RedisConf17 - Smartwaiver - Using Redis for Kiosk Registration Command and Control
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Smartwaiver uses Redis for kiosk registration and command/control features in their digital waiver application. Kiosks register with Redis to link to user accounts. Commands stored in Redis, like prepopulating waivers, allow remote control of kiosks. Over 2000 of Smartwaiver's 4000 kiosks have updated to use Redis for registration and responding to commands, improving the waiver signing process.
RedisConf17 - Smartwaiver - Using Redis for Kiosk Registration Command and Control
- 1. Using Redis for Kiosk Registration Command and Control Ted Knudsen - CTO Smartwaiver
- 2. Smartwaiver - Online Digital Waivers • Founded in April 2012 • Over 20+ million digital waivers created • Corporate Headquarters in Bend OR (in Old Mill District) • Customers all over the world but majority are US based. • Saturday is always the busiest day of the week for waivers.
- 3. Background • Started at Autodesk in 1993 with SAP Enterprise software • Tealeaf Technology (online user experience) from 2000-2010 • Message Bus (email service) - Cofounder 2010 - 2015 • Smartwaiver (digital waivers) - Dec 2015 • Hobbies: Trail running and climbing • Favorite Brewery - Crux
- 4. My Redis History • My first NoSQL experience started in Dec 2010 with Redis 2.0 • I have used every major release of Redis over the past 7 years in a production environment • With Message Bus, Redis was a critical component in the infrastructure used to send billions of emails • Current Production version: 3.2.6 with Redis Enterprise self hosted at AWS
- 5. Smartwaiver Stack Cloud – AWS DB – MySQL on RDS Caching – Redis Enterprise Queues – Simple Queue Service (SQS) Storage – S3 Deployment – Ansible Languages – PHP (5.6) and Python (Ansible)
- 6. Waivers at Kiosks Smartwaiver provides to customers an app (iOS or Android) to create a kiosk for signing waivers. In most cases, the kiosk is an Apple iPad locked in a case and the users are directed to sign the waiver before participating in an event. We currently have over 4000 active kiosks creating waivers.
- 7. Kiosk 2.0 – Command and Control Goals for Kiosk 2.0 • Auto registration • Ability to prepopulate a waiver with a participant’s information from a remote source We’ll take a look at how we solved these problems with Redis.
- 8. Kiosk 2.0 – Hack Day I knew I wanted to have Redis at the heart of the communications between the kiosks and the control center. But I wasn’t sure exactly how to do it and decided to dedicate a day to explore the possibilities. It was a productive Hack Day!
- 9. Kiosk 2.0 – Kiosk Registration The registration process was loosely modeled after the process some SmartTV’s use to link a service to the device. • The kiosk makes the registration call to the API (/kiosks/xyz-123/register) • This creates a key which is the registration code and the unique ID of the device • Entering the registration code in the kiosk manager on the website then links the device to the account in the database.
- 10. Kiosk Registration This is the high level view of how the kiosk registration works. Kiosk 1 Kiosk Manager Enters: 453212 /kiosks/xyz-1234/register KEY: 453212 VALUE: xyz-1234 Expires: 300
- 11. Kiosk Registration After starting the application on the iPad the user is prompted with the following screen. They then press on the “I Have a Smartwaiver Account” button to create a registration code.
- 12. Kiosk Registration The registration code is presented to the user which is used in the kiosk manager screen to link the kiosk to the account. In Redis – the registration code is the key and has a 5 minute expiration This simple solution requires no backend “cleanup” for missed registrations. And another added benefit is the kiosk never requires any data input.
- 13. Kiosk Registration In the kiosk manager, the user enters the registration code. In the backend, the API checks for the key with the registration code in Redis and if found it then links the device to the account in the database with the device ID.
- 14. Kiosk 2.0 – Kiosk “Commands” in Redis The second goal was to create a way to send commands to a kiosk to control its behavior. • Each kiosk checks on a timer for a “command”. • A “command” is just a hash key with an expiration of 5 minutes. The key is the device ID of the kiosk. • The hash contains the action and JSON data payload.
- 15. Kiosk 2.0 – Pre-Populating a Waiver The first command we have implemented is to pre-populate a waiver with participant information. Pre-populating a waiver with a participant’s information speeds up the process of completing a waiver. Making the process as easy as possible is a goal for Smartwaiver.
- 16. Kiosk Control This is the high level view of how the kiosks communicate back to Redis for a command. Load Balancer – ELB API Server – EC2 Instance Redis Enterprise Kiosk 1 Action: autofill Payload: JSON Kiosk 2 Kiosk 3 Kiosks check for a command Load Balancer API Server
- 17. Kiosk Control To make it easy to send participant information to a kiosk we created a Chrome Extension that can be used to enter the information from just about any source (online CRM, registration form, etc) with some simple copy/paste operations.
- 18. Kiosk Control The extension shows which kiosk is available for receiving a command. Kiosk availability is determined via data from Redis. Each kiosk updates its status (when online) via the API on a regular basis.
- 19. Kiosk Control After confirming the data the information is stored in Redis as a command with the data from the participant. The kiosk from Step 3 will read the command and start the waiver process for that participant.
- 20. Demo with a Kiosk
- 21. Smartwaiver and Redis Of the 4000 active Kiosks, over 2000 have now updated to the new version 2.0 We will be releasing the Chrome extension in June and we will see what the adoption rate is over the summer (which is the busiest time of the year for us). I always use Redis in my development tool kit and while there are always many ways to solve a problem I have found that using Redis is usually the cleanest and easiest.
- 22. Thanks! Contact us: Smartwaiver 626 NW Arizona Ave Ste #2 Bend, OR 97702 ted@smartwaiver.com www.smartwaiver.com