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CareAR App User Guide

  • Updated

1 Overview

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

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

2 CareAR App

2.1 Minimum Requirements

CareAR is available for mobile phones, tablets, and desktop. Eligible device requirements can be found on our System Requirements and Supported Web Browsers page. 

2.2 Download/Install

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

CareAR Portal

2.3 New Users

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 app using email and password

2.3.2 User Automatically Created During Single Sign On (SSO)

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 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

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. The following link may also facilitate a Password reset: https://carear.app/#/user/forgot-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 Home Screen

From the CareAR App Home Screen, users will have the following options available to them:

  • Start Assist Session – See Section 3 Assist Sessions for more details.
  • Explore Instruct Experiences – See Section 4 Instruct Experiences for more details.
  • Contacts – See Section 3.2 for more details.
  • Experiences – See Section 4 Instruct Experiences for more details.
  • History – Detailed history of all your Assist and Instruct Sessions.
  • Create ML Model (Content Creators and Admin Only) – Scan objects for ML Model creation see Using Visual Verification – CareAR Help Center for more details

2.6 Options

Tapping the hamburger Menu on the top left-hand corner of the home screen open a list of available options.

2.6.1 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.
  • Primary 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.
  • Secondary Mobile Phone Number-A secondary phone number for an additional device to be contacted at.

2.6.2 Settings

  • Session Settings
    • Always mute my microphone on start – When enabled, Assist sessions will always start with the microphone muted.
    • Always turn on video on start - When enabled, Assist sessions will always start with video enabled.
    • Enable AR Hints – Enables AR Hints for assisting the transmitting user to calibrate the AR environment detected by the app
  • 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)
  • Clear Cache
    • Removes all locally stored Instruct Experience content.

2.6.3 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 - Allows users to test their connection into the CareAR system. We check both direct and proxy connections and provide guidance to the user if connectivity issues are uncovered.
  • Rate Us – Opens the CareAR Application page in either the App Store or Play store to give the opportunity for users to rate us.

2.6.4 About

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

  • Version Release Notes
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Open Source Software Notices

2.6.5 Send Logs

The CareAR app has provided a Send Logs capability for those rare cases where CareAR (or our partners) need help troubleshooting an issue. The user, if requested to share logs, can do so by tapping the “hamburger menu” settings icon to expose the top level settings menu. From there, simply tap Send logs and the user is prompted through the necessary steps.


2.5.6 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.

3 Assist Sessions

3.1 Overview

CareAR offers AR assisted remote solve capabilities within the CareAR App in the form of Assist sessions.  The following section will aim to cover some of the features available during Assist sessions.

3.2 Contacts 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

Contacts can be sorted into Favorites using the Star next to the Profile Name in the contacts list.   

3.3 Starting A Session

An Assist invitation can be sent to any respective Contact from within the Contacts page by selecting the envelope () to send an email invitation, or the chat bubble () to send an SMS invitation.  

3.3.1 Inviting a Remote Guest

To invite a remote guest, select ‘Start Assist Session’ from the home page.

Input the guest’s mobile number or the guest’s email address and tap INVITE. In this scenario, the host invites the guest.

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.

3.3.2 Inviting Multiple Guests

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 6 Digit character session code found in the bottom right corner of the screen, by inputting that code into the prescribed area.

Alternatively, a link to your session can be copied to your clipboard using the following icon () from the participants list. Anyone provided with the link will be able to join your CareAR session. 

If a guest is joining via smart glass, a QR code can be generated with the following Icon () from the participants list.

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.

3.3.3 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 Smart Glasses.

If the guest does not have the CareAR 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 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.

 

3.3.4 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, ‘Start Assist session’, and then 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.

3.4 Tools

3.4.1 Tool Menu

  • Clicking or tapping the Tool Menu icon 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.
3.4.2 Zoom

  • On desktop selecting the zoom tool will reveal a slider on the bottom of the video stream. To zoom into the video stream, move the slider left to right. Subsequently moving the slider right to left will zoom out.
  • On mobile, one may zoom in to the video stream by un-pinching the screen. Subsequently pinching the screen will zoom out.
3.4.3 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.

