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My Devices in Device Manager

Add and configure your devices in your tenant.

Serena Santamaria avatar
Written by Serena Santamaria
Updated over a week ago

Table of Contents

Introduction

My Devices is the first option on the left side menu in Device Manager. Here you can add, modify or delete devices; start and pause them; and run specific functions for them. You can also check the list of activities performed by a specific device and take action on them. Keep reading to learn how. 😉
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The My Devices screen is divided into three sections:

  • My Devices

  • Additional Info

  • Activity
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My Devices

In the My Devices section you can create new devices, which will be displayed as cards. You'll be able to see all the existing devices in your tenant (the devices for all your companies) and take limited actions for them.

You can also group your device cards by Work Zone, or Location, which is how they'll be shown on the page.

The Device Card Functions 🎛️

Each device card has three buttons to perform a short list of actions:

Play (shown when the device is paused)

If people punched in and out from the device while it was paused, then when you click on the Play button you'll be informed that there are pending activities that have not been processed yet. You will be asked if you want to either process those pending activities or discard them. Click Yes or No to proceed accordingly.

Pause (shown when the device is in play mode)

If the device is paused, people will still be able to clock in or out through the device itself, however the activities won't be processed by Indigo right away. In other words, Indigo Attendance won't search for or display pending activities like clockings while the device is paused.

🗒️ Note: This ☝️ does not mean that clockings are lost if punches are performed. They are simply stored within the physical device, waiting to be synchronised with Indigo when the device is set again in play mode.

Modify

You can modify the device by clicking on the pencil icon to access the Edit Device window.
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Here you can:

  • Rename your device.

  • Change its Location (according to those created in Indigo).

  • Set an interval of days when the device will automatically reboot (e.g. if your device screen risks overheating if it's turned on for too long, so every 4 days the device will reboot to prevent this from happening).

  • Set the device as an 'Access Control Device' using the respective toggle button .

  • Choose a time zone for the device. Note: this option is locked as soon as any clockings are recorded.

    • ⚠️ Make sure the corresponding physical device is also set to the same time zone. Incorrect device settings may result in inaccurate clockings.

When you're ready, click on Update.

Delete

This button lets you fully delete the device from Device Manager, along with the related activities and data depending on the status of the activity. Learn more about activities 👉 here.
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⚠️ Be careful 👀
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​Part 1: Activities are displayed as lines and you can consider them as 'virtual containers' for your data ('content'). In Device Manager, 'content' (data) is always linked to a 'container' (activity).
Note that the Activities ('container') can be in different statuses ('Pending', 'In Progress', 'Failed' and 'Success') at the device deletion.
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​Part 2: When deleting a device, we usually delete the 'container' (activity) and its 'content' (data), but this depends on the activity's Status.

  • For 'Pending', 'Fail' and 'In Progress' Statuses: both the 'container' (activity) and the 'content' (data) are deleted when deleting the device.

  • For 'Success' Status: only the container (activity) is deleted, the 'content' (data) is preserved in Indigo.

This happens because when an activity is in 'Success' status, it means that the data has been processed and stored in Indigo already.
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​Example: If you have punches (your data), they will remain available in the system if the related activity lines for those punches are in 'Success' status. Thus, the activity ('container') lines will be deleted, but the data ('content') will remain available in the system (e.g. Indigo Attendance module). The same applies to biometrics.
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💡 Tip

Activate Enable Access Control Device toggle for an existing device or when creating a new one in My Devices, if you want the device to purely track who accessed your facility and when. ⚠️ This means that punches won't be recorded nor available for attendance purposes.
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For an overview of access events, you can run the Device Access Control Audit report. Learn more about it👉 here.

The Device Card Look 👗

A miniature image of the device, along with its model (e.g. SpeedFace V4L), is visible on the left top part of the card.


On the bottom part, you can see how long the device has been 'Online' or 'Offline' (un/plugged 🔌 and dis/connected to the network 📶 ) for, and whether this is a 'Clocking' device or an 'Access Control Device'.

🗒️ Note: When the device is in pause mode, the whole card is greyed out along with its buttons. On the other hand, if it's set to play mode, the card will be displayed in colour (see images above).

'Add a new Device' Button

If you click on this blue button on the bottom right corner of the My Devices section, a new page will open. Here you will be able to follow a three-step procedure to create a new device.

Step 1: Select Device

In this page, you need to name your device, specify its Serial Number, add a Description (something to help you identify the device, e.g. South Entrance), and a Location. Then select the 'Device Type' among the miniatures shown in the respective section (e.g. SpeedFace V4L or V5L etc).
Further down the page, there are two toggle buttons:

  • The first is to decide whether to enable the device upon creation or not;

  • The second is set the device as an Access Control only device.

⚠️ Important: The device won't be able to communicate with Indigo if you do not accurately insert its Serial Number.

When you're ready, click on Next.

