1        Overview

CareAR provides an augmented reality support platform that provides remote visual assistance, guidance, and compliance for service management teams.

This version of CareAR Assist (21.06) provides multi-party support and streamlines the user experience.  Carear Assist 21.06 is not backwards compatible with earlier versions of the app.

This document is intended to enable end users and admin users better understand the functionality provided by the CareAR Assist applications and portal.

 

2        CareAR Assist App

2.1      Minimum Requirements

CareAR is available for mobile phones, tablets, and desktop.

Minimum Requirements are:

• Mobile:
  • iOS 12.0 or later
  • Android 10.0 or later
• Desktop:
  • macOS 10.8 or later
  • Windows 10 or later

2.2      Download/Install

Use the following links to download and install the CareAR Assist application:

• CareAR Portal
  • Link: https://carear.app/#/download
• Mobile App from iOS App Store and Android Play Store
  • iOS: https://apps.apple.com/mn/app/carear-connect/id1468965844
  • Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.CareAR.connect&hl=en_US

2.3      New Users

News users can be either created manually by the tenant admin from the CareAR Portal or automatically using Single Sign On (SSO) based on successful authentication using your company’s SAML Identity Provider.

2.3.1       User Manually Created by Tenant Admin

The following flow is used to create a new user manually in the CareAR Platform:

1. The tenant admin creates a new user account from the CareAR Portal
2. The new user receives a verification email to activate the account
3. In the email, the new user clicks on “Activate Account” button and sets personal password
4. Mobile users are pointed to the iOS or Android app stores to download and install the app, if not already installed
5. Desktop users are pointed to a the CareAR download page to download the application and install using the desktop installer, if not already installed
6. Once installed, the user logs in to the CareAR Assist app using email and password

2.3.2       User Automatically Created during Single Sign On (SSO) using SAML

If your company is using SSO, take the following steps:

1. The user goes to the CareAR app download page or the iOS and Android App Store to download and install the CareAR Assist app
2. User clicks on SSO button to use Single Sign On method of auto-provisioning and authentication
3. User clicks the Company Code provided by Company Admin
4. User is re-directed to the Company’s Identity Provider webpage to login
5. Upon successful authentication, the user account is automatically created in the CareAR Portal. From here, the user can click on Login to CareAR Assist

2.4      Login

• Authentication
  • CareAR Platform Authentication
  • Single Sign On / SAML Authentication
• Forgot password
  • A user who has forgotten their password can click on the ‘Forgot password’ link on the Login screen and they will be redirected to a screen where they can reset their password
  • Note: This is feature is only applicable for users whose authentication details are saved in the CareAR Portal. Users that use SSO/SAML authentication should contact their company admin to reset their credentials.

2.5      Settings

Clicking the Settings icon shows the following options:

2.5.1       Profile

The profile screen allows the user to set:

• Profile picture – The user can ‘Take Photo’ from the device’s front camera, ‘Pick Photo’ from device image gallery/photo roll, or ‘DELETE Photo’ so only the default icon is shown.
• Display Name– The user can edit their display name. This is what is shown on the main screen of the app to all users within the tenant.
• Title/Role– The user can add text information here that is helpful for others to recognize the user’s skills or role. This information is shown to other users below the user’s profile picture in the contact list screen showing all the users provisioned in the same tenant.
• Mobile Phone Number– The user can put their mobile phone number here to allow other users to quickly start a session simply by tapping the SMS icon to the right of the user’s name on the main screen. If this is not filled in, the SMS icon will not appear next to the user’s name on the main screen.

2.5.2       Languages

The Languages option allows the user to change the language used within the application.  The supported languages are:

• English
• French
• Italian
• German
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• Indonesian
• Japanese
• Malay
• Chinese(Mandarin)

2.5.3       Help and feedback

The following is a brief description of the options available in the help and feedback directory.

• Help: This option provides a link to our help website help.carear.com for assistance and guidance to various carear related topics.
• Report an Issue - This option provides a link to our support site outlining how to report an issue and get into contact with the CareAR Support Team.
• Test Connection – This option provides a quick network test to determine the health of the network used for your CareAR Session.
• Go To Web Portal – This option provides a link to the CareAR User Web Portal discussed in a later section.

2.5.4    About

This option opens a screen that shows the version of the app and provides links to

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy

2.5.5       Sign Out

The Sign Out button logs the user out of the application. Unless the user performs this action, the user’s credentials persist, eliminating the need to log in every time the app is launched.