3.4.4 Arrow

  • Short press of the Arrow icon transitions from disabled state to enabled state. This annotation allows the user 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.
3.4.5 Highlight

  • Selecting the Highlight icon allows the user to anchor a pulsating sphere on the frozen view or on any real-world 3D object.
3.4.6 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.
  • Long Press of the Undo button will remove all annotations from the live Stream.
3.4.7 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.
3.4.8 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.
3.4.9 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.
3.4.10 AR Measurement

  • Selecting the AR Measurement icon will activate measurement mode (which changes the streaming collaborator's view and presents an indicator on the top of the screen for all other participants)
  • Create a simple measurement by setting start and ending points of the distance measured
  • Connect an additional measurement to an existing measurement to create a compound measurement
  • Set preferred units of measure (inches or centimeters)
  • Take a snapshot of the measurements captured
  • Copy the measurement value of a segment to the clipboard to make it available to paste to an application outside the CareAR app
  • Undo the measurement (or series of measurements that comprise connected segments)

To exit the measurement tool without saving the measurement as an AR Annotation, use the x on the top right corner.  Using the check mark will exit the tool and the AR measurement will be converted to an anchored AR annotation and will be composited (by the streaming participant’s app) into the session to be viewable by all session participants. Exiting measurement mode will trigger removal of the measurement mode indicator on all other participants’ view.

Picture2.png

Should the streaming user wish to make an additional measurement, they can simply re-enter measurement mode and use the measurement tool.

The AR measurement tool is supported in both collaborative mode (two or more users) and solo mode.

For all users in the Assist session who are NOT the streaming collaborator (namely, the host and any additional participants), the AR measurement tool will be greyed out in the Assist tool strip. If one of the non-streaming participants taps the tool button, a popup will be displayed to indicate that the tool is not available to non-streaming participants.

24.01.001-01.png

3.4.11 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, Salesforce Case or an alternative CRM software configured with CareAR, the snapshot is pushed to the Activity feed of that ticket
  • Saved snaps can be found in the Default Save Folder, to find out in app see Settings

 

3.4.12 Share

Picture3.png

Selecting Share offers two options Share Screen and Share Photo:

  • Share Screen – Shares the screen of your mobile device to all participants within the Assist Session.  Participants may annotate on the shared screen using the laser pointer tool for a shared ‘See what I see’ experience.
  • Share Photo – Shares a photo from your photo library to which participants may annotate.

 

Limitations:

  • The screen share capability in an Assist session requires that the host be running version 24.02 of the CareAR application.
  • Note that users who have joined an Assist session using the CareAR Assist for Browser web app will not be able to share their screen. However, the browser-based user can view a shared screen when a host or collaborator has shared from the desktop or CareAR native mobile app.
  • The CareAR screen share feature, by design, does not permit remote control of another user’s screen or device.
  • Users who share an application that includes audio (e.g., streaming a video) will not be able to share the audio into the session.
3.4.13 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
3.4.14 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 displayed on the top left corner of the screen in red.
  • Once you are satisfied with your recording 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 has been saved.
  • If any of the mentioned options are unavailable, please contact your administrator for assistance.

3.5 Session Control

3.5.1 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.

3.5.2 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 streaming video. 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.

3.5.3 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.

4 Instruct Experiences

4.1 Overview

CareAR Instruct is an interactive support mobile application that engages its users with visually immersive instructions and step-by-step guidance for workflows related to a product. CareAR Instruct facilitates knowledge transfer to minimize self-solve errors during troubleshooting.  For more information on CareAR Instruct see: Self-Solve Guided – CareAR.

4.2 Launching an Experience

4.2.1 Launching from the Experiences Tab

Any experience available to the CareAR user within their CareAR Tenant, can be accessed and launched from the experiences tab simply be selecting the desired experience.

4.2.2 Launching from Experience Link

Any experience can be accessed by opening the experiences link.  The CareAR app will open automatically within the desired experience.  The experience will then be saved to the CareAR application Experience listing for future access.

4.2.3 Launching from QR Code

If provided with an Instruct Experience QR code, upon scanning the QR code with the mobile devices stock QR code scanning app, the experience will be launched within the CareAR app.  The experience will then be saved to CareAR application Experience listing for future access.

5 CareAR Scan

To support the CareAR Visual Verification, the CareAR app supports a scan mode. This is used during the machine learning model creation process. Content creators and administrators can use the CareAR app to scan an object for the purposes of generating a data set that can be used to train an ML model.

 

The scan functionality is used during the initial stages of ML model creation. Refer to the documentation on the CareAR help center (https://help.carear.com) for complete instructions to use the Visual Verification feature.

 

5.1 Requirements

In order to use the scan functionality within the CareAR mobile app there are both plan and device requirements.

 

Plan Requirements

Tenants must have one of the following in order to use the visual verification feature.

  • Platform plan
  • AI Services add-on

 

Device Requirements

To use the scan functionality your device must meet the following requirements.

  • iOS 17 or later
  • iPhone 12 Pro, iPad Pro 2021, and later models

NOTE: Android is not supported

 

Effective date: 8/6/2024

CareAR Assist Version 24.02.001

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