How to: Easily lock your workspace with the Windows Lock tile

For the safety of your digital workspace and all data on your devices, it is necessary to lock your screen whenever you are away from your device. But what if you don’t have a task bar to do this, because you’re in Kiosk mode? And what if you find it difficult to remember the keyboard shortcut to lock Windows (Windows-key + L)? In this blog, we explain to you what Kiosk mode is and we share with you how you can easily lock your screen with just one click with the handy Windows Lock function in Workspace 365.

Kiosk mode & employee

A Kiosk (or Front-Line) employee uses IT as an extension of their work. Think for instance of care workers, ambulance staff or shop workers. They only use a few applications in their digital workspace for specific tasks, which means that they can work with a completely online workspace and don’t need anything else.

These employees can work in Kiosk mode, which means that when they login, they instantly see Workspace 365 and can only use the applications that are in this digital workspace – nothing outside of it. Because of this, they also don’t have a task bar and in some cases they don’t even use a keyboard, like when they work on a tablet.

Since Workspace 365 is an adaptive workspace, it automatically adjusts itself to someone’s role, location, browser, operating system and location. This way, they can instantly view their relevant applications and information and they can immediately start working. People don’t see any unnecessary applications or information and when in Kiosk mode, they can’t deviate from the intended use of the device. This is also beneficial to security and gives administrators high amounts of control.

Activating Windows Lock in Workspace 365

It’s useful (and smart) when some users can only see the digital workspace. It is however also wise if these Kiosk employees, especially when they work with sensitive information, can lock their screens whenever they’re not using them, to prevent other people from accessing their data. This can however be tricky without a task bar, when you constantly need to remember a keyboard shortcut or, when working with a tablet, you don’t have a keyboard.

You can try to teach people to lock their screens by, as in many offices, play a joke on people who don’t lock their screen (for instance change their desktop background or promising the entire department cake per e-mail). You can also just make it really easy for people to lock their screens.

For this reason, administrators can make the Windows Lock tile available within the workspace with one little script. With this tile, both Kiosk employees as other people can lock their screens with just one click. This way, they can easily use a Kiosk environment and keep their data safe when they are not.

Learn how to activate the Windows Lock tile here.

*This tile, as the name indicates, only works with Windows devices. Contact Support to discuss this function in combination with other operating systems.