ℹ️ Info 1: If you don't see your device in the list, please contact the support.
ℹ️ Info 2: If the 'Enable Access Control Device' mode is on, the device will no longer be considered for attendance purposes.

Step 2: Link Device

Here you can decide whether to link your device to a Work Zone or not, by clicking on the cards displayed. Click on Next.

🤔 Remember
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Work Zones have to be created prior to the device creation.
Each Device can only be linked to a single Work Zone.


Step 3: Device Selected

A summary of the previous steps is shown in this page. If everything looks right to you, go ahead and click on Submit. You can return to the previous step by clicking on the Back button.

💡 Tip
If you realise you didn't select the proper Work Zone, you can modify it in the Work Zones page under the 'Linked Devices' tab.

Additional Info​

If you click once on a device in the My Devices section, a summary of its details will show in the Additional Info section right below.
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You will see the following information:

  • Serial Number (inserted at the device creation)

  • IP Address

  • Status (Active: the device is in play mode; Inactive: the device is in pause mode)

  • Linked Work Zone

  • Location

  • Last Poll (the last time the device collected, sent and received data as a result of being plugged in and connected to the network)

  • Supported Biometrics (the palm, badge, face, fingerprint, password and BioPhoto icons will be green if supported by the device)

  • Supported Biometrics' Version: if device A and device B support the same biometrics, I can share biometrics data between the two. However, if the Version of the biometrics do not match in both devices, the bio data will result as successfully shared, but won't work when attempting to access it.
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🧠 Pro-tips

  • If there are three devices under the same Work Zone, and all of them support the same biometric types, then when you record biometrics in one device, the others will also record them as the devices are synchronised. This is the only such scenario.

  • The BioPhoto biometric is only supported by the Speedface V3L, V4L, V5L and Pro Face X devices. It's a snapshot of a user's face which is automatically converted to the version of the device it is sent to.

    Both the BioPhoto and Face biometrics are recorded when scanning your face on Speedface V3L, V4L, V5L and Pro Face X.

    When sending biometrics between each other (e.g. when you assign an employee to multiple Work Zones), these devices will prioritise the BioPhoto biometric over the BioData one, despite both being recorded.

    ⚠️ We strongly advise against deleting the Face biometric from Device Manager unless the user is leaving the company. This is particularly important if your tenant includes not only the Speedface (V3L, V4L, V5L) and Pro Face X devices, but also older devices or models that don't support the BioPhoto biometric.

    By retaining the BioData, you ensure that face-related biometrics remain available on all devices, including those that do not support BioPhoto.

Functions dropdown

On the top right corner of the Additional Information section, you'll find the Functions dropdown menu. This is a list of commands we can send to the device. For every command sent, an activity line is created.

🤔 Remember


Whenever triggering an action from this menu, an activity line will be created in the Activity section right below the Additional Info.

Reboot Device

This sends a command to the device to restart itself. When you click once on a device card in My Devices, then click on Reboot Device, the reboot will be triggered and an 'Outgoing Reboot Device' activity line is created in the Activity section.
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Send Data

This action allows you to select the users to be sent to the device. You can filter the users by biometrics (e.g. Face) as long as they are under the same Work Zone as the device one.

You can scroll through the list of users, filter the columns, or look for specific users via the search box. Tick the needed users and click on Send.
An 'Outgoing User' activity line for this action will be created in the Activity section.


The user is officially in the device when the status changes to 'Successful'.

💡 Tip: This option might be useful if the previously recorded biometrics get corrupted and don't work properly on the device, and you want to push them again to perform a hard refresh.

Import Users

In this case, we want the device to import the filtered users' biometrics to Indigo. You can tick the users you want to import from the list, look for them in the search box, or you can toggle on the Retrieve all user data button. The grid will disappear from the window and when clicking Next, all the users will be sent to the device, along with all their biometrics.


After clicking Next, another window will appear, allowing you to type and insert ➕ the device user ID of those users who are on the device but are not yet recorded in Device Manager. Click Next and then Send to confirm your selection and send the data.

In the Activity section, two Outgoing activity line types will be created: one that reflects the User Info retrieve request, and another for the BioData (if palm, face, password and fingerprint are available for that user, then four BioData lines will be created).
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Once the above activities change from 'Pending' to 'Success' status, then two Incoming activity line types will be created: one for User and one for Biometric.
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Get Device Info

This command asks the device to send its updated info, such as Serial Number, IP address, Supported Biometrics, Biometric Versions, and so on.
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The activity line created for this action would be a { } Command one (see below).
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You can check the device's response to the command by clicking on the ℹ️ button.

Import Clockings

Sometimes the device is still working but there may be a problem with the network, which stops the device from sending the clockings for the day to Indigo. Once the network is restored, you can ask the device to import either all the clockings available in the device, or all the missing clockings for a specific date range and time frame.