2.6      Contact List Screen

The Contact List Screen provides the following functionality:

• Search Contacts

User can search the entire contact list of the tenant users using text that is part of other users’ display name or description field.

• Contact List

List of all the users that are part of that Tenant. Each user is represented using:

• Profile picture
• Full Name
• Primary Phone Number
• Secondary Phone Number
• Email

2.7      Starting a Session

A user can start a session by tapping the START SESSION button on the contact list screen, this will automatically send an invitation to the contact selected.

2.7.1       Inviting a Guest

To invite a guest, the user simply inputs the guest’s mobile number or the guest’s email address and tap INVITE. In this scenario, the host invites the guest.

Note: the guest’s mobile number must be of the form, “+” , plus country code, plus subscriber number. For example, +12145551212 would be an example of a U.S. number (country code equals “1”) with a subscriber number of “2145551212” . Do not use hyphens, spaces, parentheses, or other symbols in the mobile number.

After tapping INVITE, the invitation is sent, and the session is automatically started.

When the invited guest joins the session, the user will be alerted that the guest has joined.

2.7.2       Inviting Multiple Guests

With release 21.06 of CareAR Assist, we support multi-party sessions. This feature allows the host to invite additional guests to collaborate in a remote solve session. After establishing the session, the host can add additional users by tapping/clicking the Add Participant icon in the lower left screen(). From there, the host can either invite via SMS or email (as described in 2.7.1) or use the four digit session code found on the bottom right corner of the screen, by inputting that Case sensitive code into the prescribed area of

Participant controls are provided to the host to manage the session and to assign collaboration roles using the pencil icon ()  Viewer roles do not have the ability to share their screens.

2.7.3       Responding to an Invitation

When someone receives an invitation to a session via SMS, email, or as seen below, via another means, there will be a link presented in the invitation. The invited party is met with a landing page, provided that the options are enabled within the admin tenant options the invited party may choose between join via app, join via browser, or join via Google Glass.

If the guest does not have the CareAR Assist app installed, upon pressing join by app the guest’s default browser will redirect them to the appropriate app store or web page to download the app.

If the guest does have the CareAR Assist app installed, then the app is launched. If the guest has a named user account in the tenant (that is, the guest is a registered user), then the app automatically uses the user’s name to join the session. If the guest does not have a named user account, then the guest will be prompted to enter their name before joining the session.

Selecting join by browser will redirect the invited party to a browser based session with limited functionality. Similarly join via Glass will do the same.

Upon successful joining of a session, the app notifies all other users already in the session that the guest has joined. Note that the participant icon (lower left) indicates a badge counter of all participants currently in the session.

2.7.4       Starting a Solo Session

A solo or standalone session is useful when the user is in an area with no network connection, poor network connection, or simply to create an annotated image. In the solo session, all the annotation tools are available, and the user can use those to anchor annotations and take snapshots that are synchronized with the backend as the client is connected back to the network.

To start a standalone session, tap the new session button(), scroll to the bottom of the page, and tap ”START WITHOUT PARTICIPANTS.”

Note that in this mode, the user can convert the session from solo to 1-1 or to multi-party by inviting other users to join the session. The host can do this via SMS, email or join by code.

2.8      Offline Session

Clicking the START Session button in the Contact List Screen presents a popup that allows the user to go into offline session where she is the only user taking part in that session. This is useful when the user is in an area with no network connection or poor network connection. In the offline session, all the annotation tools are available, and the user can use those to anchor annotations and take snapshots that are synchronized with the backend as the client is connected back to the network.

2.9      Remote Session

Once the host and guest are in the session, they experience ‘See What I See’ where both users have two-way audio and one-way live video from the guest to host to establish visual context. Both users can mute/un-mute their microphone at any time.

2.10   Annotation Tools

2.10.1    Tool Menu

• Clicking or tapping the Tool Menuicon raises or lowers the tools menu.  Additional tool options such as color, thickness or direction can be accessed by hovering mouse over the tool of interest.

2.10.2    Sharing Local Content

• Short press of the Sharing Local Content icon allows the user to load an image from their local photos in the session for all parties to view. From here, the users can annotate on top of the shared image
• Long press of the icon (press Icon for more than 3 seconds), expands the icon to show both the icons. Clicking the Display sharing Icon, allows the Desktop user to share his entire Desktop Display. This is useful when the user wants to share a document or browser content from his desktop.

