Introducing New Kontakt.io Panel

October 17, 2017

Many of you use the Kontakt.io Panel on a regular basis to check up on or update your infrastructure. In short, it’s like the gateway to your Kontakt.io beacons. It’s irreplaceable. Today, we are releasing the new version of Kontakt.io Panel to make your beacon fleet management more intuitive and easier to navigate.
We listened to Kontakt.io Panel users, we tested in-house even with people who have never used the Panel before--to see what we could do to improve your beacon management experience. Now, we have some changes to share with you.

Introducing: global search bar, sidebar, filters, and more...

  • Immediately see, understand, and sort your beacons based on their battery level through the sorting option from low to high or high to low, the battery indicator icon, and the beacon battery monitoring section to monitor the battery status of your whole beacon fleet. Now you can easily keep track of battery levels and respond promptly when action is needed.
  • Access the section you’re looking for with one click instead of clicking through multiple tabs. No more switching between different sections to find the beacon you want to edit, to change settings, or to view statistics. All these options are now readily available in the sidebar.
  • Leave descriptive notes on your beacons for you and other users. Make it easier to understand each of your beacon’s unique situations and changes.
  • Don’t miss out on any important notifications. Now you can get important alerts like pending configuration or low battery level in the notification top bar tab. Get the most important notifications and always know what the action is needed.
  • Find the beacon, location, or gateway you are looking for within seconds by simply typing its name or part of its ID instead of having to copy and paste the full beacon, location, or Gateway ID into the top search bar. We all know the feeling when you just suddenly can’t find your beacon and don’t have that complete ID data handy. Use the global search bar and find it within seconds.
We also prepared a short video (4:25) to walk you through all the changes in the Kontakt.io Panel.

 

Current users should also be aware that we unified some of our names and titles  to make the management and navigation more intuitive and user friendly.

Updated naming conventions in the Kontakt.io Panel (API resource naming unchanged).

Name in Kontakt.io Panel API resource Description
API key api-key All requests to the Kontakt.io API require an Api-Key header containing your API key.
A user’s API key is unique and gives secure access to user’s Devices and other resources.
“Password” to access devices via API.
Location Venue Location represents  groups of devices that are related to each other. Location allows you to group Devices together, normally representing a physical location.
Beacon/
Gateway/
Device
Device A Device can represent either a Beacon or a Gateway.
Account Owner Owner The person who owns the account, Devices, Locations and all other data in the Kontakt.io Panel account. Account Owner is the only person who handles subscription payments.
Config config Configuration updates physical device attributes in the Kontakt.io Cloud and synchronizes them with user’s physical devices.
Configuration allows you to change information such as the Beacon identifiers (Proximity UUID, Major, Minor, Namespace ID, Instance ID), Transmission Power, Advertising interval, Name, etc.
In contrast to attributes like Item or Notes that are not beacon’s configuration, Configuration created on your Kontakt.io Panel requires syncing with the Kontakt.io Administration App (available for iOS and Android) or SDK to apply it and update your Beacons.
Gateway Receiver A Gateway is a device that gathers data from Bluetooth Low Energy devices within its range. The main purpose of the Gateway is to provide data to the Location Engine. The Gateway constantly:

 

  • scans for BLE devices
  • monitors the BLE devices
  • sends data to the Location Engine
Item Item An item defines the carrier of your beacon to let you quickly filter your beacons. Say you use beacons to track assets and monitor employees. Items help you distinguish the two groups so you can get insights on the data you’re interested in at a given time. Currently, there are three item categories: Person, Package and Other.
ID uniqueid Device (Beacon or Gateway) identifier.
Map schema A map or a schema/image of the physical location, that is used in Kontakt.io Panel. Digital Map for the Location reflects the physical location.
Name (Beacon) Name The Beacon name, used to identify the beacon. Can be changed by the user. By default it’s “Kontakt.io”. Changing the Name is equal to creating a configuration, that has later to be applied. This Name is displayed when a phone scans for beacons for example in the Kontakt.io Administration App.
Notes (Beacon) Alias Notes - a 1024-character field under Beacons’ details, designed for leaving additional information on beacon. Notes are visible to other users to whom beacons have been shared or moved.
Low battery alert warning alert An Alert is sent to the Kontakt.io Panel account owner, once a day, when battery level is below 20%.
Critical battery alert critical alert An Alert is sent to the Kontakt.io account owner, once a day, when battery level is below 10%.
Model (Beacon) Model Visualization of the beacon model (for example Beacon Pro, Beacon, Tough Beacon, Card Beacon).

Name Updates in the Kontakt.io Panel

Previous name Current name Description
Venue (under previous Infrastructure Management tab) Location Location is an area (amount of space) derived from a physical location. It is described by its map/schema and coordinates to determine a beacon’s current location, where you can assign Gateways.
Places (under previous Location Engine tab) Location
Live (Location Engine) Live Map Live Map represents a real-time view of a place where where you deployed your Gateway. Here you can see how many devices are located in range of the Gateway along with their proximity to it.
Edit Place (Location Engine) Edit Map Edit Map is a button under Map Setup in the Locations section of the sidebar. It gives you the option to edit a map you have uploaded.
Receiver Gateway Gateway is a device that gathers data from Bluetooth Low Energy devices within Immediate, Near, or Far range. The main purpose of the Gateway is to provide data to Location Engine.
Cloud Devices Gateways
Alias (Item) Name (Item) Name can help identify any Item you have tagged with a beacon. This can be the name of an employee, a product, or any other asset that needs to be tracked.
Monitoring Beacons Overview Beacons Overview is a separate dashboard where you can view last seen beacons, beacons battery status statistics, beacon firmware and model distribution.
Beacon Health Battery Alert Battery Alert is a new tab under Beacon Details. Here you can set how often the alert should be sent when the battery level goes down and who should receive this alert.
Category: Human Category: Person Category describes the asset being tracked.
Account Settings Account Details Account Details is where you can change your account settings such as creating new password.
Info Notifications Notification option is included in the top bar and it displays the most important alerts for beacons: low battery or pending configuration. The user is  immediately informed if these events occur and can be quickly redirected to Beacon List to take further actions.

Note: The software Gateway option is no longer available neither in Kontakt.io Panel nor in the Administration App.

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