users could only enable the Stock Apps feature if the navigation bar was enabled. This has created issues for users with a navigation bar as part of other applications like web apps. This dependency will be removed as part of an upcoming Android and EloView release available in Q1 2023. 

Supplementary Documents
You can find user guides and detailed steps for any of the EloView features on the Elo Global Support website - https://elosupport.elotouch.com/hc/en-us