2.10.3    Flashlight Toggle (iOS only)

• The Flashlight Toggle allows either party to turn the flashlight of an iOS client on or off.

Note: Android clients currently do not support this feature due to limitations of the Android Platform.

2.10.4   Undo

• Tapping/clicking the Undo icon undoes the last annotation action that was done with drawing, arrow, highlight or text box annotation tools. Each successive tap/click of the Undo icon undoes the previous action.

2.10.5    Erase

• Short press of the Erase icon transitions from disabled state to enabled state. In enabled state, when the user then taps or selects any of the displayed drawing, arrow, highlight or text box annotations, the selected annotations will be erased.
• Long press of the Erase icon, (press Icon for more than 3 seconds) shows a pop-up window giving the option to the user to erase all the annotations done by that user. Note, this does not erase the annotations done by other users in that session.

2.10.6    Text Box

• Selecting the Text Box icon allows the user to anchor a text box on the frozen view or on any real-world 3D object with customized text inside the text box.

2.10.7    Highlight

 

• Selecting the Highlight icon allows the user to anchor a pulsating sphere on the frozen view or on any real-world 3D object.

2.10.8    Arrow

• Short press of the Arrow icon transitions from disabled state to enabled state. This annotation allows theuser to anchor an arrow on the frozen view or on any real-world 3D object.
• Long press of the Arrow icon (press Icon for more than 3 seconds) shows the above pop-up window. This annotation allows the user to select the direction of the arrow annotations.

2.10.9    Drawing

 

• Short press of the Drawing icon transitions from disabled state to enabled state. This annotation allows the user to create and anchor a free styled drawing on the frozen view or on any real-world 3D object.
• Long press of the Drawing icon (press Icon for more than 3 seconds) shows a pop-up window. This allows the user to select the color and thickness of the drawing annotations.

2.10.10 Laser Pointer

• Long press will display a red dot on the screen wherever the curser is located. This displays a laser pointer like behavior for a see what I see experience shared through the live stream.

2.10.11 Recording

• Once a session is established between the Host of the CareAR call and the host is ready to begin recording the session the host can enable the recording by tapping on the recording button.
• You will be notified that the recording is started indicated by the recording symbol d isplayed on the top left corner of the screen in red.
• Once the you are satisfied with your recording in order to stop and save the recording. Press the same button you used to initialize the recording.
• After doing so you will be met with a notification informing you that your recording will be sent to your email inbox.
• If any of the mentioned options are unavailable, please contact your administrator for assistance.

Note. Only the host of the session can start the recording.  Web sessions and Smart Glasses Sessions will not have recording available.

 

2.11  Session Control

2.11.1    Freeze Mode

• Selecting the Freezemode icon can be done by any user in the session. It freezes the camera view and shows this view to all participants in the session.
• Annotations done during the live view are retained as part of the screen freeze and
• Annotations can be done by either of the users on top of the frozen view
• Annotations made in the frozen view do not persist when transitioning back to Live view.
• Clicking the “Live” button exits the “Freeze mode” and takes both the user back to live view

2.11.2    Snapshot

• Selecting the Snapshot icon takes a snapshot of the current view including all the annotations and saves it to the following three places:
  • The device’s photo gallery/photo roll under the “CareAR” folder;
  • CareAR portal under that specific session record; and
  • If the call was originated from a ServiceNow ticket, the snapshot is pushed to the Activity feed of that ticket

2.11.3    Mute Microphone

 Microphone Mute Off: In this state, the microphone is active, and the audio path is transmitted into the active session.

 Microphone Mute On: In this state, the microphone is disabled and there is no audio path transmitted into the active session. This is the default setting when joining a session.

2.11.4    Mute Camera

 Camera Mute On: When the first guest first joins the session, they are a collaborator. This is the default state of the guest’s mobile device back camera. The guest will need to “unmute” the camera to begin streamingvideo. Note that at the start of a session, the host’s default state is also for the camera to be muted.

 Camera Mute Off: Clicking the enabled state icon will toggle it to disabled state where the camera will be un-muted.

2.11.5    Disconnect Session

Tapping or clicking the disconnect icon will disconnect the user from a Remote Session with another user. If the user was in a standalone session, this action ends the session.

 

 

Effective date: February 8, 2021

CareAR Assist Version 21.06