Request Remote Assistance on a District Chromebook
It is possible for a user of a District Chromebook--student or staff--to request a live remote support session on their device. This is functionally similar to our practice of remote support of Windows machines, if not exactly the same. In a nutshell, all you need to do is to call the Helpdesk at 8878 with the Borough Number of your District Chromebook, and we can begin a live support session with you. (There is also a second way to request a remote support session on a Chromebook, if the device does not have a logged-in user on it. This can be very helpful in certain specific scenarios; the call to Helpdesk is still the first step, and we can usually identify if we need to exercise that second option. :-)
Requirements for a remote support shared session
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It must be a District Chromebook, and not a personal device.
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The Chrome OS version must be at least 96.x. If you need to update your device, see Manually Update Chrome OS on a Chromebook.
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The Chromebook must have an active user session. Unlike with our Windows devices, we cannot have a truly shared session with a Chromebook that does not have a user logged in. (If Helpdesk suggests that you need a private session, see below section on requesting a private session.)
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The requesting user must accept the shared session. We cannot begin a shared session without the user's active acceptance.
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The Chromebook cannot fall asleep during the shared session. The remote session can be cancelled at any time by the user, or by the device falling asleep!
Requesting a remote support shared session
You can think of this process as "I am 'requesting' and then 'accepting' and 'managing' a 'live' remote support session". We (the Helpdesk) may wind up taking over your screen and pointer to help you out, but at all times it is technically you who has final control over the session.
First, call the Helpdesk line at 8878 to begin the process. Be sure to have your Chromebook at hand, and logged in to a user session. With the Borough Number of your Chromebook (e.g., "79-17538"), we will look the device up in Google Admin and initiate a remote session request back to the device. You will see the request as a pop-up Notification. Click the Share link to accept the shared session, and another Notification pops up to indicate it has begun.
During the remote shared session
That "You're sharing your screen" Notification will disappear after a short time, but as long as your shared session is active, you can bring the Notification back up by clicking on the Notifications indicator nugget down in the "system tray" area at the lower right corner of the screen.
That nugget may also show a number which would represent other un-cleared but still active Notifications, but it is that little "I'm recording" circle that tells you that a shared session is currently live. And this is important to you because that Notification is how you stop the session from your end. :-)
Stopping the remote shared session
- You can stop an active remote session at any time by clicking the Stop link in that "You're sharing your screen" Notification.
- A remote session will automatically "time-out" after a period of session inactivity from the support side. On your Chromebook, you will be offered a chance to continue the remote session or close it; if you do not actively extend the session, it will terminate and you'll need to re-start it again to continue.
- On the support side (the Helpdesk side), we can terminate the session by closing the visor we are using for the connection. The little "I'm recording" circle should disappear.
- Logging out, or causing the Chromebook to sleep or turn off, will also terminate the session.
Requesting a remote support private session
On your Helpdesk call, we may determine that we cannot do a shared session, but we may be able to do a private remote session. This is a very different experience from your end because the "private" session is private to the admin requestor, and because it can only happen with the Chromebook at the login screen (not in a user session). Nonetheless, this option can be helpful in some cases in which there is nobody logged in to the Chromebook.
If we do suggest a remote support private session, power on your Chromebook so that it comes up to the login screen:
Helpdesk will initiate the session from this point, and you will know the connection succeeded when the Chromebook screen tells you that an administrator is now controlling the device:
There's really not much you can do during the private session (and this is one reason we always prefer the live shared session when we can get it: in a shared session we can both see what's happening), but again, it may help us to remotely troubleshoot some things that are just not possible with a logged-in user (as one obvious example, think of troubleshooting a testing kiosk app), and you should be aware that it exists.
When the administrator ends the private session, the Chromebook should let you know. Click that Continue to use the device button, and the Chromebook should take you back to where you started: the login screen.
In the event that something goes wrong and the Chromebook doesn't let go, you can power off the Chromebook using the power button. The device should recognize what's happening, and confirm that you can continue to power down the device to end the remote private session.
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