  • All the clockings available in the device: in the Import Clockings from Device window, leave all fields empty and click on Get Clockings.

  • All the missing clockings for a specific date range and time frame: So, let's say that you had a full day network issue on day 'x'. Clockings haven't been extracted by the device nor sent to Indigo. To push those missing clockings into Indigo, insert the Start Date, End Date, Start Time (00:00), and End Time (23:59) to cover the full day, then click on Get Clockings.


    When you're ready, 2 activity lines are created in the Activity grid:
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    One Outgoing {}Command: a request to the device to provide the clockings.
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    One Incoming Clocking: the device answers by pushing clockings to Indigo.
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You can confirm which users' clockings have been imported by clicking on the Info button ℹ️ and reading through the 'Request Body'.

🧠 Pro-tip

This is a part of the Request Body ℹ️ for the 'Clocking' activity above, showing the first four elements that are the most useful information for you.

  • 1 = User's ID in the device

  • 2024-03-27 = Date when the activity was generated

  • 09:08:48 = Time when the activity was generated

  • 255 = Punch State ID, the number you set (for Clock-In or Out; Break-In or Out) in Device Manager Settings for your company or Work Zone

Clear Data (this clears all the users, biometrics, and clockings from the device)
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🗒️ Note

  • 'Update Device Wallpaper' and 'Update Device Screensavers' are visible only for the SpeedFace V4L, V5L and Pro Face X devices. Learn more on how to use these settings here.

  • 'Send BG Verify Command' is visible only for SpeedFace V4L, V5L and Pro Face X devices. This is because in order to clock in and out from such devices, an option needs to be selected. If the option is missing, you can set it to show again by clicking on this function in Device Manager.

Activity

In the Activity section, you can see the list of activities processed by the device. If, for example, we send data to the device via the Send Data function, a line will appear in the grid.
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There are seven columns in the grid that will help you identify several aspects of the activities:

Activity Code (an automatically generated ID for that specific activity)
​Created On (the date and time when the activity has been created)

Type

As mentioned previously under 'Functions' in the Additional Info section, whenever an action is taken from Device Manager, an Activity line is generated. Below are all the available Activity Types.

  • Update Device Wallpaper (when updating the wallpaper in Speedface V4L)

  • Delete Biometric (when biometrics are deleted)

  • Clocking (for imported clockings in Indigo)

  • Delete User (when we delete a device user from Device Manager)

  • Command (when making a request to the device)

  • Get User Info (when asking for the device info)

  • Get Bio Data (when requesting for biometrics to the device)

  • Reboot Device (when asking the device to restart)

  • User (for imported device users in Device Manager)

  • Biometric (for imported biometrics in Indigo)

  • Clear Data (when clearing data from the device)

  • BioPhoto (when sending the BioPhoto to the device)

Direction

  • Outgoing: activity coming from Indigo and going to the device.

    For example, someone recorded biometrics on a device and these were stored in Indigo. If you push those biometrics to another device, an Outgoing activity will be generated.
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  • Incoming: activity coming from the device and going to Indigo.

    When you record biometrics in a device and they are processed to be recorded in Indigo, an Incoming activity is generated.
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Status

When an activity is launched, it goes through different statuses:

  • ⌛Pending: the activity is waiting for the device to process it. In other words, the activity is not yet visible in Indigo (outgoing) or in the device (incoming).

  • ⚗️In Progress: the device has taken the activity and it's currently being processed.

  • ✅Success: the activity has been processed successfully.

  • ⚠️Fail: something happened during the process. A small description of what went wrong will show under the 'Reason' column.
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🗒️ Note: The activities in 'Success' status are automatically deleted after 30 days for storage purposes.

Reason (it displays a short error summary if an activity fails)

Action buttons

  • Information ℹ️ : shows the 'Request Body' that was sent to the device. In other words it displays the 'language code' used by the device to process the activity. Along with it, a summary of the activity details are displayed on the left the the window.
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  • Error❗: this shows as red if there is an error message and it becomes clickable, otherwise it shows as greyed out.
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    When you click on this button, a window pops up providing further details about the error that cannot be displayed in the Reason column.
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🧠 Pro-tip


When you click on the Error button, you can check the specific details of the error code along with the error message. This will help both technicians and users learn more about what went wrong.
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For example, if the error '-30' is displayed, it means that the Biometric is not compatible with the device, so you might want to check this aspect and import the proper biometrics according to the device type.

  • Reprocess activity button 🔄
    Why does an activity eventually need to be reprocessed? If, for example, an employee is not set as an Attendance employee, when the person clocks in then the activity will fail. At this point you would have to set the employee as an Attendance one, go to the activity and reprocess the same clocking activity.

  • Delete Activity button 🗑️
    You might want to delete an activity if you realise that you triggered the wrong command while it's still Pending, so it has not been pushed to Indigo or the device yet. At this point, delete the activity and trigger a new one with the needed corrections.

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